FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[DEAD DETENTION #1 (Rescribbled)]

Neat visual novel you got here! The story is a bit too goofy and packed with anime cliches for my old man sensibilities, but I was really impressed at the stylish sketchbook presentation and overall smooth, polished feel to the gameplay and interface. Where a lot of visual novels are very static and filled with portraits talking at each other for hours that can sap my energy, this had a lot of unique art, minigames and so on to keep things lively and engaging.

While it is pretty promising, there were a few points that I feel could use some work:

*I was a bit disappointed with the minigames, particularly in that there is no way to fail at them, making them feel rather pointless. I would much prefer if winning or losing at the minigames would branch the story in different and exciting ways, or affect your character's stats which can make differences later on in the actions they take, similar to other more action-based visual novels like Indigo Prophecy, Until Dawn, and so on.

*I like the idea of decisions affecting your stats, but this episode didn't provide any instance where we could see how those stats affect anything. Perhaps it is planned to only have effects way later down the road, but I'd like to see proof of the system in action early on so I don't feel like I'm being sold a false bill of goods (ever heard of Mass Effect 3?) For example, it'd be nice if being negative earlier on makes you reluctant to help out in finding the sister, so the story branches there, though perhaps only for a bit before he rejoins and helps out.

*There was a distinct lack of quality-of-life features, such as there being no save/load feature, no text log so you can review things being said, no skip feature, and so on. I can understand being hesitant with save/load features so that people need to live with their choices instead of save scumming, but still, what if I need to take a break and want to continue later on?

Looking forward to seeing how the rest of the episodes develop!

JackAstral responds:

All good suggestions - thanks! I’ll keep some of those in mind for the next ones :-)

[The Gauntlet]

Hmm, for the most part I liked what this game was trying to do! The whole death-gameshow aspect reminds me of something like Smash TV or The Running Man, and I liked trying to react quickly to make it through these randomly-generated deadly obstacle courses while also grabbing any bonus cash that I could, which usually requires taking an extra risk. As frustrating as it was that I could barely make a dent into my debt, I can begrudgingly appreciate that it's probably the point, haha!

That being said, the game didn't keep my attention for long as I started seeing the same room layouts over and over only a short bit into the game, many of them quite sparse and not that exciting, making it all feel rather repetitive. The controls were also rather frustrating with me constantly accidently activating the dash when I didn't want to because I'm trying to move back and forth quickly to stay on a platform, for example.

The worst part of the game for me was the whole metaprogression and daily login stuff: it felt completely unnecessary and threw off the balance of the game. I had no idea that revives were a limited item that you can only recover once every 24 hours, and so I blew all five on my first run, thinking that it would be like any other game where I'd get them back on a new run, and now I need to wait five days just so I can have a fair chance at playing again? Why on earth would you incentivize players to stay away from your game and be so unfair and punishing?

Also a small nitpick: the music in the intro is so loud that it drowns out the voice actor. There could definitely be some audio balancing here and there.

blit-blat responds:

Starting with the revives - it’s to incentive people to download the app, where they can buy more revives. Yes, in-app purchases are scummy, but I’ve got bills to pay! Think I’ve tried to get the balance right, this game is no means pay to win!

There’s 100 rooms (101 if you include the start screen), so you shouldn’t see too many repeats early on. That said there’s no restriction on the rooms, so it possible to see level A, B, A, B, etc back to back, depending on how RNGesus is feeling! Something to look into, along with the Audi balancing.

And yeah, it’s definitely meant to be hard (but still possible!) to pay off your debt! No one escapes the gauntlet!

[One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy]

Huh, quite the interesting game! It's certainly a very lively, stylish and animated game, and I was really impressed at the sheer amount of variety that the game has for chapter titles, dialogue, and so on: it's even got a bunch of hidden/rare animations for pushing the rock or getting knocked down! Can certainly keep you playing for quite some time just to see what happens next!

Unfortunately, compared to other Sisyphean-esque games like Jump King and Getting Over It, this lacks compelling gameplay as it just keeps recycling the same minigames in the same order over and over, and the time limit quickly caps out at 2 seconds in just 3 cycles with no other evolution or progression beyond that. I just couldn't imagine myself happy to play this for very long at all. In a way, though, that pointless and repetitive feeling that the game gives off accurately portrays the task more so than other games, so I guess this might be the best game in that regard?

squidly responds:

its not Sisyphean-esque, it's Sisypunk 🚹🪨

[Bug Off!]

Pretty cute rhythm game! For the most part, I really like what this game is going for: the story is wholesome, the characters and dialogue are very cute and charming, and the rhythm gameplay is interesting in how you need to try and mimic your partner by observing their telegraphed poses and reacting quickly.

I have to admit, though, I had a really rough time! I love rhythm games and I understood what the game was putting down quickly, but I find myself barely able to keep up once the game finishes introduces all of the characters and their associated moves on easy. With such a wide array of moves to look for, the amount of time to react being so low, and the way that they can throw you off your timing by holding the pose for longer or shorter amounts of time: it's really hard!

