FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[DON'T FLIP THE DOOM CARD]

Hey, this was great! Not only is this a very fun twist on the classic memory card game with the introduction of doom cards, but the game overall has an incredibly polished construction to it, feeling very intuitive and smooth, and with an especially charming presentation, what with its whole stylish windows 95? 98? aesthetic.

One subtle aspect that I think was done very well was the length of sessions. A lot of these types of arcade games, while fun, can overstay their welcome, turning repetitive from endlessly looping play that only ends when you eventually get bored and quit. With this however, right when I thought I was getting a tiny bit bored and considering quitting, it signaled to me that it was already the last level, which made me push forward and finish strong. It was then that the game introduced the extra modes, which immediately made me want to give them a go! Excellent pacing! A game that has the discipline to leave you hungry for more instead of stuffing you full is great.

One aspect that I found a bit confusing when playing was the whole card previewing when you select a card. I assumed it would show me the neighbors, but I could never figure out why other seemingly random cards were being shown as well. It's true that it technically explains that it also flips cards across in the instructions, but all I could remember was the picture in the instructions which only showed neighbors, so can you blame me for being a bit confused? Anyway, it didn't really get in the way of my enjoyment: just something that puzzled me for a bit!

tonyfinale responds:

always satisfying seein your big reviews on things. thanks as ever man <3

[Painter Blazer]

Hey, this is a pretty cute adventure! The gameplay gives me old-school arcade vibes both with its general presentation as well as its gameplay, which I'm a big fan of. There's also a lot of charm to this: for example, I love the cartoony aesthetics with the amusing effects for your actions like 'hop' and 'zoom' for jumping and dashing. Furthermore, it also does a lot of things to make the journey stay fresh and interesting, such as new worlds with unique mechanics, cool boss fights, and fun story cutscenes, all of which were a definite highlight for me. Nice stuff!

There were a few bumps in the road that I encountered, though:

*I found it really weird that the tutorial character gives you instructions based on the alternative control scheme (JKL) when I had the default control scheme (ZXC) selected. Perhaps it is hard-coded instead of dynamic text?

*First impressions were a bit rough due to aspects like the jump being so wimpy which made certain jumps so annoying to pull off, and the lack of any sort of interesting scoring system or tricks to pull off like combos or chains. Just has a bit of a slow start which it makes up for later as it introduces boss fights and some interesting levels and mechanics, like the balloon puzzle level.

*First impressions were further diminished when I fell down a pit and...didn't die? I was stuck with no way out and had to reset the game, causing me to have to redo a bunch of levels I already completed (including the tutorial all over again!) Quite frustrating!

*There were coins to collect, but I'm not sure what purpose they served: it didn't seem worth it to collect them since they almost all required you to have to make awkward jumps that would set you far back, having to climb back up to where you were before, wasting a lot of time.

It's a bit rough and awkward in some respects, but overall its charm won me over and made me want to keep going further, and I was impressed at how it kept evolving!

GGishere responds:

the alternate control scheme was the only control scheme before it was updated (idk why either aapi is weird with keyboards)

the coins are just for achievements for getting all of them per world

[The Supernatural Power Troll]

Huh, quite the interesting game! It certainly has a very humorous vibe to it, especially in regards to the intro and other cinematics, and has some neat experimental stuff like the generated dialogue for NPCs which react to seeing a troll, eating food, and all sorts of other events. The levels have a lot of variation to them as well and were fun to puzzle through, with the intermissions serving as a nice motivating factor. Some stand-out moments include the Medusa fight: that was really cool to lure humans into the beam with food and then throw them for damage!

It's nice, but there were a lot of rough aspects that got in the way:

*The game says you can use the arrow keys to move around, but they actually don't work, and you can only move with WASD.

*As humorous as the intro is, it was incredibly indulgent in how long it took to let me play the damn game. Could stand for some editing.

*I don't understand how the power-ups work. I keep finding these things for super-jumps and shrinking and so on, but all I can do is throw them at enemies to give them the powers when I would prefer to benefit from them myself instead. Is it just impossible to use them on yourself?

*What's up with the ads coming up when you die? Just feels really out of place and gross in a game like this.

*Had some weird bugs like how trying to quit to the main menu would just keep darkening the screen and not actually quit.

*I dunno how helpful this is, but something about the game just feels kinda...off. Like, the levels almost give this kinda vibe where they are something like you'd see in Mosa Lina where it's a puzzler with the freedom to solve issues in multiple ways, yet all of the power-ups scattered around seem like unhelpful red herrings that I don't know how to use and the solution usually just boils down to throwing food at humans to distract them. Either that or the solution is too hard-coded and doesn't allow freedom, like needing to throw the jump powerup to get the human to jump over the snail with no other way to proceed.

