FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Gravity Storm - First Mission (DEMO 3)]

Nice little retro game!

It's a little bit basic overall and feels like a 'my first action platformer' game from a first-timer dev, but I don't want to be too down on it because it actually does a lot of things very well in terms of design:

For one, it starts out strong by immediately getting the player into the action and introducing some cool mechanics like gravity switching.

Next, the game kept my interest by having each level add something fresh and distinct to the mix, be it a new mechanic, tileset, obstacles and so on, alongside mixing it all together with tricky combinations.

Finally, it all ends with a good ol' boss fight which has a decent attack pattern and an enrage phase!

So yeah, it's not necessarily anything groundbreaking or truly interesting, but it was a fun short romp and I think it displayed some good design fundamentals that a lot of other games in this ilk get wrong, particularly from first-timers! And yeah, it's nice to see more appreciation for Metal Storm: I was a latecomer to that game myself!

Jampley-Dev responds:

Thanks for the review and the video. Demo 2 is out here, and on Steam if you want to wishlist the full game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3482870/Gravity_Storm__First_Mission/

[the ancient little wizard]

Hah, quite the amusing little game! I quite like the goofy vibes to it and especially enjoy all of the interactions you can have with objects and people. Creating a whole stealth system for these stores was very interesting and livened up the experience above my expectations. There were also a lot of secrets like NPCs that sell special items, recruitments, and the ability to find a pointier hat that upgrades your height stat by 1 which I assume makes no actual difference in anything important, haha! All in all it seemed like a fun little adventure!

While I did enjoy it at the start, I'll admit that around the second trinket I was starting to fall out of love with it. The stealth system seemed buggy and I got seen plenty of times even though I was clearly hiding behind objects that should've blocked their sight. The combat system had no depth to it and could easily be solved by just spamming meteors and meditating with the occasional heal thrown in, turning it into just a hassle (maybe my fault for picking combat mode, but how was I supposed to know without trying?) And every store just felt like more of the same without any sense of progression or escalation, which alongside NPCs repeating lines just made the world lose its allure.

Having said that, morbid curiosity did make me go back and play a bit more, and for some reason I encountered the void walker and was able to go home with only 3 trinkets? Not sure if that was a glitch or maybe I get a better ending if I get all 5?

Would certainly love to see more goofy adventures like this: just needs a little bit more meat on its bones to keep the adventure novel and interesting the whole way through instead of stalling out like it did here!

ArlucGames responds:

Thanks for such an in depth review! It's nice to hear of someone trying to engage with the whole game, which does of course expose its flaws...
The stealth (like most games) was never fully padded out, as the game is so short anyway, but I understand how that can be frustrating.
Combat was also thrown in for variety but not fleshed out, again just wanting to keep the game simple.
You can actually reach Void Walker with just 1 trinket. This was intentional and reading the item descriptions will make it clear which one it is 😉
Did you get the secret ending? If you help out the skeletons, they'll point you in the right direction. Though the secret ending is also simple and more of a gag so you may not want to go through the effort 😅
Thanks so much for playing and hope you'll try out my other games in the future! Which I hope to be a bit more involved than this quick little project 😁

[Martian Mayhem]

Hmm, not too shabby!

For the most part, it seems like a decent Minecraft/Terraria-clone with enough of the fundamentals down-pat to create that classic addictive loop of looking for resources to create the next thing, but at the same time it feels like a very early alpha or a tech demo, showing off that its got all of the necessary functionality to make a game, but not actually being a game yet as it is still lacking the bells and whistles to make it appealing, stand out from the crowd, and truly suck me in.

I gave it my best shot and had a bit of fun at the start, but it quickly lost me. The world just felt so big, dry and lifeless that I easily got lost and it quickly felt tiresome, it didn't feel like the building tools allowed for me to get creative or build something nice like a house, and there was just a lack of any sort of guide, motivation or goal to strive for. The biggest frustration was trying to find coal to build a furnace: I looked and I looked, but every time I thought I might've found some, it turned out to be flint instead! Wish those two elements looked a lot different from each other so I could spot them more easily, and wondering if I got screwed by the procedural generation.

