FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Last Christmas (Game Jam Version)]

Hey, a pretty nice point-n-click adventure game!

For the most part, I feel like it had all of the right fundamentals: nice, charming art and a big ol' area to explore, chockful of items to pick-up or interact with that provide all sorts of amusing flavor text/dialogue. The game does start a bit slow with both an odd puzzle (why not have the key under the rock to pick up, rather than examining the rock to get the key? does the rock open up? was it taped underneath?) and maybe a bit too many items to pick up, but nevertheless it felt good and I was getting addicted and fired up to solve the list puzzles.

There were some parts that I felt the game were lacking a bit, though:

For one, there were a lot of times where you interact with a container like a cupboard or a bin, and you just have the character tell you that they picked up an item. It felt so unsatisfying and confusing: I would much prefer if you can see the cupboard changed to be opened up and see the actual item within, and then hover over the item and pick it up yourself. You do this for some interactions like getting the soap bottle behind the curtain: dunno why you skimped out for so many others.

Another aspect was a lack of animations and feedback: felt really unsatisfying to, for example, unlock the door but not even see the character put his arm out and use the key or at least play a unlock sound effect. I guess I should be careful what I wish for, though, because while you did animate the character chopping down the tree, the animation was simply dreadful and absolutely nonsensical, haha.

Definitely a pretty decent point-n-click game overall that has a solid foundation: it was just a bit lacking in terms of satisfying touches like animations, sound, and other effects. I suppose I should be forgiving because of the short time frame it was made in, but take it as a compliment that you raised the bar so high that it seemed so lonely without those special flairs!

Polytelygames responds:

Thank you for playing and thank you for your comments, it is very helpful feedback that can help me shape my next game.
Two weeks to create a a game from scratch, isn't a long time, my priority was to have a working game at the end and i succeeded in that goal at the same time being place 3rd in the rankings out of the 97 submitted games.
I would like to revisit this game, with an expanded story(which i have) and new art and animations, but I'm struggling to find anyone who want to work on the project. maybe one day, in the mean time, If i could ask a favour, as Last Christmas has been selected for the "best indie game" and "best game jam game" category in the Game Development World Championship can you please show your support and give us a like on our page and if you would like to share it that would be great to.
https://thegdwc.com/games/last-christmas

Edit - Just wanted to let you know that it is nominated at The Game Development World Championship. If you have a moment to help a new indie game dev out, please follow the link and click the vote button https://thegdwc.com/games/last-christmas

[Leslie & Brianne's Galactic Rampage]

Charming little adventure! Enjoyed the intergalactic romp, platforming through some simple but decent puzzles, punching the heck outta some aliens, and interacting with all manner of stuff. The humor can sometimes get a bit too meme-y and reference-y for me, but most of the time it was delightfully crass. It's not exactly the most difficult game, and it can be a bit janky, but the game did a good job at being creative with its low-fi art and big variety of events and levels to keep me hooked to see what would happen next.

I gotta say though, the controls did get a bit frustrating at times. There were plenty of times where I tried to jump but ended up interacting with something that I thought was far away enough, or the jump bumped into something I thought I was clear of. Later on it does a gag calling this out literally (the pogo supply room), which is funny, but at the end of the day, in the words of Yahtzee: "if you know its bad, why are you doing it!?" Furthermore, I was disappointed that the game didn't have a save/load feature: it ended up being a lot more lengthier than I expected but I had to take a break, and now unfortunately I dunno if I can make it all the way back there a second time: it's a nice game but it's not that nice as it is, at the end of the day, a bit too guided and linear and without challenge to make replaying it fun, haha.

TmsT responds:

Oh man that's disappointing - I really thought this time I put all the flavour text under low ceilings or far from anything that would give you a reason to jump (except for two places where it was supposed to prevent you from accessing something). I didn't know it was bad, Yahtzee! Honest!

