FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[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!

[Picowars]

Pretty cool recreation of Advance Wars! It's not my favorite type of game (I never get far in these type of games when they start to turn way too challenging, haha) but it seemed fairly well put-together and impressive. However, I feel like the game is missing a lot of quality of life which is necessary for people who aren't familiar with Advance Wars (especially since it's not 100% guaranteed that the game will work exactly the same way even if you are familiar). I know it's a fan-game, so you could argue that people should expect to be familiar with the game and not need a tutorial, but even taking that into consideration, the game could really use a way to see a unit's info to figure out what are their properties and strengths, and its missing crucial HUD read-outs like range-targetting for artillery and projected damage for when you do an attack, and so on. It's probably difficult to put all that into a pico-8 game, but it's absolutely necessary for this to work. Still, it's a very good core game you got here nonetheless.

lambdanaut responds:

Thanks for the review! I agree it's missing some pieces, and a tutorial would really be ideal.
Range is there for ranged units though. Hold 'X' on them to see their range :)

[[BTNverse] Prep-school horrors]

This is a really, really, strange game, and I of course mean that in the best way, haha. Love the really weird environment, kooky battles, and mysterious nature that permeates it which shocks and disturbs you constantly. Who says that all horror games need to be these first-person low-light no-weapon run-away games? This does a great job at building an unsettling and mysterious atmosphere, while simultaneously also being action-packed and fun with its great soundtrack and weird combat. The obtuse mechanics can be a bit of a double-edged sword at times: while its fun to get lost in the bizarreness and try to piece together what the heck you're even doing, some of the weirdness can be frustrating to figure out. For example, the pathfinding of your allies can be really, really bad, making you back-track to try to keep them all together or to make them pick up weapons (thankfully though, it seems that the game assembles all of them for a fight no matter what, so why even have them wandering around and getting lost instead of just putting them in your pocket like other RPGs if it just confuses you in the end?) The combat can also fluctuate between challenging and fun, way too erratic and unpredictable to realistically fight, to just braindead if you have a bunch of allies that just annihilate the enemy before it can even show you its moves. Basically, the game is a really crazy game, which makes it very interesting as an experience, but it sometimes works against itself with how crazy it can be, haha! Made it to ending 1/8 (lost the engineering headmaster) and will try and see if I can go for the others!

adriendittrick responds:

Thanks a lot for this thoughtful review, and I'm glad you had fun in my little existential dread of a universe :)