FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Blood Gauntlet]

Pretty cool speedrun version of Castlevania! It's a rather short and simple game, but it felt very fluid and I enjoyed my time with it immensely: having to make both quick reactive decisions to dodge attacks and also more large-scale decisions as to whether it's worth it to backtrack for resources or just tank damage because avoiding it would take too much time were very interesting! The boss fight was a nice finale, and upon seeing that the game had a ranking system, I immediately went back for a replay, netting myself a nice B rank!

If I were to have one gripe, it'd be that I got a F rank on my first go, with most of my points coming from a 'death penalty'. This would make sense if I died on the second part or the boss and it revived me there, I suppose, but I only died in the very first part, which takes you all the way back to the start as if it were a new game...so why a penalty? What, because I didn't fully reset the game myself? It doesn't make any sense!

decafpanda responds:

You are correct. Giving a death penalty on the first level is an oversight on my part. The game attributes reset on the title screen. It should have been on level 1.

Pressing "R" will quickly reload the game if you die on your run and want to max your score. Any kind of death during your run will cripple your score. And yes there are checkpoints at level 2 and the boss. So that's where the death penalty makes sense.

Go for S rank! There are some tips in the Author Comments.

[Consealed]

Pretty neat game! The presentation is incredibly charmingly retro, and the concept of a fast-paced deductive whack-a-mole arcade game is cool!

However, while I like the gameplay in theory, I had a bit of a rough time with it! The game informs you of all the various tells there are, but I couldn't see any differences in their sweat or snot, which only left shaking as the somewhat reliable tell (piss being too random an occurence to be reliable). I was able to make it decently far by looking for the shakiest suspects, but I just felt bummed out because I feel like I'm missing a huge chunk of the intended experience. I understand you don't want to make it too easy or anything, but yeah, I'm a bit lost here: just how subtle did you make it!?

ProsciuttoMan responds:

I'm not saying this sarcastically, but are you colourblind? That might have something to do with it.
The sweat is slightly more purple and snot slightly more green for aliens (I think the snot is the more noticeable of the two, but I could be wrong).
Otherwise, solid review as usual.

[HelioBacter]

Hmm, it seems like it could be a nice tower defense game: the graphics and theming are nice, and the whole aspect of having to set down a trigger for the traps was unique, I suppose. The foundation is there, potentially, but ultimately the game feels incredibly unfinished and rough, most likely due to game jam time limitations: missing attack feedback for the towers, the confusing and unintuitive nature of setting down eyeball triggers for traps instead of them just being automated like towers, the fact that it doesn't lock the cursor which results in scrolling for eyeball positions scrolls the browser window, and so on: there's just too many rough edges to this, and while you have my sympathy, I need to be honest in that I didn't have a good time here, unfortunately.

HelperWesley responds:

Totally fair. Not our best jam game to be honest, we regret some of the choices we made in the rush of the time limit. 😅

We made some fixes based on feedback from people since the jam ended, like the full screen button in the title screen, and auto-pick up for points at the end of waves, but the basic concept of the game is a little too far gone to bother updating more.

[TapTapBOOM]

Huh, this is quite the fun little mobile game! The standout element for me is definitely the presentation: there's just so many flashy effects, transitions, and juice in every single action that the whole experience feels so lively and satisfying! It's not all superficial, though, as I think the game does a good job at evolving the gameplay over time, introducing all sorts of new obstacles and puzzles to contend with. Fun stuff!

I got pretty confused at how the game progresses, though. Initially it starts out as a physics puzzle game where you try to plant bombs at key points to collapse these structures in a way that all of the green blocks go off-screen, and I liked this! Later on, though, it turns into a completely different game where bombs are largely relegated to being used to press down buttons with no room for any sort of creativity or experimentation, with the puzzles being solved through other elements like plungers and sliding blocks. It just feels like the core identity of bombs is completely lost! Like, instead of making this new dynamite/plunger mechanic, why didn't you make it so that the second bomb you place could be triggered separately from the first bomb? That way players would actually need to puzzle out the second explosion, instead of just relying mindlessly on the fixed dynamite placement!

I guess you could argue that it's novel how the game changes, and if I turn my brain off and just play, I think it's fine and very addictive, but I can't help but feel like it is rather confusing, like you just gave up on the initial premise and then made a completely different puzzler and the bombs just remained as a vestigial property.

