FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Sweater: Trouble in Cottonvale DEMO]

Pretty cute game, but currently feels like its in a rough state. While it does have a lot of nice touches like the map screen and these scarf powers and does deliver some decent platforming gameplay, the gameplay was pretty basic with nothing that grabbed me, there was a lack of polish and quality-of-life features, and it was difficult to get used to the controls/physics for the world and character.

If I were to give some feedback:

*In general, I don't like the physics of the game, being these weird Kid Kool physics where you have to build up tons of momentum and it just makes it so tedious and unwieldly, like you're always on ice. If you want to stick with it as a intentional design choice, that's fine, but I found them annoying to deal with so if there's some sort of way you can improve the control while still keeping the physics you want, please do so. For example, I would've loved more levels of jump control, like being able to make even shorter hops with a tap of the button, and I'd like if you hold the jump button, it will automatically deploy the helicopter scarf without needing a second press.

*I don't feel like the foreground elements pop-out enough from the background and make grand picture a bit muddied and unclear. I don't think the background is muted enough and could stand to be blurred or desaturated a bit more, and I think the black contours should be removed so as to make only the foreground elements outlined. Speaking of contours, I find it odd that the character's contours are so thin compared to the environmental contours: it really throws off the composition since generally elements on the same layer should have the same thickness for their contours.

*There's no coyote time for jumping, leading to me trying to make a lot of jumps from the edge of platforms and it ignoring my input and sending me falling to my death.

*Speaking of falling to my death, it was very unclear at times when it was safe to fall down and when it was a death pit: would love if there was an option to peek downwards/upwards, or if the level design was improved so that it's more easily discernable (for example, some games consistently signal death pits with certain art, or perhaps floating skulls and so on).

*Game was really lacking in sound effects: perhaps its part of the demo and you are planning on putting them in, but I felt like you need more sound effects for actions like swishing your scarf, for successfully grabbing an enemy with the scarf, and then throwing them, for example. Speaking about sounds, the balance/leveling for them was really inconsistent: the sound for slamming a slime into another slime was ear-splittingly loud while others were much calmer.

*It was pretty inconsistent that the game needed to be play with keyboard yet for menus you need to switch over to mouse: would much prefer if the menus could be controlled with keyboard so you only have to use that for the entire game.

*Scoring for the levels wasn't immediately apparent and I wasn't sure how to get a better grade. Am I ranked on time? Wools gathered? Enemies killed? More clarity would be good, perhaps do a rank summation of all of the factors that help get you points on the endscreen, like 57/100 wools gathered or whatever, or have points pop-up when you do an action that gives you points like the old Duke Nukem games (the 2D ones).

*Finally, while the game is cute, I wasn't really seeing any sort of interesting mechanic or core appeal to it: at the end of the day, it just seemed like a really bog-standard platformer. Maybe as you get more scarf powers the gameplay evolves, but I wasn't seeing anything that grabbed me. I mean, it's ok to just make a standard platformer, but then you really got to make it polished and flow well, and that isn't there yet (but hopefully can be with improvments).

*Why is he called Sweater when it seems all of his power come from his scarf? Maybe the game should be called Scarf?

Hope this feedback helps!

WooltronicStudios responds:

Woah, that's a lot of feedback. Thank you for being so thorough with your review, it helps a lot and you bring up a lot of valid points!

[SNEKMEK]

Pretty cool snake game! For the most part, I felt like the game was rather charming in its presentation and an interesting twist on the typical snake gameplay, what with its introduction of enemies that fire back at you (with great attack telegraphs) and turrets you can install on your body. The ability to recover from failure by switching to pilot mode was also quite novel (though a bit odd that your turrets still fire during when you'd think they'd be inactive). I was also glad to see that the controls never let me down when I tried to pull off difficult maneuvers like sharp turns.

For the most part it is fun, but I was a bit disappointed how quickly the game stalls out: it doesn't take long for the enemies to stop evolving and for your ship to stop growing, leaving the game feeling rather repetitive. The whole aspect of having aggressive enemies and turrets really brought my expectations up for how the game might evolve: maybe we'd start fighting crazy boss enemies or something like that, but instead it just stuck with pretty standard snake gameplay, even being a bit lesser since you stop growing. I dunno, something about the game really made me want more than what it settled on, but still, as I said, it's pretty decent nonetheless.

