FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[PSYCHExFUSE]

Wow, this one surprised me! These kinda games aren't really in my wheelhouse as I don't typically get into these surreal horror adventures that much, but this game did a lot to win me over and before you know it, I kept wanting to play more and more! Reminds me a lot of other games I've gotten to in the past, such as Ib.

A few aspects that stood out to me that I enjoyed:

*Obviously what comes to mind first and foremost is the surreal and mysterious vibes that the game has through the weird characters and abstract world. The vague plot, trippy art design, subtle sounds and so on all come together to create a cool and intriguing atmosphere that is far removed from that typical RPG Maker look and feel!

*I love examining stuff and reading all of the flavor text that can come from it, and this game delivers that in spades. The reactions are charming while not being too verbose, and amazingly, there are parts where you can examine the same object but from a different point and get a new reaction, such as some of the big murals, and even parts where you can examine an object multiple times to see something new, like examining the tilted painting until you align it. So cool!

*A lot of these games can end up just being a whole bunch of walking around which can bore me, but this felt like it did a good job at keeping things interesting by peppering in special events: search for something here, a small puzzle there, a chase sequence, a new encounter, and so on. Basically, this has some good pacing in my opinion.

*Some nice quality-of-life features are in this, such as the generous checkpointing for chase sequences to reduce frustration from retries.

*I'm not sure if it's there, but I'm curious as to whether certain actions and choices will have some sort of influence over the ending or our character. Either way, it's nice to be able to express myself a bit here and there and not feel locked into our role.

SewingwithDaydream responds:

Lovely review! We're so glad you enjoyed :)

[5 min without TV !]

Pretty cute little game! The game has a very charming look and feel to it, and I like the concept and challenge of stacking all sorts of furniture awkwardly together to somehow build up a tower. All in all, seems like a very short and sweet little arcade game that is fun to go back for a higher score!

Unfortunately, I suck at it! I'm willing to admit that part of this is probably a skill issue, which is why I'm still overall positive on it. But I do have to admit that there are some frustrating aspects with the game itself that get in the way of my enjoyment, like how sometimes the game would remove control of an object before it even makes contact with the tower which leads to less than optimal placement, or how sometimes I just get myself into what feels like an impossible jam to get out of because of how terrible a huge portion of the items are to work with. Can't help but wonder if there could be some subtle changes made to keep the feel but reduce frustration, like maybe a grace period for moving pieces even after making contact, similar to how it works in Tetris.

As a side note, do the youth of today even know about TV static and antennas? Boy, I feel old...

Dominoobscure responds:

Thank you! Glad you still appreciate the game even if it's really flawed. So yeah, I think we could have handled the placement a bit better your frustration is legit. I too think the hitbox for dropping furniture could be more accurate, but I didn't have time to fix that during the jam nor after haha

[ZIMA - Temple of Souls]

Seems like a pretty promising adventure game! There wasn't that much to chew on, being just a short demo, but the journey through the temple was filled with a decent variety of traps, obstacles, and hidden treasures to contend with, and I really enjoyed how the dog is an actual sidekick that you need to work together with! There's enough on display to make me want to see the final product, so I look forward to it!

If I were to have any complaints:

*I hate to say it, but the main character is pretty ugly and awkward in how she animates, especially for the basic walk cycle which looks incredibly stiff. It's like she is made of jello with the way her body proportions warp wildly from pose-to-pose. Could definitely do with a touch-up, I'd say.

*You should probably remove the shadow effect from the player character as it actually makes the world seem more flat since it doesn't distort based on other background objects.

*In the sword fight stage, there were a few times I got hit or killed for seemingly no reason, as the enemies didn't get anywhere close to me or the dog. Maybe some of the hitboxes are messed up? Dunno what happened there.

*I have no idea why you made it so that you need to jump against a wall to knock it down when you use your fists to break or hit everything else in the game. If you need to make a special sign that pops up to teach people to do something they'd never figure out on their own, you've messed up!

Not a complaint, but just a little note! That part where you fall into the water and tentacles come up to grab you if you don't move out fast enough? I recognize that reference! That's straight from the start of Out of This World (aka Another World) from Eric Chahi!

protomation responds:

Thank you for playing and for the brutally honest feedback, I appreciate it. Lots to think about for sure. ( Over a bottle of whisky. )

Glad you picked up on Another world! Just a quick nod to a game that had a huge impact on me years ago. It is kind of the type of atmospheric game I'm going for.