*In addition to the above, the game just feels really janky at times with weird collision and physics. For example, there's an area in the medusa fight where you fall slowly for no reason at all: what the heck is going on there? If you jump or go off a platform in other parts of the room, you fall at a normal speed. I just get the feeling that the game is barely holding itself together, and this screwed me over with unfair deaths at times.

Overall, the game just has a very weird, janky and experimental vibe in many respects: in some ways it's amusing and I like it, and in other ways it throws me off with how unintuitive it is. I can see this being a bit of a divisive one!

jacklehamster responds:

The powerups are only meant for humans. That's really the premise of the game, where the troll can't use powerups but can only grant them to humans. Most levels are designed with powerups in mind, though there might be multiple solutions. Towards the end, you pretty much have to use all powerups to solve levels.
I run into issues with physics. It was the first time I worked with Phaser, so I haven't gotten everything figured out...

[Pico & Schmuck Save Tankmas]

Hey, this was a pretty neat cartoon! The voice actors are fantastic, the script is humorous, the concept uses the background lore well: all in all, funny stuff! It's also nice that it has skip functionality to make replays easy to do for achievement hunting.

In terms of feedback:

*Would be nice if this had subtitles: it can be really difficult to tell what Dr. Schmuck is saying at times! A volume control option for music/voices could be nice too.

*Not to split hairs or be some sort of rules lawyer, but if I have to be honest, this doesn't feel much like a game to me: it's very short yet so much of this 'game' is completely non-interactive with so much rambling before you even get to any sort of choice, and all it has is a few choices which all just lead to instant game-overs instead of interesting branches.

*So much of the script was just Dr. Schmuck rambling on and on and it got so annoying to listen to him. I mean, props to the voice actor for getting into the role, but uh, maybe they sold it too well? Take that as a compliment, haha.

PukeBomb responds:

Appreciate the feedback. This was all intended to be a part of a larger project; which if fully fleshed out, would've been probably a bit more fitting to your taste. But, since it was relatively dropped, we did it in our own way and didn't waste the effort that went into it up to that point. Then had to slap on some somewhat odd "storytelling" to make it somewhat fit together. We were given a short time frame and rushed, then it went nowhere, so then we had to release quickly to maintain relevance during the holidays.

[Get in Santa's Pants 3: Knickerless for St. Nicholas]

Hey, it's wonderful to see a new episode of this! As always, this game delivers a wonderful adventure filled with wonderful art, tricky puzzles, and most of all, very humorous dialogue that is just overstuffed with double entendres. I swear, my humor immediately reverts to that of a horny teenager after playing this game, giggling at every potentially naughty word, haha!

Very interesting to see such an evolution of the game system, moving out of the old Pico-8 setup! While I don't think every change has worked out for me (which I'll go into below) I still find it fascinating to witness and applaud the sense of experimentation. I may have liked the pixel graphics before, but it's nice to see your art style more directly implemented!

I gotta admit though, that if I'm being honest, this is my least favorite entry in the series so far. I still think it's a nice game overall, don't get me wrong, but I had a rough time enjoying it:

*I liked the old games for how much they cut to the chase, being so gameplay focused and with tight, sharp scripts. In contrast, this game is so wordy and indulgent, taking so much time to setup and delivering scene after scene interrupting gameplay, yet still leaving critical elements like your primary objectives vague (well, beyond the obvious objective). Perhaps this is a case where you over-indulged yourself with all the open space you've gotten after leaving Pico-8's strict memory limitations?

*While the new graphics are very nice, the world design was rough to get used to. Everything just felt so claustrophobic and cramped, and that weird visual effect when you're rotating within a room was just nauseating. It also feels like you're moving too fast and the animations for moving are oddly stiff.

*It really feels like the vibes and humor have shifted from goofy, light-hearted horniness to being much more crass, dark, and just plain gross, and I'm not that much of a fan of it.

*Perhaps I'm misremembering or misinterpreting stuff, but I feel like the triggers for events to move forward is bugged, or at least very illogical at times. I swear there were times where, for example, I gathered up all the underwear, but I wasn't able to turn it in until I quit the game from frustration and came back later, only for it to suddenly work. Similarly, I wasn't able to inform the guy about the goose until other stuff happened first, I guess? I really don't know.

*Similar to the above, the logic and direction of the game just felt bizarre, and most of the time I'd be hopelessly lost where it felt like all I could do was just keep clicking on stuff randomly and hope for the best, looping through all objects and people over and over and over until something completely out of nowhere happens that makes no sense and somehow moves things forward.

*There's a weird text glitch going on where every sentence break, or perhaps every ellipse, is rendered with some invalid characters and the paragraph break symbol, something like this: A◆¶

*While it's very cute that music plays whenever you move, it's driving me nuts how the music keeps resetting to the very start whenever you stop and start, instead of continuing from where it left off. Makes me feel like I need to keep moving so I don't drive myself insane from hearing the same second of music loop over and over and over and over!

