FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Bunbun's Delivery]

Bit of a mixed feeling on this game! Overall I'm very positive on it, but I was let down by some elements of it.

In general, I found it to be very solid and charming: the graphics, animations, sound and altogether general presentation were very cute and wonderful, giving off a really professional feel. Shooting was fun and had a little bit of strategy to it with switching between the two weapons (though I did find the second weapon to maybe be a bit too weak to make it useful), and there was a nice variety of enemies to fight all with memorable patterns.

The biggest issue I had with the game were the normal combat segments. Usually a SHMUP does their best job at making these parts like a cool interactive movie, where there are all sorts of cool waves and patterns of enemies and obstacles that form a series of standout events that all create a great flow, a story of combat. This game, unfortunately, didn't have any of that. Yes, it did have some interesting enemies with unique moves to them, but all the game did was constantly recycle the same waves, over and over, even after passing the checkpoint and transitioning to a new zone: just more and more of the same. It didn't take long for those parts to get incredibly repetitive, which was unfortunate.

The boss fights were a whole different story, however. This is where the game really shined, with a very cool boss fight with fun patterns to get good at dodging around. It wasn't all perfect: I didn't like how the boss constantly 'no-sell'-ed being shot, and would've preferred them to react a bit whenever they got hurt. And more importantly, I wanted more, more boss fights! I was so bummed out that the game ended after saying 'level over' since it made me believe that it implied there were gonna be more levels! Basically, I'd love to see more of this game.

...also as a side note, I think it's SHMUP, not SCHMUP. Unless maybe that's a new acronym? Haha, anyway, it's all good.

ShortCakeCafe responds:

Thanks for the solid criticism!
The level flow was done last minute as more of an afterthought since this game was made in a week and i barely got it done in time.
But if I do ever do more with this game, I agree that the level design should be optimized a lot or just cut entirely for a sort of boss rush type of game.

(also the schmup error is because i've never played a shmup in my life so i didnt know how it was spelled, gamer moment)

[Piece by Piece]

An interesting little experiment! I found the game to unfortunately be a bit shallow at it is: while building up the ship is very interesting in how customizable it is, and the game did have some great feedback for shooting enemies and a cool missile swarm special, it felt a bit hollow because the game never escalates or progresses in such a way to really require you to modify the ship in the first place. Yes, I still enjoyed building a ship for the sake of building a ship, but all I could do with it was live in this small fishbowl, fighting the same boring enemies over and over for a slow trickle of gold. The game was also a bit confusing at times with its feedback: the way enemies that crashed into my ship would burst into hearts made me almost think that they were dropping health for me, not that they were hurting me. For me, this seemed like not a good game, but a great proof of concept of this modular ship building and how satisfying it can be: would love to see a full game make use of it to create a grand adventure! I could easily see it being like a fish game, where you go to a universe, beat enough enemies to power up your ship to challenge a harder universe, and keep going onwards and onwards!

YaenGames responds:

Thank you for your detailed review & ideas. I always like to read about your perspective on things. I agree that it gets a bit dull after a while and there is too little content to back up the lengthy balancing. Hard to make much more in so little time ^^
More enemies and maybe even unlockable ship parts would certainly make things more exciting over the course of a run or maybe even multiple runs... This is essentially more of a prototype than a finished product as it stands, due to how it was made. But I agree that there's potential here!

Thanks again and have a great day!

[Nearverse]

Not too shabby, but as it is, I'd call this more of a generative art showpiece instead of a game: fancy in function, but not necessarily fun or with long-lasting appeal.

Don't get me wrong, I had some good fun with it as the effects are nice and juicy and there are a decent amount of variations in enemy attacks to get through. But for a game that is procedural generated and has a big to-do about having so many galaxies of combinations, it feel like I was just playing the same game over and over. Yes, there were differences, but I felt like there were incredibly superficial changes, like how glowy my lasers are, or what new Rorschach ink blot test the enemies look like: at the end of the day, no matter what way the graphics changed, the attack patterns or enemy AI or what-have-you ever evolved to create a new experience like other games could do. And it doesn't help that it's a shooter game, which is already a dime-a-dozen in the 'my first game as an indie dev' box. I could see this being pretty neat, but I'd need to see some cooler and significant core gameplay changes come from the randomization that you can see other contemporaries do, particularly in the roguelike sphere.

Also that default glow is absolutely nuts, haha! Feels like a classic case where a dev wants to make their game flashy to juice it up, and overdoes it on the filters. Thank god there was the option to turn it down, but I tried to respect your vision and left it on high.

