FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Portaboy+]

Hmmm, a bit mixed on this one, which is unfortunate since I think it shows a great first impression and has a lot of great work put into it!

For the most part, I do think the concept is really cool: multitask juggling between playing these warioware-esque minigames and fending off monsters all while you need to manage your resources and react to various random glitches leads to some rather interesting gameplay. The game is pretty crazy in terms of graphical and audio quality as well, both just in general and with all the ways the game glitches out. Certainly intrigued me and made me want to keep trying to understand the systems and get better to unlock more portions of the gallery mode, which seemed to be providing plot points.

Unfortunately, while it was cool to experience the twist the very first time where the monsters are introduced, it is just a pain to have to deal with it on subsequent tries: it takes so bloody long to get back to the good stuff (ie the twist) and the game is really boring and one-note until then, due in part to the absolutely low difficulty and lackluster variety in minigames (both in the types of minigames possible and the way the minigames vary their obstacles within). It also just seemed really confusing to deal with resources: ammo costs so much that you have to play so many minigames to get them, but you can only play them so fast and is also up to RNG and meanwhile monsters are spawning at incredibly fast rates that it just seems impossible. Maybe I was missing something, but it just frustrated me.

I still think the game is quite impressive in terms of production, but I don't quite agree with its execution. For me, it's a clear case of style over substance, unfortunately.

Enchae responds:

I agree with part about the first phase. It's paced well for a first playthrough but not the 10th. There is a skip arrow you can shoot but no one finds it. That might be something that's still worth changing.

[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!

[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

[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!

[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!

[Pizza Kidd: Beat 'Em Up Demo (prototype)]

Hey, pretty promising! I love me a good beat-em-up and this definitely had a lot of good points to it. Neat animations, tons of cool moves to use on enemies in stylish ways, satisfying feedback from attacks, good PS4 gamepad support, and so on.

Having said that, though, I am a lover of beat-em-ups and so I gotta be harsh on this with feedback so hopefully it becomes great in its final form. I might be going overboard with some of this stuff as its tough to tell what you already know you need to do since it's just a prototype, but here we go:

*Tutorial was kinda bad in that it throws way too much information on you and I could barely remember it all. Don't get me wrong, some of it is intuitive in that it uses rather universal controls that a lot of other beat-em-ups do, but it also had a lot of wacky stuff that flew right over my head. If I had my way, I'd like it if the tutorial was separated into bite-size sections: basic movement, basic combos, special moves, grabs, etc. Also it'd be great if you could actually control and participate to build muscle memory and learn by example. Also it'd be great to have a move list to quickly reference at any time, like in a fighting game.

*There were some wonky control issues that made moves come up when I didn't want them to. The biggest issue was running: you should only initiate a run when you press the same movement direction twice in succession! In this demo, it was possible to run by pressing two different directions quickly, when constantly screwed me up. Basically, you should only run when you quickly press left+left or right+right, don't run when you press left+right or right+left.

*The enemies were incredibly boring and brainless and lacked any sort of variety or threat to them. Sure they were kind of fun to beat up like sandbags at first, but it started to get real monotonous really fast. Changing their colors and giving them more health and just increasing the amount of them doesn't make the game fun: I need enemies with different attack patterns to contend with that really make me think, improvise, and crowd control. You know, maybe get some jumping enemies, some grabber enemies, some fast enemies, some projectile throwers, whatever it be. Quality over quantity is the goal here. Without that I can't really get a feel for whether the combat is any fun in the long term.

*The fact that you couldn't go up or down in the space felt very limiting: usually beat-em-ups are 2.5D and have a great strategy to them where you need to use the whole space to crowd control: moving around to dodge or herd or control enemies. Don't get me wrong, 2D beat-em-ups can work, but this game didn't really show me it working at all: as said, the enemies were really brainless so all you had to do was just punch left and right and that was it: felt like there was no strategy to be gained, though if you vary the enemies to make up for this and work with the 2D space, then it would be fine.

*There were a coupla cases here and there where the game just felt kinda wonky, like maybe my punch hitbox being a bit shorter than I would expect, and the ground pickups being offset so much it looks like I shouldn't be able to pick them up: just subtle stuff like that, hard to explain it all.

Best of luck on working on this: love me some beat-em-ups and I'd love to see this become great as, while I do have some complaints, I think it has a solid foundation to work from!

PizzaKiddo responds:

thank you for play testing the early demo prototype... we'll have new updates late November early December. For more weekly updates, join our Discord or follow us on Twitter. We have noted all of your feedback... Thanks again!🙏

[Cavern Collapse]

Not too shabby! I don't think it necessarily has enough going for it to appeal for that long, but I think it has some solid fundamentals, in a sort of 'good student project' kind of way.

As said, the gameplay does show some promising aspects to it: I like how you are rewarded with more points for making skilled long-range shots. Similarly, hooking those double-sided gem rocks felt so great with the way they clear the entire board. I especially like the subtle touches such as how your score ticks up when you get points instead of just instantly changing: very satisfying! There's also a nice strategy where you want to hook big ones, but you need to think whether its worth the risk as it might entail letting some rocks go and losing precious bridge real estate. It's a simple game, but its decent!

However, I feel like it didn't take too long for me to get bored. For one, the game is rather dry: while the ticking up of the score was nice in terms of making it juicy, I wish there was more feedback on making more difficult shots, like getting a flash or voice clip or nice sound effect or just increasing the font size when hooking a 100 or even better, a 500 pointer. The game was also a bit confusing despite being so simple: I couldn't figure out why I wasn't being rewarded more points or some sort of bonus for hooking gem rocks, especially when the tutorial gave such importance to them: only the double gem rocks yielded any kind of benefit (and a good benefit indeed, though perhaps too overpowered considering how easily you can get so much of them later on).

As said before, this feels like it was put together for a decent little arcade experience: would've loved to see more complexity and progression from this, more levels and hazards and power-ups and all that, but you got the basics down and that's pretty solid.

Cyranek responds:

Thanks for playing and taking the time to write this all out. Really helps to get good feedback!

The geodes / crystal stones repair the bridge you're standing on when caught. Single gems repair 1 and double gems repair 5 (while also clearing the screen). I could've shown this better in the tutorial screen / telegraphed it better during gameplay.

Would love to come back to this and add a progression system and new game modes. It would definitely add some needed depth to the game. :)