Alphons6 responds:

Thanks! it was a jam game so we didn't have all the time, we'd like to add more content though, thank you :)

[Boing Bang Adventure]

Hmm, a pretty decent implementation of Buster Bros gameplay! For the most part, I feel like the game is taking good strides in recreating that classic arcade fun with lots of fun power-ups and satisfying bubble popping. I love the little things you've put in like how the score counter spins up and your guy gives a little victory pose at the end of each level, along with other things like the world map and so on: very cute stuff! I also found the artstyle of the game somewhat charming: it had this weird old-school Geocities aesthetic to it.

However, I gotta admit that the game got quite boring for me rather quickly: I was already ready to quit around halfway through world 1, but I pushed on, hoping it would eventually introduce some sort of new obstacle or fun mechanic to keep things fresh. However, once I finally got to world 2, all I was rewarded with was a new bubble enemy that, while it looked different, it was exactly the same as before. It just felt way too repetitive overall and I could never see myself getting through all of the worlds: it just lacks any sort of variety or sense of progression to keep things interesting for me.

Pitigamedev responds:

Thank you for the feedback!

[Creepypasta Collab 2023]

Hey, pretty cool collab! I love that you went the extra mile and made the collab into an entire game, being this cool scavenger hunt adventure game through a spooky house with some great, stylish graphics. Collecting the tapes and bringing them back to listen was pretty novel and creative: well done!

While I do love the effort, I'll admit that there are definitely some parts I'd like touched up. For example, those default buttons and sliders on the main menu don't give that great of a first impression. But more than that, the gameplay felt a bit lacking in atmosphere: I wish there was more ambient noise, like the house creaking, tv static, dripping faucets, or the hum of the fridge, I wish there were sound effects for interactions like a little metal jingle when you pick up keys, and I do wish there were more spooky events, like some creatures popping up here and there. There were also some confusing aspects, like how interaction points don't go away after interacting (like picking up keys), and that trying to open a locked door only gives you feedback on mouse release, instead of initial click.

I'll also say that the execution of the tapes felt a bit clumsy to me. I really wish you could listen to the tapes on the go, similar to audio logs in modern games like Bioshock, Dead Space, MGS5 and so on. Having to not only stop your adventure to go all the way back to your room to listen to the tapes, but to then have to just stand there and listen without being able to move around and continue adventuring, felt like a bit of a bummer. I know you want our rapt attention, but it just felt like overkill, haha!

Lizguy74 responds:

I'm sure there will bee a sequel where those issues will be addressed and I'll definably be apart of the next one. It was awesome!

[9 Cam]

Wow, color me surprised with this one! It may not make the best impression with its visuals and slight clunkiness, and while I do think that the story was a bit unsatisfying and it didn't quite push the camera concept as hard as I'd like it too (for example, some of the final challenges like the laser room can be beat too easily by just staying in the center when I would've loved if it pulled more perspective tricks), I found myself easily getting addicted to this due to its intriguing 9-camera perspective and its steady escalation of puzzles and mechanics. Basically, I think this is a pretty good example of the classic gameplay trumps graphics (and as much as I'm dissing the visuals, they still have some style and serve to evoke a rather mysterious mood). Quite the experience, and I guess I need to look up HalfQuake now...

Mantis1 responds:

Thanks a lot! I had trouble coming up with puzzle ideas that utilize the 9 camera concept. I specifically wanted levels that are not mazes, frustrating platformer challenges, or can be more understandable with 1 camera. I appreciate your review!

[Grave Danger]

Ummm...call me stupid, but...how do you start the game? I can walk around and dig but the title screen doesn't go away and the game never seems to start. It is an unfinished game jam entry? I can retry later if it gets patched or explained or something.

EDIT: Ok, now I've actually been able to play the game proper by holding down the key. It's a decent little arcade game, but unfortunately I found it rather awkward and frustrating. I like the idea behind the game getting more and more harder since burying creates tombstones that make it more difficult to walk around, but the execution didn't work for me: most of the time it just led to coffins appearing in blocked-off areas or on top of others which made it an inevitable failure.

Extar responds:

You need to hold X to start. :)
I've uploaded a more up-to-date version.

