FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Swimming Leningrad]

As it stands right now, it feels like a decent alpha prototype for a Fire Emblem/Advance Wars-esque tactical game, but as an actual game it feels severely lacking. The game is functional, but just very basic with no satisfying feedback or special effects to the attacks and other actions (it doesn't even have a victory screen when you beat a level, for example). It also doesn't help that the game is very slow and middling due to the low damage numbers and the small trickle of money which prevents you from being able to experiment with buying other units. There was also a lack of any interesting abilities, and no story/objective to it all to hook me. Again, I think this could be something decent as it has all of the core structure necessary for a tactics game (for example, I liked being able to preview enemy move distances by clicking on them and such) but it just needs more time in the oven to have something special or interesting about it. (As a side note, I am coming at this from a single-player perspective only, and I did not try multiplayer).

ProsciuttoMan responds:

Very fair, I absolutely agree with most of this.
Honestly, if there was more time I think a lot of this would've been addressed (barring plot because I don't think we ever did any work on writing anything), but as it stands I think it was a really fun first step for the crew, since this was everybody's first jam game I believe.

[Into the Deep Web]

Very impressive game! Not much for me to say specifically as it felt like everything about this game was firing on all cylinders: cool concept, charming old-school windows graphics and aesthetic, neat music and sounds, satisfying combat and progression, all with a lot of polish to it that gave it an overall professional feel. For a game where the majority of the combat is technically idle, I felt like it had so much strategy and fun to it nonetheless which really wowed me. Well done!

Having said that, I did encounter a weird bug where my stun dice didn't work on the pill enemy despite working on everyone else: his bar turned yellow and stars were floating above his head, but his bar kept depleting and he was attacking me like usual: not sure what was going on there as I don't think he had a special resistance to it or anything like that.

jontopielski responds:

Thanks for the kind words! I'll look into the bug, thanks for letting me know

[Puzzle Sigma]

Finally, a worthy successor to Number Munchers! Definitely a really cool concept that is executed very nicely: love the amount of polish on display with the little visual/audio effects for moving around and solving equations, and I love the level design and how it introduces concepts to the player very intuitively and ramps up the challenge and mechanics bit-by-bit to keep the player hooked. All I'd say it's missing is maybe a save system since some of these puzzles can be a doozy to do in one sitting, but in general, this is an all-around grand slam!

jontopielski responds:

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback!

[PRODUCER (2021) - DEMO]

Decent text adventure! Graphics and general aesthetic were very interesting with this weird grungy collage feel to it, though I felt sometimes it worked against itself since it made it very difficult to parse (and the way the font would get chromatic aberrated at times made it physically painful to read). Also while the game has some cool reactivity and variability between playthroughs (reading the letters in a different order for example) it also had some weird consequences if you did things out of order like opening the window/cleaning and such for the apartment. Not to rain on it, but it did ultimately feel a bit lacking to me: not necessarily bad or anything as it was still a positive experience, but it didn't really have anything special that stood out to me that hooked me into playing more. The most special aspect it has at its moment is it graphics, but as interesting as those are, they actually made me a bit conflicted as stated before with its damaging its readability. Without that, its 2nd best attribute is its humor, and while it is not too shabby with its funny dialogue and amusing events, I dunno if it's enough to make it stand out from other visual novels. I understand I might be being a bit unfair and holding it up to a higher standard than necessary based on previous entries from you which I felt were a bit more interesting. Again, though, it was still a positive experience and I am still interested enough to see where this goes a bit more: just not sure how much longer.

By the way, I do wish it also had some quality of life changes, such as hitting a button during a text scrawl to speed it up, and the ability to resize the window to be larger because playing this game now is like playing a game for ants: so tiny, haha!

StuffedWombat responds:

those are valid points!
thanks for taking the time to make them.

the chromatic abberation will be turn off-able in the final release and u can press F for fullscreen :)

(also what do you mean by weird consequences for opening window etc? would be dope if u could DM me the specific thing u found weird, bc i dont really know what exactly u mean rn^^)

[Egg In the Cosmos]

Decent little game! Definitely took me a bit to get used to at first since it just dumps you in and starts the clock before you can even learn how to play, but once I did get used to it I thought it was a decent speedrun game. In terms of learning the game more effectively, I do wish the status bars were a different color than gray on gray since it made it very difficult to read what my status was when trying to focus on gameplay. I feel it would also be helpful if there were multiple increasing stages of annoyance for the egg so you could tell how close you're getting to losing, as with just one level of annoyance that starts so early you can't really tell at a glance. Speaking of that, I felt like the real thing that was missing from this game was a bit more juice and pizazz: I was definitely impressed with the cool goo splat effect that you did, but then I was really disappointed that there was no sound or visual effect for other actions, like picking up music notes and such: seems weird to prioritize the goo over that considering how essential it is, haha! Also I have no idea what's going on with the graphics: on one hand I really liked the animations, especially for the player and the egg, but then you got these weird green blobs in the foreground that can block your vision, and even block tutorial text! Anyway, I still had a nice little run in this game.