Other than that, there are some minor issues like how I wish moving items around in the inventory was a bit simpler by just holding down left-click to drag items instead of having to double-click to engage this movement mode it has.

Basically, it's currently a good skeleton of a game: just needs some meat on its bones!

maymcleen responds:

thanks for leaving a review! yeah, future updates of martian mayhem are sure to bring more content to the game and make the world feel more diverse. what i want to eventually do is add more creative options (i.e a set of 7 blocks for each color of the rainbow, more decorations) and also more functional items like chests and signs and the like. With coal, I've made it blue in the upcoming update because you're not alone - alot of my friends had the same issue haha! the two resources look very similar. i'll see what i can do with moving items, dragging them might be hard to figure out how to do in the game engine i use but i will for sure look in to it. i'll also make a walkthrough and add some in-game hints so players looking to "complete" the game have some guidance. but anyway, thank you for playing and reviewing! your criticism helps me make the game a better experience :)

[Wallpaper 2.0 Collab]

Hmm, I don't want to be mean as I think the intention is good in making these collabs and there's a lot of great art here. But, for that very reason that there's a lot of great art and artists that deserve appreciation here, I want the presentation that this collab offers to make the art all the more appealing. When looking at this, all I could think of was Gordon Ramsey's famous words: "it's fucking RAW!"

Forget displaying the art in a very creative or interesting fashion that could garner attention, this presentation is the absolute bare minimum that could be done to present the art and nothing more. It is completely lacking any sort of quality-of-life features as well as any bells and whistles to make the experience appealing. Seriously, the official playlist you made for the art is miles above this: at least there you can easily access the artist profiles to see their other works or follow them, as well as being able to see the art itself in a larger view and download it, which makes sense for a wallpaper.

Again, the art is lovely and I love the sense of community and cooperation that comes from events like this: I just think that more effort needs to be put into the presentation to match the large effort that the artists put in when making their wonderful pieces. It's all out of balance right now! But hey, better luck in the future and I hope to see more cool projects like this.

ColorfulCeleste responds:

Honestly I absolutely agree. I really feel like it would've worked better if scratch was only used as a last resort to package it (it really isn't too difficult to build a gallery now and days). It was really an issue of not asking if anybody had an alternative to scratch tbh.

[Nefarius - The Last Wizard (Updated)]

Hmm, this one is a bit of a mixed bag for me!

It certainly started off very strong with a great first impression. Overall I feel like the graphical presentation of this game is exceptional and very impressive: even aspects that are typically overlooked like menus, death animations, and so on are high quality. Got some fantastic music as well!

Once we start to get into actual gameplay, though, it starts to fall apart, as while it is a somewhat serviceable Survivors-esque game, it feels very bland and dry which is in stark contrast to the beautiful assets used. There's barely any enemy variety and they are easily exploited by running circles around them to corral them together. The weapons/items on offer are tiny, unimaginative, and give no sense of variety between runs. The act of hitting enemies, collecting experience and leveling up is not exciting at all due to a lack of feedback and juice. Frankly, it's just pretty boring to me and feels more like an early alpha or a skeleton to work from: needs a lot more meat on its bones before its actually fun!

Other points of feedback:

*The volume balancing is terrible with the barely existing sound effects being so easily drowned out by the music. I needed to turn the music down to like 1% and the sound to 100% to make it so that it works better.

*Strange that the game teaches you how to dash from the very start, but it doesn't even start you off with a dash since you need to get boots first. By the same token, it's very strange that the laser power requires you to hit a button for it, but the game doesn't teach this at all: I kept waiting for it to activate since I thought it was a passive!

*Weird that the terrain, specifically objects like trees, bushes, and so on, doesn't block the player or the enemies from moving straight through it. I can understand the game allowing enemies to move straight through them, but allowing the player to move through seems weird as they should be obstacles that require the player to strategize and not get stuck: without that, the world feels unexciting and you can just run around without a care in the world.

*Laser is a bit of a death trap in that, while it looks all fancy, it freezes you in place and easily sets you up to be killed right afterwards as the enemies just swarm you. Maybe it needs to freeze time or something else?