[Pumpkin WIng]

Pretty decent little shmup! Definitely quite impressive for a quickly made project: felt like it had a good variety of boss patterns to contend with, and it had a pretty neat aesthetic to the whole thing. Loved how the boss kept amping up and even transitioned into a new star mode: always love a boss as they go into their final-final-final phase, haha!

That said, it did feel a bit shallow and lacking, most likely because of its quick conception. Certain mechanics like the melee were nice but felt very underdeveloped: felt like there were hardly ever any bullets to parry in certain phases, and hitting the boss directly with the melee gave no satisfying feedback. Speaking of feedback, the game felt overall muted, both figurately in that actions didn't really provide any satisfying effects to them, and literally in that there were no sounds which made everything felt incredibly bleh. Also the art was a bit too overall red which made it hard to distinguish certain gameplay signals and elements as they didn't pop but just got lost in the sea of similar colors.

Pretty nice stuff though: would love to see a big shmup from you guys, or just any sort of project, considering you can make something as nice as this so quickly!

[Furcifer's Fungeon]

Wow, this is some really crazy stuff on display for a demo!

Game is absolutely cram-packed with not only so much visual flair in terms of graphics like the game over glass shatter and explosions and so on, but it's also just very bloody charming with things like the host interjecting a lot of flavor commentary and there being a funny risk-reward system where you can increase the difficulty by angering the host through stealing their items! Really gives you whole thing a very professional and well-crafted feel despite it only still being a demo. Gameplay was also solid as well: while it was a bit cramped and slow, both in terms of movement and attack cooldowns, the enemies seemed to be built around that aspect so it all gelled together. Had a great time going for a burn build on my first run and saw so many abilities that I wanted to try on later runs, along with the wands I unlocked: so much potential replayability!

I did have some slight frustrations here and there though. Sometimes there was just so much going on that it was difficult to tell what to focus on: I couldn't even figure out how to start the game since a) I didn't realize the title logo was interactable and b) the dialogue text box kept covering it! Also, as fancy as the health bars that are part of the characters themselves are, they are difficult to parse compared to more common solutions like health bars being above them, leading to confusing feedback on how much damage you're doing and taking. Finally, I was quite frustrated that it seemed like a wand only recharges when it's in your hand: it made everything so slow and I would've much preferred if the game lets wands recharge no matter what, meaning that effective play could involve a lot of cool weapon swapping to alleviate the boring act of waiting on cooldowns. Also I felt like the combo mechanic was a bit confusing and unsure how it worked: seems like you should just always special attack after a regular attack with no downside, and it doesn't work the other way around? Also, the combat did start to get a little monotonous after a while: maybe it could've used some more enemy variety or special events, or have a better sense of boss or story progression as you go (though I imagine that's just because it's still a demo).

Looking forward to seeing how this shapes up: I feel like it's already got a solid foundation that's ripe for tons more content!

PlayWithFurcifer responds:

Let me use this chance to give some constructive criticism back.
I really feel like you should mention that this Feedback is based on 8h livestream where you only play a few minutes while intensely looking for something to criticize. It would give a much needed perspective on the nature of your feedback. I fully believe you have best intentions, but this approach will lead to very biased and surface level criticism and should be marked as such.

Regarding the combo mechanic:
It seems like you understood it within a minute. If you feel like always using special after attack, go for it and see if it works for you. A player typically tries this and finds that the special locks them in place, making the special situational.

If it would also work the other way, you would have no cooldown at all - i don't think we should allow this.

[GRIDHEART]

Wow, this one really surprised me!

I was a little fearful of it at first: the tutorial was decent as it provided a good mix of images/animations along with text, but it was still a lot to take in and I was worried I wouldn't understand this very unique concept. Luckily, I feel like the game helped greatly by providing a lot of intuitive feedback in the game itself, such as the tiles having a good shorthand to represent their properties, the arrow preview for showing where you can move (which let me learn subtle things like being able to loop around the level) and the way elements pop when you interact with them in a way, like the time bar and tiles popping back up when you nab a heart! Really wonderful design on display here that makes something complicated be very intuitive!