Chaz responds:

That's fair (and very valuable) feedback, thanks for pointing this out!

[Color Maze]

Not too shabby! It's not necessarily anything noteworthy, but it's a competently made and decently fun puzzle game that provides a nice more-ish experience as the stakes escalate from level to level with enough special effects to feel good. Nothing to write home about, but perfectly fine for a bit of fun!

If I were to have any feedback, it'd be that I wish the game had input buffering so you could do rapid sequences of moves a bit easier, and that it'd be nice if the game had a bit more pizazz to it. Also some of the ways it would recycle maps felt kind of bad, and I swear there was one time where it repeated a level it had already done before? Maybe it was a misinput on my part, but I don't think so.

Pitigamedev responds:

Thank you for the feedback!

[Anzu Castle Gracula]

Oof, this is a rough one for me!

I definitely want to give this game a lot of credit because I feel like it is really pulling off this whole retro DOS metroidvania it's going for, both in terms of style/presentation and in terms of the old-school difficulty design. A big sprawling map with all sorts of routes and upgrades to find, a huge variety of unique enemies to contend with, and that glorious DOS/pixel aesthetic, what more could I ask for?

But as much as I want to keep playing it because of how promising it looks and feels, I keep bouncing off of it because of the difficulty design. I'm someone who actually enjoys a lot of old-school difficulty, but man, this game just felt absolutely exhausting to play, especially when it starts pulling all sorts of bullshit like enemies respawning/entering from the sides of the screen. And perhaps I'm just the unluckiest bastard to play this, but it seemed like every single route I took would end up with me at a dead-end, staring at an item out-of-reach without some other sort of power-up that must be down another route I should've taken first if I had any damn clue where to go.

The final nail in the coffin for me was the lack of a proper save/load system: I made it to a statue and saved, hoping to revisit after a break, but when I selected continue at the main menu, it put me back at the very start! Perhaps it's one of those classic save/loads where it only saves your items collected and not your position, but ugh, it just feels so bad and eliminated the last remaining vestiges of my motivation!

So yeah, this game is something I both absolutely want to play, but also never want to see again: oh, the duality of man!

EDIT: I keep coming back to this to try it out, especially now since I know I can save, but jeez, this is hard to love! Did it seriously weaken my power after defeating the first boss? Enemies that used to take 2 hits now take 3! I don't think I can take this: this game is for like next-level masochists.

EDIT: ...surprisingly I keep coming back for more punishment. Actually making some decent headway now with another boss down and double jump acquired. What an odd experience, to be tossed back and forth between love and hate, haha.

RainbowCemetery responds:

i love u but half the description is a disclaimer about the save system D:

[Wizard Brew]

Hey, this is a pretty neat game! I'm always down for a little job-sim like potion brewing, and to combine that into a crazy and chaotic competitive battle royale was quite the interesting fusion! Having to collect ingredients and brew potions while dodging bullets and screwing over the competition by messing with their pots or just outright killing them was wild, and overall I felt like the game was a very polished and intuitive experience with both a well laid-out tutorial and all sorts of tooltips and feedback within the game itself to help you along. I even liked all of the goofy extra touches it had, like how the 1st place wizard scorches the runner-ups, haha! Well done!

Having said that, I did have a few things come up in terms of feedback:

*It felt quite frustrating with the way the screen is setup, as the camera is so zoomed in and unable to see forward that you just can't get a good handle on the environment or see threats coming, so it felt impossible to dodge attacks or keep track of anything.

*I was very reluctant to deal with other wizards and found myself wishing I could just collect ingredients and brew and that's it. Don't get me wrong, I understand why the competitive aspect is there and I think the game is better for it since it would be too simple without it, but I just found it annoying and pointless to try and deal with other wizards. It's kinda like how a lot of people enjoy Dark Souls but don't want to engage in PVP. If I had my way, I'd make it so that you have to journey into a separate area, some sort of dangerous forest with monsters to collect ingredients, instead of cramming everything into a single area filled with absolute chaos, but that's just me spitballing.

*There were some minor sound errors with some music only playing out of my left ear for some odd reason.

Definitely a cool game, but it might be something I technically love in theory more than actually playing it, if that makes sense, haha! It's cool enough though that I want to revisit it at some point, hopefully embracing the chaos on that second try!