*Main menu is inconsistent with control scheme: the main options require you to use the keyboard, but if you go into the options, suddenly the keyboard is unusable and you need to use the mouse instead? Even weirder is that if you try and use the keyboard while in options, it will still keep moving the main menu around.

*Finally, maybe the most important of all, is that even if everything is fixed up, there really isn't anything interesting or unique about the game that grabs me and makes me want to play it. The world is absolutely awash with Survivors-esque games that are competing for attention with all sorts of appealing attributes, and this needs something special to stand out: right now I'm not seeing that.

Hope this helps and you work on it to create a final version which plays as well as it looks!

Snow-Hex responds:

Thanks for your comment, I assure you that the programmer and I will take into account each of the points you mention, thanks again for your review, this kind of comments is really useful in every way. 🦖

[MEATY MAYHEM (The Full Experience)]

Huh, I was pleasantly surprised by this!

I feared the worst when starting out because this game unfortunately feels very similar to the demo that was posted before: while the world and vibes that the game gave off were very goofy and charming, overall the gameplay felt rather generic and bland, controls felt awkward, sound effects were missing, difficulty was simultaneously too easy while also being too punishing, and so on. Basically, it felt like it hadn't taken any of the feedback into account, so it wasn't the best first impression.

Nevertheless, I pressed onwards into the new content, and felt rewarded for my persistence as around the start of world 2, the game started to get quite interesting and cool from there! Levels started to get a lot of new mechanics like the bounce pads and moving platforms, and overall the game became more of an interesting and challenging precision platformer. In addition, there was a lot more novelty to keep things fresh: there were weird secrets like running into the gorilla, and a lot of great setpieces like the weird ghost levels, the crazy boss fights and the clown chase sequence and so on! Really neat stuff!

So yeah, the controls are still a bit awkward, the game is a bit jank and it takes a while for the game to get good, but when it does, I was quite impressed! If I were to guess as to why this is the case, I suppose it's a classic case of the programmer getting more skilled as the game was developed so the quality of game gets better the deeper you go, haha!

BakethedBean responds:

yeah as time went on i found ways to come up with more robust solutions in less time which gave me opportunities to put more stuff in. thank god for the redemption arc!

[The Test of Insanity]

Cute game! Feels very much like a successor to The Impossible Quiz, what with its wide variety of questions and minigames, and its focus on mind-bending trickery and lateral thinking. As someone who already played The Impossible Quiz back in the day, I was already very familiar with the tricks this game was playing (for example, the math question where the answer is clicking on a number within the question) so I didn't have too much trouble making my way through, but all in all, it was a nice, enjoyable, goofy adventure!

If there were any complaints, it'd be:

*As said, it might just be because I'm already familiar with this kind of game, but I made it through rather quickly and was left hungry for more, so yeah, it's a bit short! Also it is kind of rehashing a lot of stuff that's come before, so I'm not quite sure if it has its own unique voice or appeal yet: in a way, the game kind of makes you want to go back and play the Impossible Quiz instead of seeing this as the superior version.

*The game felt a little bit dry, especially with no music: could maybe stand to have some more aspects to pep it up.

*I feel like it was somewhat awkward to have the scroll-clicking game as the very first thing you encounter. For a quiz game like this, I feel it'd be better to start with something more standard, like the question about fish, then later on you can get into the more action-y minigames. It's not bad, just made the pacing a bit strange, but maybe that's just because it actually took me a while to figure it out and I'm just compensating, haha.

jacklehamster responds:

Thanks, great feedback!

[The Newgrounds Bug Collab]

Yowza, what a cool art collab! I love to see art collabs that present the art in a very creative and compelling fashion, and this game delivers that in spades with its wonderful Pokemon-esque world that you explore in! I enjoyed all the people and things you can interact with in the world, and I enjoyed the zoo with all its marvelous bugs and fancy cages, and very much appreciated its plaques that contain links to the artist's profile. I couldn't help but wish the game was full-on Pokemon with being able to collect and battle these critters, but I understand that's a big ask and I already applaud the effort that was put into this: well done!

In terms of feedback:

*I found it very odd how the bugs move around: instead of smoothly transitioning between grid spaces like the player does, they insta-teleport around. It's kinda scary, almost like they're SCP-esque monsters! I'm guessing it was done because it was too much to ask the artists to make walk cycle sprites in addition to all the directional poses, but even then, I wouldn't mind and would prefer a more smooth and slow movement instead of the teleporting, even if it looks a bit odd that the legs don't animate.