[Character Select Collab]

Not too shabby of an art collab! It is just your standard gallery presentation at heart, which is a bit of a letdown, but it does a decent job at adding enough bells and whistles to the overall presentation to make it match the fighting game theme, and it was rather amusing to see all of the characters rendered through other game creators like Soul Calibur!

That being said, I really wish the presentation and interactivity was a bit more spicy and exciting. Compared to character selects that you see in games like Marvel Vs Capcom 2, Under Night In Birth, Smash Bros, and so on, this just lacks charm and feels so sterile and lifeless, even when you go to the trouble to play the music which couldn't be included in the game (yes, I'm the one bitching about it, sorry, haha). I'd love some more cool effects like an announcer calling out the names for when you make a selection, voice barks from the characters, background animations, maybe make the bios display their special/super moves and their motion inputs, and so on. I just can't help but want more!

Obviously this is a big ask, but it'd be so awesome if this actually had a fighting game component attached to it where you can face off two selected characters. Not a full proper game, of course, that's way too complicated, but maybe just an automated rock/paper/scissors CPU match where you watch them take turns doing their moves and you can gamble on who wins or something.

TheJamarillo responds:

That would be so cool!

[Panthalassa Demo (Web Version)]

Holy moley, this is some crazy shit you're peddling here: I love it!

Definitely seems like quite the surreal and wild point-and-click adventure, like some bizarre mish-mash of old edutainment games like the Magic School Bus and Cruelty Squad, most notably in terms of theming and interface design. It's confusing to grasp, but that's just part of the fun, and I loved messing around with all these alien systems to learn about their functions, kinda like learning a whole new language: like what in the hell does deep-frying eels have to do with restoring power??? The wild art design brings it altogether with some fascinating and mysterious vibes that keep me wanting to dig further. Great stuff!

It already looks to be in a very promising state, but if I were to offer any feedback:

*I hate to say this, but could the characters in this game just please shut the hell up? I love examining objects and reading flavor text in these games, but this is a case of too much of a good thing: it got really annoying and tedious to listen to these goobers yap on and on and ON for every single examined object. The intro in particular was really annoying because I couldn't even get a chance to examine anything when I open it with my own eyeballs before they interrupt me. It seriously feels like all dialogue exchanges could be cut in half across the board and nothing would be lost. Not having everything explained to me so directly as well would increase the level of mystery and allow me to have fun pondering the situation.

*I understand it adds to the vibes, but the amount of post-processing effects was ludicrous to the point of hurting my eyes. Still, the game does offer the options to turn them off, so that's nice.

*It might be intentional to add to the mystique, but I got a bit confused as to who 'I' am at times, like am I a separate person interfacing with Magellan and listening in, or am I actually Magellan? And is Magellan now the floaty white/green alien thingy? Not quite sure, but I'm sure it would become obvious over time.

*As said, I love figuring out how the machines work, but boy was I having a tough time figuring out how the offering machine works. I swear I'm following the instructions properly, but it wasn't clear whether clicking the center is how you confirm the offering or if it only flushes, whether I need to turn on and then off the pipes or just leave them on as I adjust intensity, and so on.

*I ended up playing the Steam version of this as the web version you've got here is wayyyy too tiny to be legible, especially when you're got all these post-processing effects distorting the text even further.

Consider this wishlisted, and I will attempt to spread the word as I know some other people who love this kinda stuff!

MeiaCalca responds:

Thanks for the lovely review! The feedback is very apreciated as well.

To answer your question about the offering puzzle, it works like a password, you need to input the correct combination of symbols at the correct intensity and then press the center button, if it glows red then you have typed in something incorrect, green means that you have attracted a sea creature to the observatory and blue means that you have already typed in that combination.

In terms of "who" you're playing as in the game, you will have to keep guessing

Thanks for playing and sharing the game!

[Faith in Despair - Demo]

Wow, this one really surprised me!

I'll admit that I wasn't quite fair to this game on first glance, as I sighed heavily when I saw that it was yet another roguelike deckbuilder to add to the mountain of others. But that makes it all the more impressive that it won me over in the end!

