FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Ordleway]

Bit mixed on this one. On one hand, it's a funny concept, and I feel like the interface you built is very smooth, professional and satisfying to interact with. But at the end of the day, I actually think the whole pig latin aspect just overcomplicates it and doesn't elevate it to be more fun or interesting than the original. Also frustrated that you can only do it once a day: why did you feel the need to lock it down like that instead of just letting me have fun! Due to all that, in an unfortunate twist, I feel like all this game did was just make me really interested in actual Wordle since I haven't played it yet, not Ordleway, haha! Still, a solid attempt!

ElanMakesGames responds:

Thanks for checking it out, and I appreciate the feedback! I made it limited to once a day so that players can come back each day for a new puzzle, and so that they can talk about a certain day's puzzle together.

[Acend]

Wow, this one really surprised me! First impression was a bit mixed: the title screen/main menu was definitely very cool and smooth with the way it swishes around and transitions to levels and other menus, but the simple graphics, stubby movement of the character, and lack of challenge made me a bit worried as it gave off the impression of a way too basic asset-flip game. However, as the game went on, I was impressed at how quickly it upped the pace and started introducing new mechanics and challenges, along with story elements like the rival character: turned what seemed like a boring game into something that kept me hooked! I also love the subtle, professional design touches here and there, like the way the camera slickly moves to frame the level, and how the sound for the jetpack peters out to clue the player in on the fact that it has limited fuel that peters out: very clever!

EDIT: Made it all the way through! The story was, uh, wacky with a bit of a nonsensical letdown ending if I were to be kind, but it was funny enough in that nonsense and it didn't hurt my experience because the gameplay itself just kept delivering more and more excellent powers, obstacles and setpieces, especially the boss fights! Again, well done with this: definitely a hidden gem!

GreenGoatGaming responds:

Thank you so much, I'm very excited for your next video!

[NG Tarot Card Collab]

Solid art collab! Love it when an art collab creatively displays the art in a unique way to hook viewers, and I think this did a great job! Presentation of the art felt great: loved the animations of the cards coming up and flipping around, and seeing little podchan react to it all. Loved the nice feedback of hovering around the cards and seeing/hearing them flip up: so satisfying to just brush the mouse over 'em, haha. All around super stuff here!

The only big demerit against it for me is that I was surprised that there were no links to the artist's profiles when you hover over their art or name (I know you can find them in the credits, but it'd just be so convenient if, when I see a cool piece of art, I could click on it right there to see the hot creator that made it). That and I felt like the 3-card tarot reading could maybe get put a bit more front-and-center and guide you through the cards you get, or maybe highlight the cards you got in the pile so you can read 'em and remember what you got without having to go back and get your reading done again.

Taka responds:

Hey future cop glad you like the Collab. I did blockhead. Looking forward to your video. Look out this pico day for my game. No bribes *slides dogecoin on the table*.

[Comet]

Hmm, this was a rough one for me. Initial impressions were very strong: I think the concept is cool and the graphics/music/sound and so on felt very polished and professional. Love the cool touches like how the glow of the comet gets closer and closer. I really wanted to love it based on how good it looks and feels to just move around and shoot stuff at a basic level, but the way the rules of the game are designed brings it down, I think.

It just feels way too passive and up to random chance as to whether you can progress: all you can do is wait for pieces to fall down and then break them, hoping you get an orb from them instead of a slime. I would've loved if I could have more of a hand in creating pieces by shooting at the comet to have them come down faster or something, but all I can do is wait. Just didn't feel challenging or tense at all, as it was very easy to dodge the rocks coming down and the occasional flies that would come around were way too easy to dispatch. And then even when you get enough orbs to power the cannon to fire back, it doesn't feel satisfying: all that happens is it fires up and the bar fills up a bit with no satisfying flash or explosion or feedback of any sort to make you feel like you're fighting back.

I definitely think this has some solid and professional construction to it, but the game itself just didn't keep me hooked or excited. This one wasn't for me, but I'm looking forward to seeing what else you come out with in future as this looked like it had a lot of promise and technical know-how!

EduSilvArt responds:

Thank you so much for the nice feedback! I keep making those small games in order to develop myself as I'm very amateur to gamedev. This one I made for Ludum Dare, after the jam I kept updating to make the game cool enough until I realised... the game isn't that cool. No matter what I do I don't think it could get that much fun, I could add lots of visuals feedback, new machanics and such but to make the game fun as a whole I would've to redo everything so I decided to just let it like that and move for my next projects. I learned a lot with it tho and I hope I can make some good games in the future!