Again, despite all the negative feedback, it's still a nice game overall, and I applaud trying out a new thing. I wouldn't put it on the naughty list, but maybe just a slap on the wrist!

Louistrations responds:

Aw, thank you for taking the time for the write-up!

Thankfully, nearly all of this is already addressed in my big QoL update. I probably should have delayed another year, but in all honesty, I'm so burnt out from working on Christmas stuff all year, every year. So please forgive me for that! XD

The whole concept was to create a darker Victorian-based visual novel, so I don't know what to do about the many many "too much reading" complaints. In hindsight, I should have disassociated it entirely from the Pico-8 games. Newgrounds seems to barely differentiate the different game categories.

[SYNTAXIA]

Whoa, this is looking to be pretty cool! Reminds me a lot of games like Lone Survivor or Eternal Darkness, at least a bit. There wasn't quite enough gameplay to really hook me on the depths of the systems and how they will evolve, but the game feels quite polished and high-quality overall, has a very intriguing and creepy world, and it plays with some neat mind-bending concepts, what with warping the world with the power of words to solve puzzles. I think it's shaping up to be something very interesting, so well done!

I think my gameplay was pretty smooth and intuitive without any major issues apart from not realizing I had to click on items to equip them before use, but that was naught but a few seconds of confusion. Otherwise you had my attention the whole way through, so yeah, no major feedback I can think of at the moment, apart from some little thoughts:

*I found it interesting that, considering it's such a creepy game, it also has some humorous dialogue and cute art. I wonder if it's truly going for a 'cozy horror' vibe like it says, or if it's just doing it to let your guard down before it scares the living daylights out of the player, haha.

*I was curious about that 'recent nightmares' warning at the start: is that supposed to be a subtle fourth-wall breaking trigger warning for the player, or is it just supposed to be a weird in-universe thing?

CANCAT-Games responds:

So for your first question: Its mostly just me having fun with the world and the player, while additionaly having the effect of having you put your guard down, hehe

Second question: Yes, right now its just an in-universe thing. However I do have plans on expanding on it more.

Anyways, thank you for your detailed response! If you'd like to chat more you should join our discord :]

[timmy christmas]

Hah, quite the amusing adventure! I may try to be all intellectual when reviewing games, so you'd think I'd bounce off of something as goofy and low-effort looking as this, but I enjoyed all the twists and turns this wild ride took me on! For something that looks low-effort, I actually found a lot of the game smartly designed with some subtle details you might not even notice, like the great sound design that accounts for distance, leading to nice doppler effects. The platforming also got surprisingly challenging as well, which pleased me! Mery Chriskmas (or however you spelled it) to you as well!

StaggerNight responds:

Merry Christmas FutureCop!!!!

[Pizza Kidd - NEW DEMO! 🍕🔥]

Hey, nice to see this pop up again! I'm a big fan of beat-em-ups and I'm glad to see this chugging along and with a lot improved from the previous version! In particular, the visuals are stylish, hitting enemies feels nice and chunky thanks to the sound effects and hitstop, there's a decently strategic moveset you can use to crowd-control or style on enemies with juggles, throws, parries and so on!

That being said, as a fan of a beat-em-ups, I can be tough to please, and there are still a lot of rough aspects to this game that got in the way of my enjoyment. Here's some feedback in regards to that:

*Controls felt really unresponsive and finicky at times. I'd dash when I was just trying to walk because the double-tap buffer is too generous, I'd grab someone when I didn't mean to or not grab someone when I felt I should've been able to, parries would come out when I didn't time it properly at all, my character would take forever transitioning between a grab-kick and a throw, and other oddities.

*While it's fun to punch the standard enemies and the bosses, I really hated the other enemies like the bats, slime, and mini-bots. You can't hit the bats without being hit back, and the slime and mini-bots explode on-hit or on-death. Why do they exist? They just seem built to annoy and I would prefer them removed from the game altogether.

*Enemy AI could be really glitched and act weird, getting stuck in the air or getting a punch off despite being interrupted and so on. In particular, the boss would be doing his spinning psycho crushed and suddenly freeze in one place but keep spinning, becoming almost untouchable until he eventually resets himself.

*Game didn't play the music properly when I first tried the level, only playing it on a retry?

*The controls menu text is impossible to read if you use a controller because the text starts overlapping: consider using symbols/images for the buttons instead of full words to help with spacing.

*There are some minor graphical issues like the enemy shadows floating in midair that doesn't make sense based on what the background looks like.

*I couldn't figure out some of the moves. For example, if you're holding block and then press a direction, I thought you would evade, but that requires pressing the jump button as well which seems needlessly complicated. Instead, if you do those buttons, you sometimes shift your stance or do a mini-dash or something: dunno what's going on there, some sorta parry dash or something?