I think a big aspect that helped get me into it was just how well-crafted the interface and the tutorials were: everything just felt incredibly smooth to manipulate and intuitive to understand, and when there was ever anything that wasn't obvious at first glance, there was something to help me along, like the various tooltips, battle log, and subtle signals like the golden lines, as well as being able to slow down the game speed.

The mechanics were also very interesting and added a lot of strategic flair to the game. Having to wager whether it's worth damaging my despair to play another card, moving around the condition/effect orbs from my inventory or from other cards to build my up army with all sorts of cool effects, determining the best way to handle the enemy to keep their orb effects from firing off: that's just so much depth to this! I can't get over some aspects like how free you are to move orbs around, even from existing spell cards onto your creatures!

All that aside, the game also just had a really dark and hallowed vibe to it. Some fantastic work here!

muddasheep responds:

Thank you very much for your kind words! I'm glad you still gave the game a try and that it won you over in the end.

[Pigment]

Hey, not too shabby!

I'll admit that my first impression of this wasn't that great, as there is a lot of rough spots to this in terms of the movement, some mechanics not being explained that well, lack of effects like a death animation, lack of a save/load feature, and so on. Definitely felt like a 'my first game' project, or something done on a short time frame that wasn't quite finished or given a polishing phase.

But I stuck with it and was surprised to find a rather decent puzzle game! I liked the very creative color/paint-based mechanics you unlock, and while it starts off simple, the later puzzles get rather tricky in how they make you use 'em! All that, and the overall presentation gave off very cute and pleasant vibes.

indyot responds:

I appreciate the review! I saw your video, and I gotta say it feels so fulfilling to finally watch someone play the game. It was in fact my first game, and I did not expect this much attention. Thank you so much for playing my game!

[12 Vengeful Ghosts]

Hah, when I saw the title, I wasn't seriously expecting a 12 Angry Men reference, but lo and behold! It's quite the cute little SHMUP boss rush, and I enjoyed all the goofy dialogue and various attack patterns, so well done!

That being said, the bosses weren't exactly the most exciting or creative, pretty much encompassing what would be considered a basic starter pack of common bullet-hell patterns. It definitely feels like the story was doing the heavy lifting here as otherwise it would be considered rather simplistic, but then again, that's part of the magic behind game design, and it's not too shabby for being made in such a short time frame!

One little thing that stood out to me was the final boss. There's a part where he summons a blue ghost to help him, and considering the fact that the dialogue stated that there were two people who were blue, the player and the human, I thought it was a hostage situation and I was supposed to be careful and not shoot the blue ghost. Later on I realized that it wasn't the case: bit of a bummer because I actually thought that was a nice challenge and made me play very carefully with my shots to only hit the main boss!

DecadeDecaf responds:

totally agree with this description of "a basic starter pack of common bullet-hell patterns," and the game being more narrative-driven than gameplay-driven. i was definitely going for something more barebones and casual than your typical bullet hell, but hopefully that didn't alienate any diehard fans. thanks for trying out my game!

[The Toybox Collab]

Pretty neat art collab! I like the idea of using a crane game to snatch up all of the art pieces since it adds a little bit of fun interactive charm to otherwise flipping through a static gallery, and in general it feels like this is well-constructed with good presentation, menus, and some nice quality-of-life features like links to the artist profiles.

I'll admit, though, that I was a bit bummed out that the crane game is more like a gacha game, lacking any of the fun quirks and physicality you would typically get in a crane game like being able to see all of the toys packed in there, and the challenge of plucking out the one you want. Obviously I can understand that some concessions needed to be made in regards to how many art pieces are in the collab, mayhaps, but still!

As an addendum to the above, it can be quite monotonous and taxing to get all 200+ toys from the crane game when you need to slowly get them one-by-one. I wonder if some sort of cheat code could be allowed where you can just unlock the entire gallery immediately for your viewing pleasure, or maybe some other creative solution to speed up the process. Especially when it looks like it doesn't save progress when you leave: no way I can get them all in one go!

Creeperforce24 responds:

letsss goooo @Whimsical-wife we got a future cop! We might get famous!

