FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Prism Indigo]

Pretty decent shooter! It has a bit of a slow start and is a bit overall lowkey, but once you get to the boss fights and the later sections, it becomes a decent bullet-hell game with some fun patterns to contend with. I like how it has a whole story element to it which is even subtly introduced in the tutorial section as a way to hook you in. It's not gonna rock my world or anything as nothing really blows me away, but it's alright and I had a decent time for the most part.

Part of what really hurts it for me is that it is a little dry in terms of pizazz: it's not bad, per se, and the boss fights and interesting patterns do jazz it up considerably, but it is a little underwhelming in terms of special effects, and the bullet-sponge boss fights combined with sometimes too easy to dodge patterns and drab non-boss fight sections enhance the monotony unfortunately. There's also some awkward stuff like the magnetic attraction of pick-ups acts very oddly and causes them to fly past me sometimes instead of homing in properly. Finally, perhaps it may not be a long game, but I was really disappointed there was no continue option: I came back to finish it off after a break and saw I had to start all over: killed my motivation. That being said, I do still want to see if I can come back and finish this in order to see the end of the story!

F1Krazy responds:

I'm glad you enjoyed it! I always try to make sure that my games have that kind of story aspect to them, so I'm especially glad that that appealed to you.

I'm currently working on an update that should spice up some of the earlier levels and smooth out the difficulty of the bosses so that they aren't so easy to cheese. I'd like to address some of the other issues, like the lack of visual punch, but I'm yet to decide whether I'll do that in this game or save it for the sequel.

[The Ferryman]

Oh man, this is a really rough one for me.

The game absolutely started out fantastic for me: love the way it builds up a sense of dread and this dreary, gloomy atmosphere through its spooky soundscape, artistic graphics, light-based mechanics, and weird cast of characters. I was so looking forward to how the game escalates and introduces new horrors into this seemingly mundane job.

But then as early as the second level, it threw out everything it built up out the window: all the subtlety and intrigue, gone, as it just blasts you with a horde of never-ending ghouls that munch away at your boat non-stop. You'd think it would tease you with only a single ghoul, or maybe a few ghouls appearing at first, maybe so few that you're not even sure if it was your imagination, the light playing tricks on you, as you repair the holes left behind. I was so scared to carry coal and buckets around since I thought in doing so, the diminished light would open me up to attack from ghouls. But nope! My fears were unwarranted as the ghouls did nothing but constantly munch at the hull with no threat towards me: suddenly what was once scary becomes nothing more than a common pest, a roach I swish away with a broom as I dash madly around patching my boat and bailing out water. A spooky game no more, now just a weird task-juggling game.

Beyond just the annoyance at the spookiness being ruined, I also feel like the difficulty spikes way too hard as early as level two because of the sudden onslaught of ghouls. Although it could be just that the game doesn't communicate its mechanics well. While I can assume that the holes fill up the boat with water, I was never sure if that was the case because the holes did not drip water or anything like that. Likewise, I kept trying to empty the boat of water by picking up the water buckets below deck, carrying them topside and and throwing them overboard, but that never seemed to do anything (only once I ignored bailing water and just focused on patching holes did the water level seem to decrease, which didn't make any sense).

I'm still giving it a good score because despite my gripes, I do find the game's atmosphere, charm, and intrigue very appealing (not to mention you do have a save/load system). I'm hoping I can continue to play and maybe find something to change my mind for the better.

EDIT: Once I did get used to it and accept the game for what it was, I had a pretty good time! It was still a little frustrating and repetitive at times, and I do still feel it missed a trick, but overall, a very cool experience! And yes, it is impressive it was made in such minimal time, haha!

crelish responds:

....made in... 5 days.............

[Cursed Travels: Below the Factory]

Another solid entry in the Cursed Travels series! This is only my second entry played after Flame of the Banshee, but I find myself enjoying going through the puzzles and seeing all this lore being built up. Once again, I really love the kind of La-Mulana/Simon's Quest vibe it has to it that makes it fun to explore and solve the brain-teasers. Game really gets me addicted due to the rapid-fire introduction and bite-size nature of the various puzzles scattered about in close proximity: just paced so well that I find myself always wanting to move onto the next puzzle and the next, while other games would kill my flow by having too much travel time or unnecessary fluff. Couple that all together with a nice little graphical style, story hook at the beginning, and save/load system and you got a great adventure I'm gonna finish!

If I would have one nitpick about it, it would be the stairs: seriously, I gotta jump up each step? No Castlevania walk-up-stairs animation or nothing?

Ferociter responds:

Hey, thanks for playing! I've always disliked the slow stair-walking in Castlevania, but I'll see if and how to improve them in Sunken City.

As usual: looking forward to seeing you play this.