With that, I found myself getting absolutely addicted to the game: the concept was really clever and the game's presentation was incredibly charming with such cute graphics and juicy feedback. Loved trying to react to situations and plan ahead with the tiles to keep the combo going: I don't know if I'm good enough yet to get great combo multipliers going using the colors, but I still love just trying to keep a rally going and not lose to time. Really nice stuff overall!

tonyfinale responds:

Thank you for your thoughts!!!!!!!!!! Yeah I'm always worried I never explain things well enough in the tutorials, so I'm REALLY into obsessively trying to jus make all the gameplay interactions and elements and stuffs all elegant and legible on their own like that. Good to know that worked out well enough for this one :)

Thanks for playin~~~

[Just Passing - Chapter 2]

Pretty cool game! I haven't played the first one, unfortunately, but I really love the professional design of this so much that I'm seriously considering it before I proceed with playing this some more! From what I've seen, this seems like a nice little adventure game: walk around the big world, talk with all manners of wacky characters, get to know them from collecting items to solve their problems with, all the while learning bits and pieces of the larger intrigue behind your existence. Tons of crazy little touches in this game, such as the animated text, speech bubble shadows, great graphics and animations: nice stuff!

That being said, there was something about how well-constructed the game was overall that made a lot of little odd things stand-out to me. It's kind of silly: I wouldn't complain about these for other games, but you've raised the bar so high here that I found it wild that you missed them, so sorry for punishing you for being good, haha. For example:

*Was puzzled at how hidden the save/load feature was all the way in the Settings menu: feel like it would be better served to be more accessible on the home screen given its importance. I actually didn't think it was even possible to save/load at first: even though I saw 'Data' in Settings, I easily thought it was just to access a reset/wipe, not save/load.

*Some dialogue was confusing: felt like sometimes it was implying that someone was thinking the lines instead of saying them despite using the same speech balloons no matter what. Would help if maybe the balloons could change shape: spiky ones for yelling, cloudy ones for thinking, etc.

*Was surprised that the footsteps didn't change depending on what surface you're walking on.

*Found it annoying that whenever you go into a phone option, like Settings, and then go back, it puts the cursor back on the default Messages instead of staying on the option you just selected previously.

*Found the transitions into houses and zones kind of annoying. I would prefer if they activate like anything else by popping up an exclamation point and confirming, instead of just walking into them, as sometimes I would walk past a door, not towards a door, and trigger going in despite not wanting to go in. Furthermore, was disappointed at the transition: would've loved a player animation of them going in, or at least a sound effect like a door being opened or fading footsteps.

*There were some odd graphical errors like misplaced tiles, as well as wind effects that look like they are supposed to be in front of a building yet are layered behind it.

*Would prefer if quest notifications only pop-up once the character has fully told you what the quest was: awkward that the notifications come so ahead of the game that it tells the future, haha.

*There's an awkward period after a zone transition where you're frozen solid for a bit too long: just feels really stiff, especially since it looks like everything is already loaded in and it's just waiting for the transition overlay animation to finish.

*Some minor typos, like "a quick peak won't hurt" instead of "a quick peek won't hurt". Those homophones will getcha like that!

I'm sure I could think up a bunch of other little nitpicks, but that's just me going overboard to provide feedback: these and any other aspects I can think up doesn't really hurt the game or anything like that as I still think what you have here is really cool!