I know the game is trying to help with subtle hints like modulating the pitch of the sound to indicate whether the pose is going to be held shorter or longer, but still, the reaction time and decision-making it is demanding is too much for me! There's a reason a lot of rhythm games use note charts where you can see ahead, and we're seeing an example of why that works and this doesn't right here, unfortunately!

So yeah, lovely little game, but damn if it doesn't have some serious claws hidden under that cute facade! Wonder if the high difficulty is a case of the developers getting too used to their game from working on it so soon and mistakenly thinking it's going to be just as easy for new players.

Mezix responds:

Thanks for the detailed and honest feedback! I'll keep it real, it definitely is partially the case that we got used to our own game. In fairness, it isn't a problem to restart the levels you are having trouble with, but I can see where you're coming from!

We also intended for the game to be challenging given it's limited run time, and maybe that's something that doesn't come across super clear when you open what ostensibly is a cute rhythm game. We've received some feedback pertaining to helping the player figure out the moves that we plan to implement in the future.

Thanks for your feedback!

[REALISE]

Hmm...I'm really torn on this one!

On one hand, I think it's pretty cool. Certainly starts off with a good first impression with the very stylish main menu that pans around the car wreck to display the various options. The music is nice, and the game's overall journey is quite interesting with a very fancy tunnel interlude, car crash pileup ending, and the general sense that there's nothing you can do to win. It's like an interactive music video, which is quite experimental and interesting, almost like a piece of outsider art!

On the other hand, the game just didn't feel good or well-put-together on a technical level. First impression was terrible as the game couldn't even format the tutorial menu to keep the instructions within the box, making them sloppily spill out and become hard to read. The gameplay felt dull and lifeless with the way that there was an absolute lack of feedback, such as there being no sound or physical reaction from the car when it plows into money or obstacles. Power-ups felt worthless as well: what's the point of getting tank treads if you can't even plow through pebbles in your way without losing money? Everything just felt bad and pointless and finally, I feel like the game tries to excuse its problems but making everything feel 'deep' and intentional by delivering a bunch of fancy-dancy philosophical quote wankery: ohhh it's feels bad because its supposed to, sod off, if you pardon my harshness.

I know there's a lot of concessions I could make here and there: for example, maybe there was a lack of sound effects because you didn't want them to drown out the music. Maybe the power-ups feel bad because you're being conned by the salesmen or whatever. But overall if I had to pick a side between finding it stylish or shoddy, I just wasn't feeling this one. At the very least it was quite memorable and I like what it was attempting to pull off: perhaps if it just had a bit more construction put into it I would be cheering for it instead.

HearsePileup responds:

One guy worked for four years on this - I wrote the music too.

I'll consider doing an update once I've had some sleep.

There is a very real point I'm trying to make with this work though, as an interactive music video specifically.

If you're trying to assess this specifically as a game and not a political statement then you're missing the point somewhat.

[TV TIme Alpha 5]

Hmmm, this one is pretty rough, but I suppose that's to be expected for something that's still in an alpha state!

On one hand, there's a lot of potential in this game, particularly with the presentation. Overall the graphics are very cute and charming, and I was impressed with the menu design and other nice touches such as transition animations and the like. The platforming mechanics seem ok with a decent amount of variation in terms of obstacles, such as disappearing platforms. Basically, the game looks to have an interesting world to explore!

That said, it currently feels very much style-over-substance. When you cut to the meat of it, the game just feels incredibly generic, your bog-standard hop-and-bop action, and doesn't offer anything new or interesting to the platforming, nor is the platforming fun and fluid enough to make up for that. I was really hoping that the game would do something interesting with the TV premise, but unfortunately it just rather superficial.

Moving on from that, there are a lot of rough spots and nitpicks to its current state:

*I was very confused as to the purpose of the static and the towers. Do they do anything?

*There didn't seem to be any sort of health meter and I was always confused when sometimes I could take a hit but other times I'd die in one blow. Very odd that you've got this wifi meter that goes down when you die: you'd think you'd use that as a health bar, with each pip representing the amount of hits you can take.

*As unique as the static animation and sound for collecting coins was, it was very unsatisfying and didn't compel me to collect them at all.

*I was using arrow keys to play the game, but they only seem to work for movement in-game: menus can't be operated except by using WASD for some strange reason.

And there was just a lot of other general confusion and odd glitches here and there. Hopefully this feedback can help in some way as I'd like to see how this game develops!