[VOLTARMS]

Hmm, bit mixed on this one. I think it does have some cool stuff going for it. I didn't get enough into it, but it did seem to have a bit of a story going for it, and the combat did have some flashy moves and slight tactical options to it: most importantly to me it seemed like the enemies had 'tells' for when they would attack, allowing you the opportunity to cleverly notice the tell and get your defense move ready, similar to a Super Mario RPG game, which are a favorite of mine.

Unfortunately, I felt like in most respects, this feels like a repeat, but instead of being an improved sequel, it actually was a bit of a step down from your other games, like Arcane Maiden. At least in that, from what I remember, there was some slight strategy in moves where you need to decide whether to go for damage, or go for a status debuff like slow, or heal, and other type of stuff, depending on the situation. In this, it seems like all you could do was attack, or rather wait a long time to charge up and then attack. The waiting to charge up could be an interesting strategy element, similar to the Bravely Default system where you need to decide whether its worth the risk to blow all your turns and not suffer repercussions, but in this game it feels like the only thing to do is charge as the benefits are too great to ignore, making it not an option at all. While the fancy animations are cool at first, they get kinda boring when it's literally all you can do, over and over.

There is the chance that perhaps I'm missing something: maybe the game really opens up in terms of strategy later on in some way, or maybe I missed something because the game frontload dump a lot of information on you right at the start without being able to see examples in action. But for me, that game didn't hook me long enough to want to get to that stage. I can understand if it's just not for me: might be the type of game where you're just suppose to grind and level up past problems, instead of employing tactics or reactions. Still, seems like it has a lot of potential and from your previous games, I feel like you can definitely get something going here.

MidNightMaren responds:

Arcane Maiden was designed to be a full throttle game from the get go; it was designed for several years, thought out skill sets and balanced between countless hours of testing. A full paper notebook I still have to this day is scribbled with damage equations, descriptions, menu designs, level layouts etc. It was a shelfed game until Flash Jam was a thing.

Sure, you look at this game and it seems a downgraded version of it. But it was supposed to be a completely different thing and evaluated as such. The dungeon crawler aspect of it is carbon copy, but the game mechanics are much different. This is much more of a hack n' slash type of thing, where you make different combinations and enjoy the flashy visuals.

It´s much simpler and repetitive regardless, I was aware of it from the sketch phase of the game, so I tried to spice it up as much as I could with aesthetics, animation, music, sfx and even a full plotline and world building.
Believe it or not I included the Defense action on the enemy's turn because of your input on Arcane Maiden from your youtube video on the monthly winners from last year; Mario RPG style.

A lot could be done to improve this, but I'm short on hands and time so what you see is what you get. It's always an amazing experience to be able to work on Flash games for fun again, and interactions like this it's what this is all about.

P.S. Your entry is super clever and fun to play. Good job!

[My First KAMIKAZE]

Bit of mixed feelings on this one! For the most part, it is a rather cute and amusing game which, while not having the best first impression in the way that its a bit overly simple and crude in terms of graphics and mechanics, it does pick up the pace in the later levels with some interesting challenges and variety. Also, I did like the little touches the game had, such as the amusing way the bird would react when the rocket would get close. Cute stuff!

Unfortunately, I did find myself that, the longer I played it, the longer I didn't want to play it again because of the life system and the fact that you need to start all over. I understand what you're getting at with the way it is designed, where you fight to see how long you can last until you run out of lives, but I wish the game was just a standard level progression with no lives or anything like that. Basically I'd like to just be able to go through all the levels and continue where I left off without needing to worry about starting all over and going through all the boring no-challenge early levels to get back to the good challenging stuff at the end. Perhaps I'm wrong in wishing for this as it might make it too easy, I dunno.

Apart from that, there were also some other minor nitpicks like how I felt the spaceship was a little too simple (I really expected it to have more analog turning controls instead of angle snapping, though I guess that wouldn't work with the cramped levels) and that I felt you should say that you are able to hold the jump button when you hit the springs to jump high (the controls say press which implies you have to time it, which you don't have to luckily since the game is nice).

CubePunks responds:

I tried making the rockets work like they did in Asteroids but it was more difficult than fun, after further testing the simple snapping was the best solution.

The tutorial text is written the way it was because originally the Mario styled “timing the jump button to get the bounce”. Even after widening the margin of error people were still getting frustrated with it so I changed it to hold (read old reviews it’s pretty much what all of them were talking about). I may get around to changing the wording in a patch.