Just-a-ng-dummy responds:

Thank you for this in depth response

I really got a lot of reviews funny or critical
I plan to add difference to the progress bars so you can tell the difference between them
I thought the foreground looked cool, but yeah it can block the view a bit
Also with the sound effects, I might plan to add more sfx soon too

[Omelo's Trek]

Neat game, but I feel a bit conflicted on the execution! Definitely feel like the game has a solid core to it: I liked the graphics for the general presentation and way the player is animated (especially the jump) and I liked the gameplay as it felt smooth and fun to get up the mountain. I'm really conflicted on the stamina mechanic and how it was implemented though, as it felt like it had so many ways it could just screw you over. I hate how I didn't even notice stamina at first since it's tucked away in the corner and its effects aren't visible on the player until its all gone, I hate how stamina can only be recovered by forcing yourself to wait at campfires which kills the pace, I hate how stamina isn't restored after death, and I hate how stamina can slowly get depleted and screw you over into an unwinnable situation that you might not realize you're already in. I think the stamina system does have potential merit in terms of making you calculate your route and be very cautious and conservative and such, but here it just felt like it got in the way. Also felt like the game was very short and would've liked more to the journey with more interesting obstacles and such (understandable for a jam though).

LeviRamirez responds:

it’s almost like this game stinks

[Egg Rush]

Neat arcade game! Loved the goofy and slick presentation to it, especially with the cool music transitions and the satisfying damage effects. Took me a bit to realize how combat worked, but once I did, I liked how, despite how simple the controls were, the game had a lot of complexity and risk/reward to it: with the way a ground pound can hurt you if you're not accurate but it's your only attack, the way enemies get faster when you first hit them, the way power-ups mix things up and so on led to me treating the floor as lava and trying to stay airborne by bouncing off their heads in a fun chaotic combo! All this and the way the game kept escalating with new enemy types, formations and power-ups definitely ended up addicting me into playing more and more! It did have a few problems with the power-ups being a bit unbalanced and uninspired, and the way text was very difficult to read due to the font and the lack of outline to make it pop from the background, but all in all I had a good time!

Spebby responds:

Thank you! If we had a bit more time, we would have likely made more interesting powerups, but I'm glad that the game was still enjoyable regardless!

[O Mighty Snakedragon]

It's like Paperboy, except instead of throwing newspapers to subscribers and smashing windows of non-subscribers, you rain on the believers or flood them the nonbelievers...sort of? Having said that, though, it was very fun to see the various outcomes you could get as I liked how bleak and varied they were.

While I did enjoy the game, I definitely did have a rough start learning how the game played and how the controls worked. Collecting clouds felt really odd and unintuitive at first with the way they stick/unstick to you, I thought I needed to encircle the clouds with my rain spirit and me to make it rain like the yellow circle indicated (until I noticed the handy tutorial picture, which kinda disappointed me that it was so easy to spin in place instead of requiring some cool formations), I wasn't sure why and how many clouds I should gather and why it ends once you get to 30 of all numbers, I didn't notice the statue mechanic at first since the tutorial for it disappeared so fast, and so on. I felt like moving forward should be automatic and the player should only have to worry about turning, since having to do both, while seemingly helpful, actually confused with the stutteriness of it (I know, it's kinda weird). Despite those problems though, I definitely did end up replaying it for a bunch of endings, so it hooked me well enough!

OmarShehata responds:

Thank you so much for the very thoughtful review! I agree with you, and in fact the original version of the game had the dragon constantly moving, and making it rain did require more complex formations, but those changed as we tried to make it easier to play, but it seems it's still hard for some, and for others who do figure it out these changes make it not as fun.

[Claret]

Argh, I feel like I really like this one, but I admit I felt a bit conflicted! While it had a bit of a rough start where I didn't understand how the game worked, it didn't take too long for the game design to clue me in to the mechanics through the way the levels were designed. From there, the game whisked me away with its slick and smooth gameplay and I was having a blast! The graphics, while minimalist, I felt did a great job at adding a lot of punch and pizazz to the game with the way the character bends as they move and shakes as they get damaged, and the special effects for collecting objects and such. I definitely think the game concept and core is solid, but the execution felt a little messy to me. The kicker for me was the level design: while a lot of the levels felt well designed and fun to play, the difficulty curve was all over the place with tons of super hard spikes inbetween super easy levels. Plenty of the mechanics that got introduced, like the turrets, just felt super annoying to fight against. While I did get frustrated and stop halfway, I do feel like I want to revisit the game just because of how good it felt to play in general, so well done in that regard!

SlickRamen responds:

Thanks! Levels were a bit rushed because I just wanted to get the game out, so I'll admit I could've spent a bit more time refining the mechanics and stuff, but I'm glad you had fun.

[Highschool Bathroom Simulator]

Funny little game! While it doesn't really have any major challenge or interactivity to it beyond just moving forward and talking to people, I nevertheless found myself getting addicted to it due to the way it kept the novelty and pacing going with all sorts of events. Love all the various gags in the game, both the direct ones (such as through dialogue) and the more subtle ones, like the girl's bathroom door being all fancy-like.

Was happy to see that, while bathrooms have changed in some ways from my time with vaping and the like, some things never change, such as people thinking axe body spray is a replacement for hygiene. God, you'd think the bathroom had been raided by SWAT with the way kids would gas it up with axe body spray back in my day...anyway, thanks for the trip!

(btw it's principal not principle, but whatev, it's probably part of the humor)

BobbyBurt responds:

haha yeah, part of the humor...