FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Pullfrog]

Really neat idea and an interesting game to play! Definitely has a nice feel to it with a lot of love shown in the various aspects of its creation, and I had fun figuring out how to play the game and deal with the chaos. Has a weird mysterious element to it as well which serves as another nice hook. I did get a bit confused on the execution at times, however. My initial expectation when playing was that I would shoot my tongue at something, it would attach and freeze the block, and then I would press a direction to indicate where the tongue would move the attached block to. However, it looks like the only thing the tongue can do is pull it towards you (when it works, which seemed sketchy at times), which I felt limited it greatly (for example, you can't pull a block to the wall because of this since you'd get squished). Because of this, I found myself relying less and less on the tongue pulling and more and more on the tongue being able to destroy blocks, which I felt was way less appropriately frog-themed. Basically, I think the tongue pulling is the most iconic feature of this and it should've had a lot more usability given to it to make it the best, instead of having it compete with the destruction mechanics which I feel might've been built to compensate and reduce frustration from the tongue being bad. Still, had some good fun nonetheless!

afk-mario responds:

You are totally right! we try to compensate a little the fact that you can't push pieces on to the walls spawning more pieces there, but I understand how it can be frustrating.

The pulling feels like it doesn't work at times because we try to have at least one block of distance between you and the piece so you don't get squashed more frequently it's not the most elegant solution and we have talked about different ways of dealing with it, but maybe now that the conditions for it to work are more clear it makes it less frustrating :)

Thanks for playing and the review!

[[BTNverse] Universal Thief]

Holy mackerel, this mighta been one of my favorite games yet from ya: the concept really surprised me since I was just expecting a more common type of thief game (like Thief, if you can imagine that) but I should've known better than to expect the ordinary from you, haha! It didn't take long for me to absolutely love the whole strategic element of stealing moves for an ideal loadout to deal with challenges in your way, all in a crazy Earthbound-esque environment. Really very impressive design in building all of these sorts of moves that can serve all sorts of purposes! I haven't beaten the whole game yet, but I'm looking forward to: I honestly thought it was gonna end with you stealing the boss ID, and that would've been satisfying, but it just kept going!

EDIT: I am the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end of this game rocks

adriendittrick responds:

thanks for the great review as usual :)
Have fun beating the rest of the game when you have time!

[RetroShooti (DemoScene)]

Very cool and crazy shooter! Has a real professional design to it both from a UI perspective and a gameplay perspective: the menus and UI have a ton of great options to them and aren't a slouch in terms of graphical presentation to get you amped up, and the gameplay is crazy with a huge variety of enemies and powerups all in a satisfying chaos of of explosions. Definitely really solid so far, but in terms of feedback that could be worked on:

I though the text for the controls on the 'how to play' screen were way too small and difficult to read: the font makes Xs look like Ks when they're written that small, for example. Would love to see images be used for controls instead of just bland letters, even if it is just an image of a keyboard key with the letter on it.

I wish there was an option to allow the turn around button to be a toggle instead of a hold: for some reason, my natural instinct was to assume it was a toggle and it was difficult to play by holding it down. Might just be me: maybe it works for most people.

My biggest issue, which might not even be an issue, was that the current gameplay, while fun and explosive and crazy, seemed to be a bit lacking in terms of direction? It might be my fault, going in and expecting something like Gradius, where you go from level to level, all showcasing different enemy types assembled in interesting ways in varied planetary terrain. This game did have a lot of enemy variety, and a lot of crazy power-ups, and interesting bosses, but it all just felt so scattershot and random, like a Jackson Pollock painting where enemies were just slapped everywhere on screen with no rhyme or reason. It just felt like I wasn't progressing at all in the game: with no significant change in background or design, I felt like I was just flying in the same bit of space getting nowhere fast, shooting enemies for no purpose. I was facing bosses every now and then, but they were tiny and started to repeat fast and became annoying bullet sponges in their repeat encounters. That's not necessarily a bad thing: it might just not be my cup of tea, and I did still have a lot of fun for what it was. Game definitely is still very well put-together and has bucketloads of potential left, so hopefully my feedback can help in some way!