Sjhillustration responds:

Thanks for the feedback! It was my first game, so it was difficult to get a balance without making the game either too hard and complicated, or too easy and not fun.

The one thing I had hoped for is that it was chaotic, as it was supposed to be a game jam, knowing I had a limited time (I didn't even come close to finishing it in time lol) that having it be a hard, almost multiplayer style game would give it a bit of a challange so people might play it more than once if they liked it, as it only lasts 3 and a half minutes.

I'll check out the music/sound issue. I hadn't noticed but there might be some audio that's spatial by accident.

I honestly thought only 10 people would play this, so I'm grateful for everyone that did!

Thanks for playing!

[Zombies Ate My Fruits]

Hmm, this one was a bit weird to me! There's definitely some interesting elements at play here: the presentation is pretty nice with good pixel art, sounds, and animations, there's a bit of a strategic element with limited ammo usage, and it does seem rather charming in some way. However, the gameplay never seems to coalesce into a unified vision or loop, with me getting confused at certain elements like how ammo doesn't reset on death. And then before I know it, the game was already over with me feeling rather unsatisfied and unsure of what the game was trying to go for!

Obviously you have my sympathy because it must be very difficult to make a game in such a short time limit. If it helps, I did feel like the game showed some potential to be something like a roguelike survival horror game. The tomato and corn weapons reminded me of a handgun and shotgun: one being good for taking out single targets, while the other being good for taking out crowds, but being much more rare. Perhaps if the game was randomized and punished you with a full restart on death, it'd force the player to be more improvisational to make it through the gauntlet: they'd have to decide quickly whether to save ammo and avoid the zombies by jumping, or whether to spend their precious ammo to completely wipe them out or at least thin the herd to make avoidance easier. The player could then be given a score at the end for how fast they make it through and how much ammo they saved and so on. There's definitely something in here if it made me think about it that hard!

speed8327 responds:

Yah I really wanted to add more features but ran out of time for the jam.
I might update this game at some point.
Thanks for the awesome feedback! I really appreciate that.

[Color Critters]

Hey, this was a nice little puzzle game! For the most part it hits all the right notes to deliver a fun experience: neat concept, intuitive design, simple but cute presentation, good escalation, and so on!

Most of the feedback I would have is just nitpicks and obviously due to the limitations of the game jam time limits: you know, stuff like I wish the sound design was a bit more varied with different sounds when you're crossing water/lava/electricity, a better death/reset transition, and, of course, just wishing there were even more levels because I was really getting into it!

I'd consider this a good game jam result because, despite its simplicity and shortness, it still hooked me and left me hungry for more!

F1Krazy responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I've begun development on a full-sized version which should address most of these issues, in particular the short length (I'm aiming for 60 levels but that's subject to change depending on how many more mechanics and level ideas I can think of). Glad you enjoyed it!

[MÆRE II: Hypnagogia]

Very cool horror game! I was a fan of the first Maere, and I'm a fan of this one as well: the concept of trying to sleep while strategically scanning the area for safety while risking your sanity by doing so is very clever and nostalgic. My favorite part was definitely the sound design, not just in how it creates a creepy atmosphere, but in how it intuitively gives feedback and teaches how to play the game: hearing your heartbeat pound from seeing a ghost, turning away, eventually looking back, and having your heartbeat return to normal upon seeing it's gone is so cool and communicates how the game works incredibly well. I also liked the inclusion of a scoring system as it naturally incentivizes replays and makes the short length less of a problem. Cool stuff all-around!

While I do like it, I did still find myself a bit letdown by how easy and short it is. I was able to get an S rank without any sort of problem on my second try, and I couldn't help but wish the game had more meat to it. Would love if it was more like Five Nights at Freddys, where it slowly builds up the difficulty over the days, both in how punishing it can be and in new mechanics and obstacles to contend with. Right now I can't even see how a player could ever fail, but maybe if you introduced more ghost types that need to be handled in different ways, like having to look at them instead of away, that'd be neat. Couldn't help but want more, and I hope you can take that as a compliment, because it means you've got me hooked!

Chris responds:

Thanks! I think there will be a third game next year so there will be more. I like that idea about having certain ghosts that you have to look at, it would be an interesting twist to keep it interesting. It might make it into the third and final entry next year if I can figure out a way to make it immediately obvious which ghosts you need to look at and which you need to avoid.