JoelLikesPigs responds:

Wow

Lots to think about here - thanks for the feedback, I'll see about adding these as some improvements later down the line

Thanks again- and if you do have anything else feel free to message me directly always happy to get feedback

[RandoBots]

Cute little game! Not a bad concept for some back-and-forth gameplay: there's a little bit of strategy in trying to improvise with whatever terrain is generated and planning your stopping position before transitions. Game is also quite juicy for a game jam game: love the way the music transitions between modes, and I feel like the feedback from shooting is great. That being said, the appeal of the game didn't last that long for me, mostly because the combat felt a bit mindless. For example, when you're in tank mode, there's no reason to not be shooting all the time: feel like it would've been better if say, you turn faster when you're not shooting, so there's a bit of strategy on whether to win through quantity or quality, you know, stop shooting for a moment so you can turn faster to aim more accurately.

[Impact-Effect]

Decent little arcade game! The whole aspect of switching between defensive and offensive modes like Pacman was a fun pattern, and the game did a pretty good job at keeping things interesting with upgrades, new enemy types, and a general escalation of difficulty as it went on. Graphics and effects were pretty minimal, but delivered in a kind of sleek, brutalist way. Had a decent time getting to around level 10 where it kind of lost steam for me, but had a good time getting there.

If I were to have any complaints, it'd probably be that, like I said, the game does start to get rather repetitive. Once I got to around level 7 or so, the upgrades and enemy types started to constantly repeat the same over and over without providing anything new anymore. Couple that with the larger and larger XP gap meaning less rewards, along with the special effects of the game being quite bland (seriously, the sound effect for destroying missiles is so unsatisfying, I want a bunch of slow-mo booms for each missile destroyed followed by a big boom for them all once attack mode slow-mo stops) and it led to me getting bored and not really wanting to replay. But I mean, it's an arcade game, it doesn't need to last forever.

Also, and this is just me thinking instead of complaining, but I wonder if using a more classic Asteroids-esque control where you have momentum and drifting and such to contend might be more fun and have more room to learn skilled play rather than the mouse pointer controllers the game has: the mouse controls are nice in their own right, but it did seem to have a limit and got a bit repetitive after awhile, and could get confusing with hit detection if you try to make heavy swipes.

IdeasPerSecond responds:

Thank you for the highly detailed response, FuturecopLGF! I appreciate all of the points you put forward here. You make quite a few excellent observations that will help me to improve as a developer! Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed review!

[Multimove]

Another nice puzzler entry from Rob1221! As usual, the concept is quite creative and the levels do a good job at both teaching you and hooking you by slowly amping up the complexity in a very instructional and intuitive way. I like the little symbols popping up to help you gauge distance and determine where you can go, and the fact it doesn't punish you for trying a bad direction.

If I were to have any complaints, it's that the game can feel very guided and linear. A vast majority of the levels just had me naturally following whatever single path there was available after eliminating non-options, which usually just led to me collecting all the powers when possible and proceeding to the exit. It was alright, but it didn't really engage my brain: I just let go and let the developer take the wheel, so to speak.

Of course, the fact that it was guided wasn't that bad for me, as I was a bit fearful of how the game would be if it made me keep track of distances and offsets through multiple steps as I found it very difficult to keep gauge distances (especially due to the vague purple zone which doesn't have clearly delineated tiles) and plot ahead more than a few steps. Luckily, the few courses that I did encounter which did have traps that required me to be careful and plan ahead never asked too much of me, so it was alright. Still, it made me think of whether the concept was such a good idea in the first place if I was having all these fears: maybe it had a limit to the concept where asking too much just wouldn't be nice for the player due to it not being intuitive enough for them to grasp. I dunno, haha.

[Parachute Peril]

Nice little fun arcade game! It's very simple, but something about these physics-based games can be so addictive due to their analog controls, and the concept of controlling the wind rather than the player is a neat twist. Couple that with a good sense of progression from shrinking the tunnels and adding enemies, very forgiving hitboxes that along you to scrape the walls without dying, and some nice special effects for animating the wind and player, and it's well put-together all-around! If I were to have any complaints, it might be that it doesn't have very long-lasting appeal due to a lack of variety in runs and such, but hey, it was a nice time while it lasted!

bluswimmer responds:

Thank you!