[Slime Rider]

Great, professionally designed and charming little puzzler! Game just oozes style everything, even at the very start with its animated intro that shows the basic functionality of the game and the cool transitions between levels. Puzzles were great, with excellent level design that let you practice new mechanics in a safe level, and then escalates it with challenging levels afterwards that have a good variety of 'gotchas' to teach you good habits. I liked the inclusion of a speed-up button (I guess I got lucky by getting to play the updated version, judging by the comments, haha): I nearly forgot it existed since I didn't need it for awhile, but luckily you put the icon in the upper-right as a friendly reminder just when I started to get a little frustrated by having to wait, haha. Top shelf stuff, this!

Criobite responds:

Thank you, it's good to hear you like the game! Been working a lot on learning how to make better games in general and I'm glad it's working out.

[Fields of Sagebrushes]

Pretty neat experience that had a lot of cool atmosphere to it helped by the graphics and sound. Unfortunately the experience for me was killed a lot by the UI design, which when you have a visual novel should be your bread and butter. Events were really confusing at first as it was difficult to tell which choice I had highlighted and what element to click, and I had no idea why I also had to highlight a character to choose them or anything like that. At first I thought the white markers on the status bars indicated what our current level was within the black bar, but then the black bars moved and I realized that they were the actual status indicator themselves. Many times there were interactable elements on the screen that could still be clicked and highlighted despite no longer being interactable, like the town choices when you have no choices left, or the other confirm button on screen when you're traveling. Another thing that hurt the game for me was the lack of event variety (I was already getting repeats very early on before barely even leaving the coast) and the fact that there were long stretches without any actual story tidbits to keep me hooked. It's still a pretty neat game, but I just wish it had a bit more polish to it: would love to see an updated version!

danidre14 responds:

I appreciate your review whole heartedly, and thanks for playing my game again! :D

This was a lot of first times for me, but I'll make no excuses, I understand your critiques on the UI; like we left it there for the user to figure out, seemingly by intuition.

With the encounters, we've nearly 50; it's really odd that you got so many reoccurring, the algorithms weren't in our favour in this one time you took a run through with it.

But definitely, it would've been amazing to polish the story and expand; other than the few we whipped up last minute. I too would love to see an updated version!

Again, thanks for playing, and I appreciate the critiques and feedbacks :)

[Laser Dames]

Another interesting concept! I definitely do like me some stylish games, and this was an interesting fusion where it felt good to lure out enemies to build a super-combo-chain finish on them. UI design is a bit drab though and made it difficult to track things with text overlapping power bars and such. At the moment the game does feel a bit too quick and can be beaten by just spamming and such, but I love the concept and would love to see this fleshed out more with a tighter design. Music was cool as well: as usual I like how it escalates by building on itself more and more as you progress.

adriendittrick responds:

thanks again for the review :)
Eventually you'll have reviewed my entire catalog lul.
Also yeh this would benefit by some quality of life improvements, but I only had 9 hours.

[Grim Pawn]

Pretty neat puzzler! Graphics are a bit drab at times (especially the player character, which I can't tell what the heck they are), but it still works to build a grim atmosphere. Levels felt really well put-together with a good escalation of difficulty, and I loved the aspect of poems serving as good hints for new mechanics. Was a bummer that the game doesn't seem to save progress at all: I was really hoping to continue where I left off!

TheMikirog responds:

The game is fairly short, so I didn't bother adding the save feature in. It's still possible to beat earlier levels in seconds to get back to where you left off.

[Rescue in Faraway Fields]

Really charming retro game! Feel like it really nailed both the retro style in terms of graphics, sound, music and gameplay for an all-together solid package. The gameplay is nice and fun, though I did feel like it was too simple and easy at times where you could just go forward and throw rocks at everything (maybe rock throwing shouldn't even be a thing so you can have to skillfully jump over and avoid enemies instead?) I did eat my words when the challenge ramped up and I got crushed by a boulder later on, haha. I'm not sure what the purpose of the whole slot machine is, but I do like the game allows you to speed things up and advance through text and such by hitting buttons, so thanks for that. Wish the game saved since I got really far but had to temporarily stop: I'll try and get back to finish it!