HealliesGames responds:

As I stated, I had a bigger vision of this like more weapons, more sub-type of enemies, AI and shoot patterns to create even more variety. Also a kind of link between your played matches, to unlock more stuff would be cool.
I ended up focusing a lot on the artistic aspect of the game and then opted for a classic shooter arcade formula which (at least for me) always work.
Still, I'm not excluding that I'll take my hand on this project again.
Thank you for review!

[PixelGrounds]

Very cute game! I'm not too familiar with Picross, but I easily found myself getting addicted to this game and going through puzzle after puzzle. I did find it a little silly how some of the puzzles would resolve (really, those two dots and a line is Pico? it could be anyone!) but it was all in good fun. And what a huge amount of content to go through! It's almost intimidating how much there is, haha!

My only major complaint would be that the controls can be a bit confusing. For example, I want to use the mouse because it's more intuitive to not only click squares, but click the big buttons on the right to change forms. However, using the mouse can be bad because it doesn't let you do tricks like being able to hold the button to paint in succession like keyboard allows: you need to click each time, and that doesn't help my carpal tunnel. So, I use the keyboard, but then I have no idea how to change forms because the shortcuts are difficult to remember: call me dumb if you like, but it'd be nice if maybe the keyboard shortcut letters could be right next to the form buttons as a reminder.

Other minor complaint would be that I feel like it could use a tad bit more juice: you know, make the title screen a bit more animated and so on, and that there were some typos here and there, but overall it feels good. Well done with this one!

EDIT: yayyy i finished my puzzle at Hard #44, thank you very much for that

Pomegranite responds:

you can pause anytime to be reminded of the controls

check out level 44 on hard--you might be like it ;)

edit: the original version was animated, but caused performance issues for weak hardware

[Olive's Art-Venture]

Wow, super impressive game on display here! Hell, even if it wasn't a game, I'd already have to give this game massive props for the amount of charm through overall presentation: the game is a wonderous display of great, expressive and animated characters (like how Olive scribbles in her book when you're drawing, and how the lobbyman always has a new quip to deliver and keeps track of your stats) and just tons of little touches that give the world so much life and feedback to it.

The gameplay was a blast as well though, equal if not better than the charming presentation! I not only loved how fun and unique the concept of drawing attacks was, I liked how it also had a lot of good strategy to it, like the various enemies and their diverse attack patterns, and how you might think that using the square spell is always the best so you're shielded, but that ends up locking you out of your most powerful attack spell, the diamond: I love being rewarded for playing risky and aggressive like that! Top-notch stuff that I wouldn't expect from a game made for a jam, essentially!

If I was to have any complaints, there'd be the obvious big one: the image recognition logic used for the drawings. Now, as a programmer, I understand it's probably super hard to do something like this, and lord knows I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole, so much props to you for even attempting something like this, as it is a secret genre I've always loved: drawing sigils and shit like that. But I found it disappointing that I couldn't draw freeform and had to use the strict outlines: bit of a shame as it made it so I always had to be focused on that side instead of the combat and felt so limited in expression to do shorthand or something like that (ironic for an artist, no?) Even accepting the outlines as the way to do it, though, I still had tons of problems where a circle would be treated as a triangle or a diamond, and that could be the difference between life and death, as I would be trying to do a cheap spell like circle instead of an expensive spell like diamond but not have enough mana, and it'd unfairly cancel it. Luckily the game is good and fun enough that I treat it as part of the challenge to get good instead of unfairness, but it's a tight rope that maybe some other people won't be as forgiving.

Other than that, there would some minor quibbles like I don't like how the intro cutscene and the tutorial proceeds at its own pace without waiting for my confirmation: I missed a lot of tutorial text on my first visit because I was experimenting and didn't notice the guy kept gabbing onward, and it's a pain that the only way I could see what I'd missed again would be to start all over and wait for that part to come up again.

Again, epic stuff on display here!

Stepford responds:

I'm glad that you enjoyed your experience with the game, Futurecop! All of that charm has to go to Andyland for his wonderful animation skills and Milkypossum for creating the perfect OST for every highlight and moment.

Hearing that you found the gameplay exciting and addicting just makes me so happy. I know the shape recognition isn't the best, since I have never attempted anything like it before - and I was very scared of trying to develop it; but knowing what I know now, I think I could program a much better system than is currently in place. Hearing that you are equally as intimidated as I was just thinking about the implementation of the mechanic makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs, "YES!!!" because it was a very intimidating undertaking, but I am so glad that I tried it.

Even if it works 90% of the time, instead of 100%, I went into it knowing that it wouldn't be perfect. Just thinking about other games that do it, none of them are very complex or they are also known for not being the most accurate. Realizing that, I gave myself a bit of a break and just swung the best I could. I am super happy with the final product and this will be a project I will show to people as my primary portfolio piece.