[Slasher Click 2: The Tale of Magawa]

Hey, happy to see a sequel to Slasher Click! The game may not be a looker, but I enjoy the surprisingly deep combat strategy through clever use of terrain, range, debuffs and so on, as well as the addictive sense of progression where you're slowly building up not only your stats through leveling, but acquiring new pieces of gear and new moves to add to your arsenal.

I'm very happy with most of the changes that have been made in this. For example, having a visual indicator for the enemy attack cooldown, as well as other touches like the enemy circle turning red when you're in range, makes combat so much clearer to understand! Other small touches like enemies reacting when hit, new sounds, amusing dialogue, and so on, add some nice flair. Nice work!

It's solid stuff, but I still ran into some issues:

*There are some weird glitches, like how I lost to the griffin, but when I talked to the quest-giver, he treated it as if I had won and moved me onto the next quest. I would also have instances of enemy 'ghosts' that remain on your screen from zone to zone in the same position, but aren't really there.

*The way enemy respawns are treated is a bit odd. I'd expect them to only come back after resting or going to a totally different zone, but they seem to come back immediately upon any transition. This can lead to some cheese where you can walk back-and-forth on a transition until you get a combination of enemies you prefer, instead of having to deal with what you're given.

*Speaking of cheese above, as fun as the game is, it does feel like it's possible to cheese it by buying a ton of potions or grinding enough to overpower things. For some people this is fine, but I'd like it if the game was like a puzzle where you can't cheese it but need to figure out a strategy. Perhaps I'm wrong though and just haven't played it enough to get to the real hard stuff.

*The enemies shaking on hit can actually result in weird random instances where, if you're standing right outside their range, they shake into attack range briefly enough to suddenly get an attack off. Ideally, the shaking should purely be a cosmetic effect that doesn't actually affect their true position in the world.

*The notification bar overlaps with the menu button and leads to an annoying few seconds on every level up where you need to wait until it goes away for you to click on it.

*I didn't realize I could be moving with WASD this whole time! I kept using the mouse since I thought that was the only option.

*Maybe I'm just old, but I wish the font chosen for the game was a bit less 'fancy' to make it more readable.

Kwing responds:

Thanks!

I'm surprised you had the issue with the Griffin because I've died to a bunch of other bosses and never had this happen. If you poisoned it with Toxin it's possible you actually did kill it that way immediately before dying. Otherwise, I'm not sure what the issue is and no one else has had that happen.

EDIT: This has been fixed as of 2025.05.06a

The "ghost" enemy glitches and accidental respawns are an issue with Ruffle (as mentioned in the description.) Neither of these glitches happen in Flash Player and I've brought these bugs up to the Ruffle team to no avail.

Enemy respawn "cheese" is actually intentional, and this is actually encouraged in one of the cutscenes (if you talk to the NPC next to the ghost before killing the ghost, Magawa says you can leave an area and re-enter if an enemy is too hard - you can also do this to force rare enemy spawns for bestiary completion.)

Potions and grinding are an intentional way to bypass the difficulty in the game because I wanted people to finish the story (the tone becomes increasingly serious and introspective, especially once you reach the volcano.) I do like making games difficult and cheese-proof, but after years of making games that no one finishes, I decided a pity system was necessary for a game that was both long and had a story that I wanted people to experience in its entirety. Even after adding these features, medal metrics show only 36 of 799 users have beaten the game. As a judge you beat 0/5 bosses in the first game and 1/11 here, so from my perspective it's hardly beneficial to implement any change that makes completion of the main story more difficult.

I might consider some kind of achievement for completing the game with without potions or with some kind of stat cap, but as it stands I think I'm okay with this game being a bit more breakable than a game like Gloom: The Pyromancer (which has no qualms about annihilating you if you don't know every enemy inside and out.)

EDIT: As of May 12th, there are now difficulty settings in the main menu that make it increasingly difficult to brute force a completion of the game, in part by throttling the potion cap.

Noted on the enemy shaking; I made the shake effect apply to the actual enemy position instead of just the sprite as a matter of laziness and never bothered to fix it because the hitbox "glitch" seemed like too rare of an issue to bother with.

The notification bar can be dismissed by clicking on it, so you don't need to wait for it to disappear to click a button behind it.