FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Huerage]

Not too shabby. It's a simple game, but simple doesn't necessarily mean bad, as simple can be addictive and fun, which this game could be. I did like dodging around the enemies, weaving through them and slowly seeing my player upgrade in tune with the music. However, right now, I felt like the game is a bit overly plain and lacking which hurts it's presentation and lasting appeal. First, the controls were a bit odd. I have no idea why the player sprite turns in the direction of the mouse: you'd think it would mean you can shoot in that direction, but I couldn't find a fire button, so why does this exist? Bit weird to use a triangle as well for the player since it would usually mean that W would move you forward, not up, like a rocket in an old Asteroids game. Anyway, the music is cool, but I feel like it's doing all the heavy lifting and without it, the game wouldn't have much. I think the game does have a solid theme going with music since you're already have the player upgrade at certain phases of the song. Because of this, I would change more elements as the song goes on: add new enemy types, make enemies more aggressive, and so on. I think you should make all the visual elements of the game pulse to the beat like other music-based games do. Also, I feel like there should be some more special effects not only to add pizazz, but help communicate elements like enemies spawning in or dying. I recommend looking up a video called 'Juice it or Lose it' which shows how simple games can use cool techniques and effects to make it more exciting.

Tykua responds:

Thanks for the constructive feedback.

[Mayor Outbreak]

I think this is a pretty cool idea, but I felt so confused playing it. There was no tutorial for the controls (I didn't realize there was a throw button for a long time) or easing in to grasp the situation, and it never felt like I was able to have any effect on anything and I was just doomed to die without accomplishing anything. If that was the intention, kudos, but I assume there must be a way to win. It might've been my own fault as when I read the concept, I assumed it was going to be a Sim-City/Starcraft type game where you view the town from above and click on things to manage, but instead you control a little guy in a gigantic city. Because of that, it was chaos and I could never tell if I was having any effect on anything since it took forever to get around and I couldn't see far or wide enough if any of my actions were having a large-scale effect. A lot of times the game would just end with me catching the virus for no reason from what I could tell and I'd die (there was a little bug where you can live with 0HP: you only die if you go into the negatives for some reason). Again, I think this is a neat idea that could definitely work if maybe it was structured a bit more and didn't just chuck you into the deep end.

Fat-Leech responds:

Thanks for the feedback, all valid points with which I agree

[Bounce Back]

Not too shabby! It was a pretty nice experience battling it out with the boomerang through the enemies. I did feel like the difficulty spiked a bit too early with the shield guys as they are very frustrating to fight. Even when I had the great idea to throw the boomerang past the shield guy so that they would get hit when the boomerang returned to me (which I'm assuming was the intended way to combat them), there were just too many shield guys crowding around that just made my boomerang stop dead. Maybe ease the introduction of those guys with just one or two at first, instead of dumping a group of five of em at you when you first see them. I was hoping to be able to maybe buy some items to combat them, but money comes at you so slowly that it became a real grind. With some elements like music and other effects to add some pizazz and a better difficulty curve I think this could be really fun as the boomerang has a lot of potential for interesting combat scenarios!

KilledByAPixel responds:

Thanks! Good feedback, I plan to work on a sequel someday that will add a lot more stuff like you suggest. This was originally for a 13k game jam.

A few gameplay tips about the shield enemies. You can hit them from the side. Try to lure them near sand to slow them down. Use the dash button to escape if you are surrounded.

[Remember To Forget]

Interesting game! I haven't made it fully through yet: I suddenly died(?) for no reason when watching a sunset. I'm assuming it's a metaphor or something, but that was a really weird experience and kinda killed my mood (though it did make it intriguing and make me want to figure out what the heck happened). While the game is cool, it does have a lot of little annoyances to it. There were a lot of elements that wouldn't highlight when I hovered over them despite being interactable. Elements like the back arrow and the menu needed to be scrolled over to, which was odd, considering they should just be placed in a definite, HUD-like position on the screen, like other menu elements were. There were times when the text was someone else like Skye speaking, but the game did not put the name and color to indicate it was the case, leading to confusion. Nevertheless, I do want to get back into this game since the great art builds a nice atmosphere to it.

josieking responds:

Thank you for playing! I agree! I'll be the first to admit that it does have a lot of minor grievances – some in part to my lack of experience and other factors such as time constraints played a big part (not making excuses though, I take full credit for that.) I was learning how to do things as I went and looking back, I'd definitely do things differently if I were to try again. The art was my biggest focus so I'm glad it adds to the atmosphere but regardless, thanks for bearing with me!

[Life Of Alex]

A nice text-adventure! Seems to have an impressive amount of variation/routes to it, along with wonderfully funny dialogue and all sorts of crazy situations to read though. It was a pleasure to curl up, chill out with the jaunty music, and experience the life of an Alex. I gotta come back for more routes!

