FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Blooming]

Holy moley, you expect a lot out of your players! This game was super confusing, unintuitive and frustrating: a lot of the time when concepts were explained to the user, they were done with vague graphics, and those graphics weren't even visible at the moment you needed them! However, once you wrap your head around how the game works, this game had some crazy mind-bending puzzles that really challenged me and blew me away! Can't get over what a unique and interesting experience this was, and I'm glad to say I was able to beat it. It's not all sunshine and rainbows though: I felt like the dogs were a bit annoying to deal with due to their weird AI, and the boss was a bit of a letdown after the initial thrill due to how much health it had and how little time you had to pick a flower to strategize through the obstacles it sent your way. I bet a lot of people will bounce off this game, and you should work on that, because I want more people to see how great this game can really be!

HealliesGames responds:

No matter how hard I try, it seems that creating an easily understandable game is really against my nature.

I think it is partly due to my experience with videogames;
games like Another World or Contra took me hours, if not days, to figure out how to get through a part.
I want to convey this, apparently failing.

The dog AI is actually simple: they follow the linear path until the character is inside of their range. Then start following you. A circle showing how much distance to keep should solve the problem!

As for the boss instead, I should be able to resolve simply by removing the possibility of making consecutive attacks, since the moment you are dead you don't have the physical time to collect the flower.

I really hope I can improve this aspect in my production. This thanks mainly to user feedback, as well as thanks to your work of reviewing complete with gameplay.
I wait to see how you played it!

[Listeria Wars]

Pretty cool game! I feel like it hits a home run in terms of core structure as the gameplay, graphics, sound, music and so on feel great! While the swipe controls were a little confusing at first, eventually they create a good feeling flow to the strategy of moving your units around. The only issue I have at the moment is that, while it does do well at introducing new units and such each level to keep the pace going, it takes quite a while to introduce any cool story elements, and then the flow is kinda disrupted by the difficulty spike/need to grind. With some minor balance tweaks, however, I think this game would be incredible!

MrRubel responds:

Thank you!

[Just Slide 2]

Very nice! I was initially thrown off since it seemed the same as Just Slide 1, but I feel like this game has improved in the puzzle design and introduced a lot of cool new mechanics as well to make it even better than before! Still satisfying as ever to paint the levels, as it has a really addictive quality to it.

AdityaChaudhary responds:

Hope you enjoyed playing :)

[Nitrogenous]

Interesting game, but I do feel a little bit lost, haha. I think I understood it the main gameplay eventually and it is cool to chill out get lost in a trance of dodging, but I didn't feel like there was any sense of progression: the levels seemed random and didn't seem to rise in difficulty or change: only the player stats changed. I was expecting the player stats to be random, but naturally be higher and higher as it went on, and I expected the enemies to be basic but introduce the other ones in later levels, but sometimes I got high stats and difficult enemies straight from the start. I wasn't sure what a dangerous behavior was either as I wasn't able to get the bar high enough, unfortunately: maybe that would've been a cool boss fight or something. I understand that it doesn't necessarily have to have progression since it's just a score attack, but it felt a little lost without it, I guess. Pretty trippy game, however!

HealliesGames responds:

I didn't specified it in the instructions: with the increase of the danger bar, the probability of spawning those non-yellow protons increases.

The difficulty is intrinsic in the player's statistics, so yes: it is slowly progressing.
Actually there's no special event; a dangerous behaviour is only an indication.

But I was thinking of adding some sort of special wave between one behaviour and another, and maybe making the survival time more dynamic instead of the static 20 seconds.

Thanks for the feedback, Lucas!

[Ritz]

Pretty rad game! I like the presentation: feels like all of the elements such as music, sound, graphics and so on are there to make a nice core game. The only thing missing for me was a big hook. It's a nice game and I had fun finding all the cheese in the level (although the jumping mechanics are very fast and it takes a bit to get used to, but i "got gud" at it), but aside from the quirky quips and such, there wasn't much else, like a unique mechanic, to make it stand out from being just a basic platformer. I enjoyed it though, so I feel like it's a really decent core: would just love to see it polished up a bit and blossom into something big and unique like that weird Pizza Tower game or something, I dunno. But I understand if it was just a small prototype game for Pixel Day, and it's impressive in that regard.

ninjamuffin99 responds:

thankya futurecop for all ur work i appreciate ya

[Magickal]

Pretty cool game! I like the progression of moving from level to level and the variation of enemies is very impressive. Graphics, music and sounds give off a really cool gameboy aesthetic. While I think the core gameplay is good, it is a bit frustrating at the moment. For example, sometimes food seems to recover mana and sometimes it doesn't (and if you need to eat multiple food before you get a mana point there's no way to track it)? Only being able to have one bullet on screen leads to inconsistent shooting mechanics where a miss is too devastating since you need to wait too long, while a hit allows you to shoot once again immediately. Some of the enemies can be a bit frustrating to deal with since they can be slightly above or below your line of fire, but I do like the variation and you can dodge them, so it still works in the end. Basically, the game is still good as it is, but I think it could use a small bit of tuning to reduce frustration: you could allow a more consistent shot pattern, or allow checkpoints, or increase the speed of the game/reduce the time spent per level so the player can learn and retry quicker, etc.