[Sores And Sorcery]

Bit of a hidden gem here! It certainly doesn't put its best foot forward: the title screen is very bland, you can't read the tutorial instructions in a safe space and they're super tiny, and overall while the game looks decent in terms of graphics with a unique sepia filter to it all, it is a little muted and dry, desperately needing an extra bit of juice like effects or music to reduce the constant drone of the wizard firing shots at you over and over.

But putting all that aside, the gameplay was pretty solid! Loved how fast-paced it was in getting me right into some challenging levels and constantly varying up the obstacles and layout in creative ways. The decent amount of moves/mechanics and the variety really kept me hooked and wanting to play more. There was a little wonkiness at times, such as the ledge hang sometimes putting me farther out from the wall than usual, causing me to get hit by a passing saw that wouldn't usually hit me, but overall controls felt pretty tight (which is good to make a hard game like this feel fair). I'm definitely coming back to finish this later on (many thanks for adding a continue feature for the levels!)

EDIT: Whoops, I already beat it! Aww, didn't realize I was already on the final level: with all that space left on the main menu, I thought there was gonna be even more levels! Oh well, had a nice finish where I got to have some sweet revenge: nice stuff!

HelperWesley responds:

I'm glad you got to finish it!

And those points are totally valid, I was thinking about re-doing the title and adding some music. But I hadn't thought about how the first time you see the tutorial text, the boss is already attacking you, so that's definitely something I could fix. 😅

The extra space is for the "speed run mode" button. Did the "type in your name" text not pop up when you beat the game? If you type your name in you'll get access to the speed run mode that has a timer, and your name will go on a leaderboard I've set up. I was wondering why so few names were getting there, despite the number of plays..... Maybe it's not showing up?

[Portal Defenders: Tower Defense]

Wow, really stellar job with this game! Overall just has an incredible feel of polish and professionalism to all elements, and the gameplay is very fun, intuitive, addictive and satisfying: I could spend all day talking about the little touches like all the amusing audio chatter and the cool risk/reward tactical choice to get money for blowing the whistle, but I don't want to bore you with my gushing, haha! I can barely even tell it's Flash: it looks like it is so much more than what would be possible!

That being said, I do have a few nitpicks with it:

*I didn't like how long it took money and other items to get picked up from the ground. Would love if it would happen a lot faster or if you could influence the speed by mousing over the money drops, or if you technically get the money immediately even if the graphical icon hasn't flown to your wallet yet. Because it took so long to get money after a kill, it led to tons of awkward moments where I technically should have the money since it is moving towards my wallet, but I don't have it yet to spend, which felt unfair since I needed it at a crucial moment.

*I finished a level with 5 stars to spend on upgrades but for some reason wasn't able to purchase an upgrade that costs 5 stars: it would only let me purchase an upgrade that costs 4 stars. Is this because I can't purchase the II upgrade without getting the I upgrade first? It's a bit unclear.

*Would love some information pop-ups to appear when going over stuff like the upgrades for towers. I'm assuming the radar icon means a range upgrade, the fist means power and the shoe means rate of fire, but it's unclear and I was never sure.

*Would like it if, when purchasing turrets, instead of showing all dotted-line range indicators for all options at once, it would only show the associated range indicator for the option you're currently hovering over; seeing all of those circles at once was confusing to parse.

BoMToons responds:

Thanks for the review!

We don't have hover effects cuz it was designed to work for mobile, which doesn't have hover detection. I've been considering whether we could put in coin collection via tapping/clicking though to collect early... so yeah, no "hovering" for coin collection, no "hovering" to show specific ranges, no "hovering" for descriptions of icons... sorry!

Yes, you must get tier 1 upgrades before you can get tier 2, and tier 1 + 2 before 3.

Thanks for playing!

[=KRUDSHOT CAFE=]

Pretty solid game! Had a very stylish presentation all-around and feels like it has a solid core for some fun shooting: everything felt quite smooth, intuitive and well-done. Definitely love all of the juicy effects that the game had, like the ouch effects and the bullets popping up one-by-one for a reload and such.

Nitpicks I have are:
*I think it overdoes it on the whole CRT filter wavy pulse distortion whatever thing. Feels really unnecessary: the game is perfectly cool looking without these flashy effects that just hurt my eyes and make it difficult to read things and ruin the great art assets you've got. I know I can turn it off in the menu, but it starts on by default, so I'm under the assumption that you feel that's the intended experience (and I disagree is all).

*In a similar vein to the above, sometimes I feel like it overdoes it on the juicy effects, especially the 'Ouch' text that pops out of enemies. If you hit them with a fast-firing gun, so much text pops up that it clouds the enemy from vision. Funny in a way, but annoying since it makes it difficult to confirm the enemies status.