I have plans on making a deluxe version that adds additional features and difficulties. I may add a casual mode that gives you infinite lives but also won’t submit to a leaderboard.

I did the shotgun level challenge approach because I assumed the audience playing would prefer a more hardcore experience. I wanted to make a game that encourages speed running, making it more than just another simple indi platformer. Also for this beginning faze of my game dev process, im trying to build more arcade styled experiences before moving onto something with a larger scope. better to experiment with the medium while I develop my skills, before committing to something that’s more expansive. I’d be surprised if I make anything more complicated than the original Alien Homined NG game before 2023.

[NG: Zero Hour Lite]

A little bit conflicted on this one! For the most part, it is serviceable, but pretty lacking in some areas to make a great shooter. First and foremost, the enemies were really lackluster in AI (most can be easily beaten by standing below them and shooting upwards), way too damage-spongy, and devoid of satisfying audio/visual hit feedback or death explosions. I also really wish it had some extra buttons to lock aiming/movement as most modern (like Cuphead) or even old-school (like Hard Corps) shooters do to help the awkwardness of traditional movement/aiming being tied to each other. Game just also had a general sense of jankiness and weird confusing comedy to it all. I'd say it is an ok prototype that can be worked off of.

Now obviously, the caveat of this all is that the game is an April Fools, and probably not representative of what the final product is going to be. So yes, my feedback is probably useless and it's just a big joke I'm not supposed to take seriously. "Haha, we made the bad game, but we made it on purpose, so jokes on you!" That's one way to put it, but at the end of the day, irony and all that aside, you still made a bad game, so I'd prefer you just make a good game instead in the first place (well, I wouldn't say it's BAD per se, just lacking given the legacy behind it). But on the other hand, maybe I am being too serious and you're allowed to do whatever.

Nonetheless, at the end of the day, I am looking forward to Newgrounds Zero Hour, so best of luck! I love me some boss fights and I love me some bullet hell, so I'm hoping it delivers that goodness!

[Bird On Bird]

Interesting game! Feels well put-together in all aspects with a funny concept, interesting mechanics, and a nice world to get through that provides a lot of mystique with its alternate paths that make you want to go back later once you pick up enough feathers or abilities. Love the polish in that everything feels very smooth, bouncy and animated, with fun little events like the chickens calling you a traitor randomly. Definitely kept me hooked and wanting to see what the new levels brought up next. There were a few times where I got a little confused, like learning the 'stop flying' mechanic has you have to hold the button instead of just press it (I swear there were some strange times where a bird would stop flying without my input as if they got tired, while others would keep flying forever?), and there were some frustration at some obstacles where it feels like you just have to die to see it coming in the first place and just how short your jump is, but overall was solid.

Starblinky responds:

Appreciate the feedback and honesty!

:)

[Bandit RIP [BETA]]

I like what the game is going for, but it's in a pretty rough state at the moment. I know that might be obvious since it's labeled as a beta, but it's because of that I don't want to pull punches since I want this game to get built up into something great. I'll try to just hit on the important stuff to keep it as short as I can.

The controls felt very frustrating and confusing to deal with. Having something as simple as dropping down a platform requiring you to press three keys simultaneously felt pretty crazy considering that most games require you to just press down. Blocking as well had you do a crazy combination of buttons, and getting used to doing those buttons in the heat of battle is nuts. Speaking of blocking, I know you make them press three keys to drop down because block shares buttons and you want them to be able to block without dropping down, but in that case, why didn't you just make block a separate button, like holding F, so it's not an issue in the first place?

Even once you do accept the controls for what the mess they are, the precision required felt very frustrating: there's no input buffering so I found myself dropping combos constantly because the timing required was too tight that even mashing didn't help. Some fighting games do look for you to require precision, but I feel like a party game like this should opt for buffering to reduce the skill floor. Finally, I didn't like having to deal with so many cooldowns on abilities: I don't know why they existed since it slows everything down and it was difficult to tell when you were on cooldowns since you have to look at the way down in the corner (maybe play a sound or flash red or something if you attempt to use an ability on cooldown).

The game is also very dry at the moment. While you do have some slight special effects here and there, like puffs of smoke for running and fancy attack animations, there are no sounds or impact to it all. When fighting, it's very unclear whether you hit or get hit because there's no feedback like a sound or a spark or something: just feels like everything is punching at the air. All in all, it just leads to the game feeling very muted and unsatisfying.