It's one thing to gain appreciation from players, who see assets go into one hole of game development and an entire game come out the other, but it's another to hear such praise from someone who understands the intricacies of what's happening behind the screen.

I hope playing all my joke and birthday games to tide the release of THIS game was worth the wait. <3

[PARALLEL PAN!C]

I can spot a Tombdude game from a mile away, and it ain't because of that iconic 'uh-hee' sound effect neither. It's because the game exudes charm from every pore of its existence: while most games focus on just the gameplay itself and leave stuff like menus, title screens, transitions and so on as an afterthought, a Tombdude game makes sure to put its best foot forward and has menus, touches, and concepts as wacky as the gameplay itself.

And speaking of the gameplay: it's very addictive and fun! Quite the combination of genres, and it can definitely be a bit tricky at times, trying to park cars perfectly while dodging bullets and watching them drift out of place, but it never felt unfair or frustrating: I loved the challenge and all the various bonus scores to go for, like watching out for cones or grazing bullets. Levels were good as well in that they kept escalating the challenge with more complex bullet patterns and parking spaces.

Only complaint I can really think of is that I have no idea what the focus button did: expected it to be bullet-time or something but it never seemed to do anything. Oh well! Oh, and I felt like getting damaged should be a bit more pronounced: I didn't even realize I was getting hurt at times, despite the little 'hoot'. Also I thought the game could be a little too forgiving with parking spots, allowing me to park huge cars in spots clearly meant for the tiny cars. Also that there's not a cute little story or ending, just levels. But eh, its all no-biggie: all-around solid work!

Tombdude responds:

love your reviews, man! You're totally right about the focus, it's never really explained in game: if you hold it, it makes you move slower.

[Newgrounds Winter Worm 2021]

Pretty cool art collab! I definitely appreciate the unique presentation: as compared to more basic collabs, I think this one, due to its looping, continuous nature, really hooks in the viewer and makes them want to view the entire piece, which has the side effect of giving all of the artists their due attention! Also appreciate the small touch of being able to click on an artist's name to see their profile.

As nice as this was, and I hate to be a stickler, but I did feel like it wasn't as interesting of a loop as I'd like. When I see a long art piece, I like to see the adventure, the story it creates from how it transitions and flows slowly like a gradient, but here it felt like, while not all of them, there were plenty of pieces where they didn't flow smoothly into each other: they were just jarring, being separated by hard lines or illogical blurs. Basically, it made me question if this started as a loop collab at all, or if this was just a bunch of different pieces, and then someone just used the blur/smudge tool inbetween each piece and went 'see? it loops!', haha! But hearts in the right place and it was nice to see this anyway, so well done.

DieterTheuns responds:

worm

[SHOOT TRIP DIE - DEMO]

Wow, pretty snazzy game! Definitely hooked me in through its wild and wacky presentation: the game is a treat to witness with its funny cutscenes and story, along with its explosive gameplay and satisfying feedback. Speaking of gameplay, I found it quite interesting: while only being able to shoot in two directions is a bit confusing at first, it does add a unique strategy to the combat that is fun to play around. Love the little details here and there like the main character blasting his finger guns as well! Definitely seems like it does have a lot of potential and it does make me want to play more to see what sort of lunacy happens as I get deeper and deeper, but it did have some issues with which I will outline with much text:

First, some small nitpicks:

I found the controls really weird in that I couldn't see what they were assigned to: if I tried to look at them it immediately took me into rebinding, which is awkward to do because I don't even know how many buttons I'll end up rebinding so how can I plan it out? Also, a bit disappointed that my Playstation controller didn't seem to work for some reason.

I found the fact that enemies don't drop money, but pots do, a bit tedious. A lot of games like Enter the Gungeon will have enemies drop money, but while you can pick it up, it will have the money get automatically vacuumed up after you beat all the enemies as well. I find this nice because it keeps the pace up and lets you just focus on the action, whereas in this game, every fight has to have a tedious inbetween where I clean up the level like I'm a janitor. Come on, I'm playing a guy who quit his job, haha!

Speaking of enemies dropping things, I found it weird that you could get those little ability energy pips when you don't even have an ability yet. It really confused me at first because I had no idea what those glowing pips were (at first I was almost scared that they were bullets, haha). Maybe ability energy shouldn't even drop from enemies until you have an ability in the first place: it'd help you make the connection on its purpose a bit clearer, perhaps.