*Sounds were a bit muted: would love some more powerful sounds and feedback for enemy kills and such to make it feel more satisfying, as the feedback for shooting enemies didn't feel too great.

*Bit annoying that you can't manually reload from what I can tell, which makes it really awkward where you're left with a few bullets after a fight and start the next fight in a bad spot, unless you shoot into the air inbetween fights to empty it enough to force a reload.

*The cursor isn't locked in game which can lead to clicking outside the game by accident during heated combat and losing focus (and then subsequently losing health).

*While the game was nice, it got rather repetitive for me quickly. The vast majority of the levels boiled down to playing clean-up by fighting the same types of unchallenging enemies over and over. Thank god for the boss fights which spiced up the experience, but they were few and far between. Could definitely use more something to add more variety, like more enemy variety, more objective/special event variety, more interesting weapons/items, etc (and if there are, the game should get to them faster because I was dropping off before I saw them).

To sum it up: I think it's very well put-together and impressive, but overall was very basic and lacking a standout element. The gameplay loop got quite repetitive rather quickly due to a lack of said unique hook, be it through story, gameplay mechanics, pacing, or whatever. Basically, it feels like a very juicy and promising prototype/proof of concept that I'd love to see amped up! The characters are pretty cool looking: something as simple as some extra story intro or narrative to flesh them out and give them an objective in gameplay would help more than you think, at least for me!

Just-a-ng-dummy responds:

Thx for the review as always Futurecop!
I understand the CRT filter isnt for everyone and it didn't really feel in place for a "cafe purgatory." I just ultimately thought it looked neat

I didn't know the sounds were a bit muted, I have a bit of trouble finding the right volume for the sound effects and such, I'll keep it in mind in the future.

A manual reload will probably suit the game as you can just mindlessly strap your finger on the left mouse button with duct tape and keep on shooting.

The repetitive nature is certain due to there only being 20 room in total and 4 for each level. Special event variety is one thing I want to add more: Stuff blocking the screen, I guess more bullet hell type events. The pacing is one of my biggest concerns due to the map size being large and the need to kill every goddamn enemy. I could either reduce the map size or just add more enemy variety.

There is a story going in place, but it's not actually stated in the game, but I do like an extra story or narrative put into a game, so I'll try to implement them like those simple "you are the protagonist do this" lines

Cheers on reviewing all of April's nominated games and the release of Family Tech Support!

[Sleef]

I definitely find the game quite impressive at including a level editor and such, but the game was so light in content that I didn't find myself wanting to use it. Sure, you could argue that the intention of the game was to create/play user-created levels, not the dev levels, but I didn't really feel that the game did a good job at selling me on that aspect. The dev-created levels were low in quantity and variety: I'd call them bite-sized, but really they were more crumb-sized. The mechanics were rather sparse and non-substantial: you've only got some flowers that shoot projectiles you can jump on, some platforms, and a weird grapple arms movement system that is way too touchy and unwieldly to move around with (holding down the jump button for a nano-second too long can have you overshooting your goal as your character wildly grapples upwards). It just seemed like the game had so little to offer to work with in creating interesting levels: hell, the editor seemed to have even less than possible since the game had flower platforms but I couldn't find an option to place those, and I couldn't figure out how to change the direction that flowers shoot in.

To compare, Super Mario Maker might be all about creating and playing levels, similar to this, but it, unlike this, offers both a ton of sample levels that are fun to play and showcase all of the tools you can work with which in turn inspires you to want to create. In a way, to me, it almost seemed like you were throwing all the responsibility of making the game fun at us when it should be up to you, haha!

RowanFuture responds:

Thanks for the feedback! The game was made in 24 hours and was more of an experiment for me, the amount of attention it has received is pleasing but I understand that the game is slightly lackluster in many places and was designed somewhat rushed considering my self-imposed time restriction. I'm probably not going to make a game this way again but it has been interesting ^^
(The extra controls for the editor are in the description as I forgot to add them in game)

[Super Sepu Land]

Pretty neat game! Love the goofy story and how the gameplay picks up the pace and difficulty rather quickly with a good amount of varied obstacles to contend with. Love the difficult levels and how, alongside the element of only being able to walk forward, it adds a lot of interesting challenge and improvisation to the gameplay. Sure, it was a little frustrating at first since my natural instincts kept wanting me to be able to backup at times, but overcoming it was a nice experience.

Bit of a bummer at how the continue system works: I made it all the way to Level 4 in the 1st zone, but when I took a break and came back to continue, it took me all the way back to the first level in the zone. I guess I understand that it's because the game uses a life system and I didn't beat the whole zone, but man, I wish it let me continue from the last level I left off on, instead of the last zone. Still, despite that setback, I still want to play this some more, so well done on making it fun enough to make me look past that!

jupitron responds:

Thanks a lot for playing! Great video!

[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!