I'd like to say that, despite my criticism, I still think it's very impressive that you created a multiplayer online game: lord knows I wouldn't do that since I don't want to deal with that level of complexity. And while I do think it's impressive you put that together, I still found it very janky. I had plenty of times where I tried to play only to go into some dark void softlock where I could never spawn, or if I did actually get in a game, we would just have out attacks phasing through each other without getting hit (though again, this could just be due to the game having very bad feedback/controls and not necessarily a network issue, it's unclear).

Again, I do think the game is interesting as a concept: you got a lot of potentially cool characters and I love a multiplayer brawler. But it's just very rough and I hope the feedback I provided can help you polish it up.

Zetoman77 responds:

Hi. thank you for your long feedback!
The game is indeed in beta, so things will certainly change, especially the lack of sound effects (which I have tried to add but failed miserably) or more animations. The online play is really what I am trying to make sure works for everyone. It seems like it doesn't work well for you, is it a server in a EU or Asia that is laggy? If possible, could you let me know xD

It seems like ASD to drop down is the major control issue, as suggested by others as well. I will add the option to double down to go down. I think that would fix the issue xD It is fortunate that blocking and going down platforms are generally not really needed that much so i still have time to fix it xD

For the precision, it is actually extremely easy, if one holds down the left click to attack. To me it has always felt intuitive to hold down to spam attacks/shoot, but I have also noticed that it isn't always the case. So the buffering is there, and I made it clearer in the in-game tutorial. I see less players in game clicking one by one. I will try to make it clearer!

So every character's first attack is super spammable. and a secondary that is often stronger and with higher cooldown. The thematic usually works well except for pico where his usual weapons are the uzi so players might want to spam the uzis, but end up not being able to. I will try to fix that in the next update as well xD

Thank u for the feedback xD

[Tenko's Magical Sword Quest]

Pretty neat game! Fun, flashy, fast and challenging gameplay: all-around seems well put-together. Loved the little touches like the way the power-ups swoosh up to the bar (as it both looks cool and subtly lets you know what the power-ups do) and the randomly varied noises for jumps and such (to avoid audio fatigue).

If I were to have any complaints, it would be:
*Game dedicates way too many levels at the start with boring layouts where springs and spikes were the only new obstacles. It was only once like 10 levels went by where the pace picked up and started introducing tons of new stuff at a rapid pace: moving platforms, lava races, sawblades, guns, etc. I would slightly push more of those new obstacles back to the early levels to keep the player hooked as I could see some people dropping off due to early boredom.
*The noise for movement should probably only happen when doing major movement: was silly to hear a big WHOOSH sound when I'm just tapping the character to adjust myself a centimeter.
*Didn't like how some of the obstacles were these off-screen traps that you only know how to dodge once you've died to them before: feels unfair and annoying.
*Springs result in your gravity distorting in a weird way where you float down too slowly.
*Was curious on whether the energy bar should just deplete over time instead of only on movement to push the player to move fast and not wait around. Maybe having it the way you do is best though, where you can have some people focus on just beating the level while others race for records. I think the game works best when you force them to race though, and in fact I think you should die if you run out of energy instead of just...nothing happening? But that's me.
*I also think it's too forgiving with checkpoints, as I think the levels are short enough where checkpoints aren't needed at all. Basically I want this game to be fun and challenging, but right now it's so forgiving with you not dying on energy loss, not losing energy by standing around, and having checkpoints everywhere, that it's too easy to just not be stylish and fast at all. Why bother trying when there is no punishment?
*Didn't like how you had controller input, but for some reason force the controllers to use a virtual mouse cursor.
*Bit confused on the ranking system: felt like I just got random congratulatory messages no matter what I did: good or bad. I'd like to get more fanfare if I do well have them catalogued so I can go back and redo levels I didn't do well.

Anyway, I know that's a lot of negative feedback, but it's still a solid game. Well done!

LVGames responds:

Try level 15 in Pro Mode and let me know what you think about that idea. Also thank you for the other feedback I will look into it. For the gamepad cursor I was going for the Super Smash Bro. That's how they have it for gamepad. You know for the swoosh sound I got so used to it I didn't notice it as much. I think it needs some looking into as well.
You can cancel the float by pressing down to cancel the gravity.
On the ranking system it will make more since on the next update. But overall thank you again for this review. It's good to hear what awesome players like yourself think about my game for playing it for the first time.