[Disguise and Conquer]

Cute game with a pretty decent idea where you dress for the occasion with your limited resources, but felt kind of dry and insubstantial, not making the most of it: would've loved it if for every costume we put together, we were to get a funny little cinematic where it shows us in-costume at whatever event we planned for and we can see the earthling's response and be graded. That'd feel so much better than the current setup and would really encourage replays. Also, when you put together a costume but then cancel, I don't think it should reset you to no clothes: keep everything on and let us adjust instead.

AhWham responds:

Thank you for the review! Cutscenes showing the consequences of your picks were planned, unfortunately, I didn't have a lot of free time during this jam to make it the best it could be so a lot of features and replay incentives were scrapped to put out a complete game. As for resetting the clothes, that was done to prevent a bug of rewarding the player with no points if they canceled and then hit confirm without changing the clothes. I admit it was a bandaid fix and if I had put more time into this, it could've been much better.

I do hope, if I have the time and motivation in the future, to make an update/sequel that'll push this concept to its peak and make an overall great game

[Ruins of Paradise]

Hmm, a decent little dungeon crawler! The story, visuals, and exploration were pretty good as I liked reading all of the logs, collecting items and seeing weird creatures, but the game was held back by the tedious menus/navigation, rather dry combat and annoying random encounters/resource management. It was short enough that I made it to the end, but it was good that it ended when it did as my resources started to fall apart and I needed to awkwardly redo the boss fight after dying and just spam it down.

Seethe-Thorn responds:

Thank you for your feedback I really appreciate it!

[MATCHBOX]

Hey, this was pretty cool! It's short, sure, and a bit janky with weird visual glitches and some odd interactions, but I found myself really immersed into this spooky story experience! I wasted no time playing this several times over: even though the story always generally goes the same way, I still liked the little choices and interactions you could do and seeing the different responses, and was impressed at how some of them were more subtle than others, like not bothering to attack the creature with the knife. In general the writing and graphics were very evocative and it all led to a great 'title drop' finish as I doused myself and set it all alight!

In terms of feedback, as said before, the game can be quite janky in general. Some specific aspects that bothered me were moments like the photo appearing in your inventory before picking it up, weird visual glitches that sometimes even obscure text you're trying to read, examining the knife giving you the description of 'now covered with blood' even if you forgo attacking the creature with it, and whatever the heck was going on with the 'sound' if you can even call it that, haha. Nothing was too bad, but glitchy stuff like this did take me a bit out of the experience when everything else was doing its best to immerse me. It's a testament to the game that I kept continuing with the story in spite of the oddities because I just wanted to see the end!

WURMxFUD responds:

Wow, thanks for taking the time to play it so much! This was for a jam project so I definitely feel you on the jank- there's lots of areas that I think would benefit from more polish. That said, means a lot that you found it so immersive! Definitely will take your feedback into my next project, I appreciate such in-depth thoughts on it!

[Creature Collab 2023]

Pretty cool art collab! It may just be a slideshow of art, but I like the effort in theming the experience by putting all the art in their own test tubes, as well as providing some fun info to read about each piece. Also appreciated being able to go to an artist's profile by clicking on their name: makes it much easier to follow or check out the rest of their art if you see a creature that catches your eye!

If I were to have complaints:

I did feel like the aforementioned test tube theming was a bit low-effort: it all just looks incredibly static and boring, and the creatures don't even look like they're in test tubes, but rather standing in front of them. If you made the creatures color-tinted to match the liquid in their test tube, made them animate to move up and down a bit to simulate bobbing, and put some bubbles to float in front and behind them, then it would look like they were properly immersed and make it look a lot cooler, in my opinion. If you look at Xavier from @Zfert, that's getting somewhat close to what I'm suggesting where it looks like it is properly floating in the tube!

I also found the buttons to be a bit clunky, especially with the way you can hit buttons that are under the info pop-up which doesn't make any sense: you should disable any buttons that the info pop-up is blocking, or reduce the size of the info pop-up so it doesn't block those buttons, whichever works for you.

Nebulate responds:

Yeah… the creatures being static in the test tubes was also pointed out in the discord server. But the imiges was too big to be floating up and down or smth (i wassnt the programmer). Still glad that you found this cool. At least it was more unique than the previous creature collab.