TheFerridge responds:

Thanks so much for the kind words, I'm happy you enjoyed it! :D Trust me, if you haven't found the time travel scenarios yet, you ain't seen crazy

[Broken Guns]

Not too shabby! I think it's a neat concept to work with, and the presentation is pretty solid with cool visual elements like the objective beaming in as it moves around, a HUD arrow pointing in the right direction, and nice explosions. It's cool to battle through the chaos as you chase after the objective and contend with your backwards firing gun. I had fun, but right now it feels like it is lacking a bit though: maybe I didn't play far enough, but the game kinda gets old quickly. Would love to see this expanded on with more varied elements. For example, I think it would be cool if you kept running out of ammo and had to pick up various types of broken guns to work with: a gun that jams and you need to jump to fix it, a gun that blasts you backwards, and so on and so forth.

JauqGames responds:

Glad you like the game.

The game does lack a good quantity of content, but then again I only had 48 hours to build this game. I definitely like a few of your gun mechanic suggestions and I'll keep them in mind If I ever decide to make a "fuller" version of this game.

[Interstate Drifter 1999]

Love this game! Love the feeling of getting better and better at grasping the drifting controls. At first, I might have to turn 180 degrees to slow myself by starting the drift too late on a turn, but later on you can get better and more efficient at turning only 90 degrees. Feels like it really rewards skillful play and player expression, and it's all put-together with cool graphics and music. I liked how you're given a free infinite space to drive around in a tutorial as well. My only complaint might be that I don't really like the energy system: it feels so bad to lose by running out of gas/energy. I would much prefer a standard lives system instead where you lose a life by damaging yourself or falling off and so on. If you want to keep energy, I would put that in an alternate hard/pro mode or something. Nice work on this!

UltimoGames responds:

yeah I hear it sometimes, that people don't like the energy bar.. Some do.. Thanks for the review FuturecopLGF! Glad you like it !

[Creep Away]

Not too shabby! I do like the gameplay and while I was initially a little confused by the tutorial info text dump, I was impressed at the attention of detail you've given to the HUD and UI elements, as well as general presentation, since it really allows the player to soak in the mechanics and learn everything in a visual way. That being said, I did dislike how despite being able to hover over a player to see how far they can move, you can't also see how far their attack/spirits can spread as well like how games like Fire Emblem do. Also, I felt like the game was really slow: instead of being short and sweet puzzles, it was long, tedious chase sequences where you need to keep waiting and waiting for way too many turns, watching the enemies move and their spirits spread in, and out, several times. When I lost, I couldn't convince myself to continue because I would have to wait for so long to finish a level. Basically, I just felt like the difficulty spiked too early and levels go on too long, but otherwise, the game seems very well put together.

drewby-games responds:

Thanks for playing, and i appreciate such a well written review/cricism. Totally agree that levels are too long and the game is too slow. adding spirit on hover when not moving them makes a lot of sense too! Id love to have levels as short and interesting as Into the Breach, for example.

I hope to continue to work on the level design, speed, and difficulty in the future!

[Can You Save the World ?]

This was a really charming game that really hits everything for me! Very cute music and graphics, nice story and concept, solid, smooth and intuitive gameplay with varied and challenging mechanics, and to top it all off, it's educational! I think my only complaint was that there was a bit of a boring middle part, where you have already seen everything the game has to offer and the difficulty isn't ramping up anymore, but you haven't saved enough people to see that you're making meaningful progress. Because of this, I was tempted to end the game since I thought it was just going to loop forever without any more progress. However, I did eventually get a big boost of lives saved which drew my attention to the top-right bar making significant progress, which bolstered me to make it to the end. Nice work!

MartinJacob responds:

Thank you so much !

The game is meant for all age groups so we had to cap the difficulty eventually.
In future releases we'll be including difficulty levels to challenge skillful players such as you !

[Larcin Lazer]

Very charming game! I actually had a lot of fun trying to make my way through the lasers, all helped by the goofy visuals and sounds of the thief dancing around like Kronk. I do kinda wish I could choose when to start moving instead of the game deciding, both in terms of making it go faster if I want to skip it and in terms of making it go slower if people want a few more seconds to memorize the pattern, but I do understand the design in escalating difficulty by only allowing a very short time to see the pattern. Also kinda wish it would show the entire laser pattern on death, like how Minesweeper shows all the mines when you trigger a mine, and I don't like how you can kinda move off-screen on the right side. Still, solid game!

DrGeraud responds:

Thank you for your time and for this in depth feedback. A lot of great stuff here. I'll sure think about that if I decide to do a full game out of this!