Trashedy responds:

The Arrow keys thing is being fixed, and the hit system is sort of like crash bandicoot, the remote follows you around and when take a hit he disappears. As for the towers, the wifi symbol respresents how much.. like connection (idk what to call it) you have left, if you're too far away from the towers for too long it slowly drains (faster without the remote). I do agree with you about the coins, I think making them disappear faster would make it more satisfying. As for the TV premise, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by style-over-substance, but I see what you mean by the game not really being related to TV's all too much. I feel like there's cool stuff I could do with the idea I just can't think of anything. The theme also isn't really supposed to be just TV's it's more about old tech in general. There's a loose story I have planned. So I'll add a intro cutscene as well as a tutorial. Also I do plan to try I make the game stand out a bit more by adding some metroidvania type upgrade elements, not sure how I'm gonna do that, but I'll take it into consideration. Also you said the platforming wasn't fluid which I could see but could you explain more?

Also sorry for the long response but you wrote a lot! I means a lot that you took the time to tell me what you think! I'll try to improve.

I also noticed that you really only complimented my art (not mad) programming and music are pretty new to me lol.

[The Newgrounds KinitoPET Collab]

Cute art collab! I'm not familiar with the source material unfortunately, but the art is nice and I do like the whole fake-OS presentation you got going. That said, I do wish the art was presented in a more creative fashion than the typical slideshow format, and I was bothered that some of the art is difficult to look at because the artist credit gets in the way (there's a piece of Hexamak where a speech bubble is covered up). I also wish there were some other quality-of-life features, like being able to click on an artist's name to go to their NG page, some sort of gallery view, being able to move or zoom the art, etc. Not too shabby, though!

riot100233 responds:

SKIBADI TOLET

[Homestuck FreshJamz Collab]

Neat music collab! I'm not familiar with the source material or anything like that, but the jukebox interface was clean, there were some cute easter eggs, the game provides credits with links to artists profiles, and I quite enjoyed some of the music! If I were to have any complaints, it'd be that it'd be nice to have a volume knob and to have links to artists directly adjacent to their songs instead of being stuffed in the credits, but these are very minor nitpicks. Cool stuff!

Wiserim responds:

The player was based on this panel: https://www.homestuck.com/story/830
Originally it was flash based interactive music player.
TBF the fact that it was replaced with static image was the main reason behind this collab.

[Lightning Katana - Gaiden]

Hmm, pretty neat game you've got here! I was a bit worried at first since I'm typically not a fan of these old-school Wolfenstein 3D-esque games, but the fast-paced and skillful killing frenzy you can get into this game was pretty cool and very akin to games like Anger Foot, Mullet Madjack or Hotline Miami! I really enjoyed all the various ways you could style on enemies: kicking doors into them, comboing abilities one-after-another by targetting colored enemies, parrying and dodging: it can get pretty deep and expressive!

As much as I enjoyed it though, it's certainly a bit rough in some aspects, and I'm not talking about the obvious stuff like how the death animations all reuse the same default thug sprite: that's probably because it's just a work-in-progress and those are placeholders. Moreso I mean something about the game was just off or inconsistent at times which led to confusion. Sometimes I couldn't tell whether I got hit or not, sometimes I couldn't tell what the significance of whatever sounds playing were, sometimes I would swear I picked up a power-up only to have nothing and therefore ruin my planned combo, and so on: just these awkward moments that didn't feel like they were necessarily my fault or anything.

If I were to nitpick something else, it's that I don't like the whole aspect of some enemies being immune to swords because they have this aura assigned to them: if you must have something like this, I'd prefer it be a new enemy type which carries a riot shield or whatever that consistently has this property instead. Oh, and I was disappointed that there is no foot animation that comes with kicking: c'mon, ain't you ever seen Duke Nukem's big boot? We need something like that in here!

Hope you continue to work on it because I think it's got some good potential!

FCPXAV responds:

Thanks! Hotline Miami and Anger Foot definitely played a part in establishing some of the pacing and game feel!

You're right and the game is still a work in progress, and I'm gonna be implementing a cleaner and more clear UI for some of the more confusing things like seeing how much health you have left, where you were hit from etc.

I'm working on some art for more animations like the kick and gonna expand on it so that you can kick enemies and objects in the environment as well, and hopefully add more enemy types if my budget allows for it!

[Stickyfoot]

It's simple but fun puzzle arcade madness! With so much bite-size content on offer that is progressively adding new innovative mechanics over time to keep things fresh, as well as some great juicy gamefeel and amusing touches like how the character vibrates angrily to reset the level, I couldn't help but get addicted to going for the gold! It's not exactly blowing my mind or anything with something I haven't seen before, but it's just all-around a very solidly constructed and executed game!

If I were to have any feedback, it'd just be for minor stuff, like how it'd be nice if there was a ticking timer during gameplay and a preview of what award you're currently on track to get: in this way, if you see the gold switch over to silver, you could tell whether you've already failed at acquiring the gold and restart immediately without having to go through the entire level to check.

platformalist responds:

Thanks for playing, FutureCopLGF! Glad you enjoyed the little touches.

If you pause the game with Enter and select Show/Hide Timer, you can toggle on a timer! Based on your feedback, I added two little colored lines on the existing timer that change color based on what trophy you're currently able to get. Hopefully this is helpful for you! Thanks again for playing and for the detailed feedback. :)