Harlemblack responds:

Hey thanks for the elaborate review. Yes I actually had faced the issues you mentioned during the development phase. On Mana mechanics, there is actually an invisible mana bar being full of 100%. Each spell uses 30% mana while each food taken replenishes 10% mana (except the moon sphere as it restores 100% mana). This explains the randomness of filling mana by picking up foods. On shot pattern/management, I actually tried to provide three bullets on screen at a time instead of one. This made killing enemies ridiculously easy. If you notice, most enemies depend on ramming themselves to hit the player, not projectiles. You could just stand in a corner and eliminate any enemy marching towards you. To compensate the one bullet system, spell mechanism was created. With proper positioning, timing and spell type, player could wipe most if not all enemies on screen with single spell. Lastly, on game speed, yeah I was lazy in this part. I once tried to vary the speed but it was a mess. The first three levels require 3 mins to complete while the last two about 5 mins each. the gameplay duration will be about 15 mins and I think it's too short to have any checkpoint. My current games still use the elements of classic arcade games such as no checkpoints, lifeup mechanism, etc. But I really appreciated your inputs and shall make them considerations in my future games. Thanks.

[Smart Moves Alpha]

Fun puzzler! I think the level design is a bit awkward initially: especially with the weird 'guess the right flower route level'. After that, though, the level design really takes off as it starts introducing barrels, spiders, snake pots, spikes and more in very clever and satisfying arrangements! I like the graphics especially as they are well animated, cute, bouncy and very nice to look at.

grinrobot responds:

Thank you for your kind feedback!)) We have prepared 66 levels in the full version of the game. New monsters, new adventures, map and new smart moves are waiting for you! https://store.steampowered.com/app/1209520/Smart_Moves

[World War Wizards]

Not too shabby of a platformer! I always appreciate a good Nazi-killin' game, and this one has all of the necessary elements for a good core. I'd say that it just needs to polish itself up to deliver its core mechanics. The biggest thing for me is the feedback: right now it is very difficult to tell if you're being hit, or if you're hitting things, and even if you can tell from looking at the health bar, it's not as satisfying as it could be. If possible, there should be more indicators when something is hit: sounds, sparks/splatters, recoil, slowdown, anything. Also, there are some slight annoyances like the top of a ladder not being something a player can stand on, meaning you have to keep holding up awkwardly. Lack of feedback also extends to other things, like not being able to see the effects of potions and spells. If those things are added, this game could really be something great as it already has some cool elements like boss fights and such. Would love to see this game improved or more from you in general!

GoodL responds:

Thank you so much, these are some great criticisms. I completely agree with you. We'll be working on it!

[Weird Bunny Banana]

Very fancy game! The presentation is top-notch with a lot of pizazz to it, and it doesn't stop with just the game sprites, but the menus and UI as well. A very generous amount of content is in here as well, especially considering the gameboy world (little confusing to have it on the right side considering its the tutorial? not really a tutorial though, I'd say its just a bonus level). Some of the movement controls are a bit fiddly though: it feels like the flip changes the way you jump and to avoid confusion I'd prefer to just have a regular jump instead (or make all jumps flips). Could use some "coyote jumping" mechanics as well: lot of deaths due to the game not registering a last minute jump on an edge. Also there were jumps where the platform was a little too high right above you and you had to run in place to reach it? It's a really solid game and I'd love to play more of it; just needs a little polish on the movement to make it feel as smooth as the presentation is.

TristanMX responds:

Thanks for playing dude! I've been thinking about the coyote time seriously, I feel that it should be added. Now for the flips, I moderated them. In the original version, you flipped all the time, but the animation gave a sensation of miss control, so I decided to trigger the flip only after certain amount of time in the ground. The game is supposed to demand precision, as in mario maker, so for some jumps, you do have to keep pressing the run button, otherwise, you won't make it. I also moved the Gameboy as a bonus, lots of confusion with the original version of the game lol... nobody played when Woodlands was the first, then everybody complained when Gameboy was the first (is a mario copy, wah wah wah...), so screw them lol... now I took the decision of mixing it: gameboy for the tutorial, and Woodlands as the featured level where you can see the nice appealing of the game.

Thanks again for your comments, and enjoy the gameplay!