*The glass in front of the cages, particularly the thick upper line of them, really bothered me as it is constantly blocking the bugs and not allowing me to see them clearly. Wish it was made thinner or transparent or taller so it doesn't end up occluding them.

*The place is absolutely huge! Wish there was something like a map so I could easily get a read of the museum layout and plan out my trip, and I also wish the map design had more shortcuts and would constantly lead into the lobby instead of having long stretches that lead to dead-ends that you then need to backtrack on. Could stand to have some fast travel checkpoints (I thought this is what these elevator door things were) and maybe change up the colors of some of the rooms to represent different wings and allow you to mental map the facility better.

Frosty responds:

thanks for the good reviews as always!!

[Pumpkin's Sky Tea]

Pretty cute game! Love the presentation and vibes that this game gives off, and as a fan of games like Euro Truck, Elite Dangerous, New Horizons and so on, the trading aspect alongside some SHMUP combat was very compelling and right up my alley! The inclusion of meaningless but amusing aspects like a meow button were very charming, and the goal of the game being to purchase cat pictures was hilarious (and not a bad motivation!)

However, as cute as the cat pictures were and all that, I had to admit that the game quickly became repetitive and just wasn't keeping my attention. The SHMUP gameplay felt very shallow and never seemed to evolve in any interesting way as the game went on, making it end up feeling like annoying filler before long, and the trading was all the same as well. Trading was a bit of a bummer too because while I want to buy cat pictures periodically as I play for a reward, that seems like a dumb idea because it removes my trading power, so its better to just keep trading and buy all the pictures at the end in one fell swoop, which makes it such a slog.

I think what this game really needed was some sense of progression: typically the charm of these trading games is upgrading your ship for bigger cargo loads or faster speed or the ability to utilize new routes, giving it an addicting sense of escalation. In this game, however, your ship remains the same and all routes and goods are open to you immediately, and since all you blow your money on is cat pictures, it feels like a loss and makes everything else feels unchanging as you just run the same loop over and over.

All in all, it's still impressive given its a game jam game, and the cat is very cute, but yeah, just wish it had a bit more meat to its core gameplay loop!

Chris responds:

Thanks! I agree with a lot of what you have said which is why I plan to make another and build on it a bit. The short time frame for the game jam was quite limiting in what I was able to pull off.

[DEAD DETENTION #1 (Rescribbled)]

Neat visual novel you got here! The story is a bit too goofy and packed with anime cliches for my old man sensibilities, but I was really impressed at the stylish sketchbook presentation and overall smooth, polished feel to the gameplay and interface. Where a lot of visual novels are very static and filled with portraits talking at each other for hours that can sap my energy, this had a lot of unique art, minigames and so on to keep things lively and engaging.

While it is pretty promising, there were a few points that I feel could use some work:

*I was a bit disappointed with the minigames, particularly in that there is no way to fail at them, making them feel rather pointless. I would much prefer if winning or losing at the minigames would branch the story in different and exciting ways, or affect your character's stats which can make differences later on in the actions they take, similar to other more action-based visual novels like Indigo Prophecy, Until Dawn, and so on.

*I like the idea of decisions affecting your stats, but this episode didn't provide any instance where we could see how those stats affect anything. Perhaps it is planned to only have effects way later down the road, but I'd like to see proof of the system in action early on so I don't feel like I'm being sold a false bill of goods (ever heard of Mass Effect 3?) For example, it'd be nice if being negative earlier on makes you reluctant to help out in finding the sister, so the story branches there, though perhaps only for a bit before he rejoins and helps out.

*There was a distinct lack of quality-of-life features, such as there being no save/load feature, no text log so you can review things being said, no skip feature, and so on. I can understand being hesitant with save/load features so that people need to live with their choices instead of save scumming, but still, what if I need to take a break and want to continue later on?

Looking forward to seeing how the rest of the episodes develop!

JackAstral responds:

All good suggestions - thanks! I’ll keep some of those in mind for the next ones :-)