I hope you keep on chugging along with this! It may be kinda unpolished and janky, but it's certainly got potential and I'm always down for a new beat-em-up!

PizzaKiddo responds:

Hey… Thanks again for jumping back in and giving us such thorough feedback—it really means a lot! We’re stoked to hear that you were at least digging the visuals, the impact sfx, and the expanded moveset. That chunky, strategic combat vibe is exactly what we’re going for, so it’s awesome to hear it’s resonating a bit!

We hear you loud and clear on the areas that need improvement. The controls will receive further polish—we’ll be tweaking things like the dash sensitivity, grab mechanics, and parry timing to make everything feel smoother. As for the bats, slimes, and mini-bots, we’ll revisit those to make sure they feel challenging in a fun way rather than just frustrating.

The AI glitches, music issues, and overlapping text (UI/UX) are definitely on our radar, and we’re working on revisions for those too. And your point about some moves being tricky to figure out is fair—we’ll look at simplifying with single button input assignments (rebinds and customization) and adding better explanations to make everything more intuitive.

One thing we’re curious about—what kind of setup were you playing on? We’ve seen some controller input lag or browser issues depending on the system, which might explain some of the unresponsiveness you noticed. Not sure… If you’re up for it, we’d love for you to try the Steam version at some point to see if the controller experience feels better for you.

Again, your feedback is appreciated… seriously. Thanks for sticking with us through the rougher edges—it’s players like you who help us to make the game the best it can be. If you ever want to jump back into a future build, we’d love to hear your thoughts!

—
PK Team 👊🍕

[Battle Plan: Jester's Knife Demo]

Hey, this is a pretty impressive demo you got here! Overall it feels like high-quality stuff all-around, what with its charming cartoony visuals, polished gameplay, juicy and flavorful interactions and cool puzzles with loads of mechanics that are intuitively taught to the player! I had a grand ol' time and got quite addicted to making my way through this adventure!

One particular puzzle really blew me away where you have to construct an infinite loop for a bullet to keep hitting a switch so you can make it through multiple doors in sequence. It was quite the difficulty spike and required some dexterity since you need to slip the mirrors in place while the bullet is traveling, but boy did I feel smart doing it!

In the interest of providing feedback to help this game grow:

*I'm not quite sure what that train station room was all about? There's a cow floating in space and you can find something in the crates, but I dunno if that was important or some sort of bonus collectable? Don't get me wrong, I love me some bonus levels like Celeste's strawberries, but I just didn't know what was happening here.

*The ice floor really looks more like a spike floor: maybe the design can be changed to be more recognizable at a glance?

*There are these soda machines where you can get hydrated: unsure if that is actually powering up your character or is just added flavor to the environmental interactions that doesn't have an actual effect on the player.

*Maybe it's my fault for not playing on full-screen, but the game seems super tiny overall with the characters being the size of ants. It's not bad, but sometimes I feel guilty seeing all these great animations but not being able to see them up close in detail!

*As mentioned above, that puzzle where you need to set up an infinite loop was a crazy difficulty spike! I liked it, but man, it really came outta left field and could scare some people off! Then again, maybe there was an easier way to do it and I just wasn't seeing it...

*Unfortunately, I took a break and came back disappointed since the game didn't save my progress! I was looking forward to seeing what else was on offer, if anything, but I don't want to have to re-do everything to see.

Best of luck on further development: I think you've got something great here!

GoudaGames responds:

Hey!

Thank you so much for all the great feedback! We loved watching you play the demo and it was super insightful. We're already working on some fixes.

Regarding saving, the game has auto-save, but in the web version it won't work if you close the tab or refresh. You have to exit adventure mode first.

Big thanks once again! We hope you give the demo another chance and get to see the battle mechanic and final boss.

[204Snake!]

Wow, this puzzle game really surprised me and took me for quite the ride!

I'll admit that it didn't have the greatest first impression. For example, the title screen feels very lackluster, and I was stuck on level 2 for an embarrassing amount of time since I didn't notice the new tutorial prompt about moving the critters: my brain just saw the arrow key instructions and assumed it was just refreshing me about moving my character around.

But once I got into the game proper, I was blown away! The puzzle mechanics were very unique and mind-bending to me where you need to manage both your snake and the critters sliding around, and the game gets into some challenging puzzles almost immediately instead of being content to baby you. There's loads of content which slowly increases the difficulty with new mechanics, and the game actually has decent presentation quality with nice subtle effects like the critters shaking right before you eat them.

There are still some other slight issues like how there isn't an obvious way to go back to the main menu to select another level, like if you want to skip the world 1 bonus levels to go straight to world 2. But overall, this was a cool experience and very impressive for a game jam game!

Sodoj responds:

heyo,

you can press the 'P' key to bring up the options menu that also lets you get back to the title screen.

good luck with the rest of the game, if you ever decide to return to it!