EDIT: Made it through and had a great time (didn't even need the debug tools to skip)! Gotta admit, I sure ate my words calling the game easy: level 12 is going to be in my nightmares for some time, haha. Definitely a very nicely done game: the polish is something else. I did have beef with the apples though: not sure if it's intended, but if you get an apple in a level and then die, the dragonfly doesn't come back so you will forever have missed the apple, argh!

gatod responds:

Thank you! The slot machine was a very, very hasty addition because I added some powerups but didn't want to change the gameplay too much hahaha there's an option to disable them if you like! Alongside other stuff like giving yourself more starting lives and continues, disabling the "do you want to skip this stage?" screen and sother stuff. If you really, really want to play through any level at any moment you can press F1 while the game's on the boot screen until you hear the "perfect!" sound, then go to the service menu and select the level on the "get ready" screen. Just don't go for it before you've properly completed one game loop tough, otherwise you'll spoil the fun! Thank you for playing :)

[Mini Crawler]

Seems like it could be a decent game, but the lack of sound/music as well as a unique hook really hurts it in its current state. It has some decent fights and enemy variety and I like the idea of battling in the dark, with the torch you pick at the beginning determining your player light radius and thus, in a way, your difficulty, and the way the room lights up when you win is cool. I think the game being based around light is really cool, and it wish it was explored further: I'd love it if the players projectiles helped illuminate the room as well so our fireball spell would double both as a means of illumination and immolation. It's really weird that the enemy projectiles illuminate the room better than the player's do: I think the lighting for all projectiles should be like multiplied by 4 or 5 times greater to create a cool, frenetic light show as you fight, trying to see where the enemies are inbetween their flashes. In fact, you could make it the player light is really small so that your fireballs are the only real way to see enemies: it'd create some really crazy fights! Other than that, there were a few other nitpicks like how it was annoying how some skeletons could take 2 fireballs instead of 1 (that should be kept consistent) and how overly-powerful the mines were in comparison to your fireball.

Balbazour responds:

Thank you so much for the detailed feedback!
I will certainly listen to your advice and work to make it better.

[First Job: Mars Power Industries]

Very cool puzzler, and an interesting remix on the original Mars Power Industries game. I like the new mechanics of absorbing crystals into the homes and then having quotas to build certain tiers based on that. As usual, the levels had a great sense of pacing and design as it introduced all sorts of tutorials and new challenges intuitively, all wrapped in a wonderfully professional design. It was around maybe year 10-ish or so that it did get a little bit repetitive in terms of pacing: it was still doing alright and it was introducing some neat concepts like the land shifter devices, but I dunno, something about the game just screams for a bigger picture to get the player invested/hooked or something. I mean, the whole concept of building homes on Mars could make for an awesome narrative about pulling together and surviving for the sake of mankind so that we can start a new life. The move from the previous game's industrial buildings to now homes could really make it even more emotional since it's transitioning from the initial terraforming to now be about families coming to Mars: maybe each level shows you the names of families that move in and so on, just little quips and stories about them. Maybe it could even get a bit political or dramatic as the game goes on with housing planning mechanics fostering inequality in regards to the game quotas that allow some houses to get more crystals than others: maybe there are multiple ways to meet quota with a puzzle where the a harder more hidden solution satisfies families more than just coldly meeting quota, like a bonus objective to not wastefully upgrade a house to 4 when 3 will do, etc. I dunno, take it as a compliment that the real polished and slick design to the game as well as the chill atmosphere and music just makes me want even more in it to get players really invested; think something like Frostpunk, if you've played it. Anyway, I still had a great time, so keep up the great work!

Rarykos responds:

Thank you very much! Oh, these are very interesting thoughts! It would be really cool to make something like Frostpunk, thanks for the awesome tips. I'm a fan of these dramatic-strategy games, but I didn't think about Mars in that way. Yeah, very cool ideas! I'm really happy you enjoyed it, and that you cared to play it. It's nice to see you again, thanks!