Now for the bigger issue:

While the game does decently hook me with its wacky presentation and story, I did find the core gameplay a bit shallow and lacking in any really unique hook. Yes, it does have some interesting elements like only being able to shoot in two directions and it does have some satisfying effects, but a lot of it has been done before and better by other contemporaries, I feel. It feels like the game could do a bit more, and if I were to suggest a quick fix, it would be to increase the variability and dynamics of the game through more items and upgrades. The few times I played the game, it felt like the game was never different from run to run: all of the abilities and upgrades I got were so few and far-between, and they were too confusing in how they worked and never seemed to do anything significant (for example, I got the guitar pick and savings envelope and I had no idea what they did). Compare this to games like Isaac or Risk of Rain, where you get so many items and abilities constantly and can have so much fun seeing the different ways your character evolves bit by bit into a god, or games like Gungeon where you're always getting a new wacky gun with some crazy shooting pattern to learn. I think this game could really benefit from some more dynamics like that to make every run be as wacky and crazy as the game it inhabits.

Anyway, looking forward to seeing how this game does: it definitely has a lot going for it!

LeviRamirez responds:

Thanks for the feedback!

Funnily enough, the nitpick for the energy orbs has actually been accounted for in a way I think meets a good middle ground, basically when you don’t have a charge item a teal piechart fills up next to your money amount and when it gets full it turns green and pulses along with giving you a coin!

And with regards to your main critique your honestly absolutely right, I’ve honestly felt that how runs feel back to back feel a bit weak even from the beginning, HOWEVER! My design philosophy for this game is to be as simple as possible, and I’ve tried adding crazy new shooting patterns but 9/10 times they just don’t really fit the level design and monster designs and feel more like a detriment then a cool upgrade.

Also, you just got kinda unlucky cause although the envelope is like an A Tier item when you know what it does, the guitar pick literally does absolutely nothing. (Itll he story significant in the full release)

Anyways, glad you liked it and thanks for leaving a review!

[Hours of Reflection]

Pretty nice little story game! I liked the gloomy atmosphere that was well realized and amplified through the detailed pixel art and moody music. There were certainly a lot of beautiful landscapes with nice composition in their shots, along with nice touches like parallax and fog. I had fun going back and forth in the story, retrying different decisions for various endings: surprised at some of the outcomes, like being able to walk off the cliff, or getting the kid to shoot you as part of toughening him up.

Unfortunately, as emotional as the game seemed to be going for, I unfortunately found the game too short to really make any of the emotional beats hit as hard as they could. For example, that twist of getting the kid to shoot you could've been a real powerful moment, but it would require a longer game that takes some initial time to really immerse you and make you love the characters: in a game like this where you barely know anyone and are used to retrying over and over, everything unfortunately becomes a bit comical, similar to how a horror game becomes less scary once you die for the first time and retry. Speaking of that, I also found that the language of 'game over' upon death made the death all the more weaker since it spells it out that its all just a game, nothing serious. Was also disappointed there wasn't a cool twist like you becoming the zombie in the beginning if you march out of the city and get the ? ending, and maybe you can fight back against biting the character, but that's me overthinking things and turning it into a weird time loop, haha.

Definitely a really nice proof of concept and does a good job at building a gloomy world in short order: would love to see a game like this become even bigger to make it all the more immersive and powerful.

Miroff responds:

Thank you for this review. My friend Vonka reminded me about the contest 3 days before the end. There were many plans, including the continuation of the game after turning into a zombie, shooting was also planned. A lot had to be cut out and a lot had to be abandoned in order to make the game look complete at the end. We want to develop this lore and write a new story.

[Pack Your Bags]

Holy mackerel, what a game! It ain't exactly the longest game or anything like that, and it ain't the hardest game for rhythm gamers out there, but damn if it wasn't an incredible experience! Loved the music and all the cool action that happened on beat and how everything kept escalating: what a cool music video it all made! I also loved the little touches like the game had, such as the tons of ways your character can die, including smacking against the door right at the very start, haha!

If I had to nitpick any part of it, it's that I found some of the notes and feedback confusing at times: having to do a hold note immediately after a hold note, or a tap note immediately after a hold note, would make me unsure when I was allowed to let go of the hold to transfer and how fast I needed to hit the following note. Sometimes the screen would shake after letting go of the hold and I couldn't tell in the heat of the moment whether I timed it right and it was a good shake (of me kicking ass) or a bad shake (of me getting hurt). On retrospect, it looks like the hold notes go grey subtly to indicate when you can let go: why not instead just make the hold notes shorter, to end when you can let go in the first place?

Anyway, I'm definitely going back for that flawless!

jefvel responds:

Thank you for the review, and glad you liked it!

Yeah, the long notes are a bit confusing, I might have to shorten them a bit to make them feel better, as you said. Not sure why I made them reach into the next not in the first place actually.

Good luck on getting a flawless finish!