FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Horizon 6]

Cool retro aesthetic to this game! I went in expecting something like first-person Defender or Captain Skyhawk, and instead I felt like AVGN trying to land the plane in Top Gun, haha. While it's very clever and impressive that you mapped the entire control scheme to just the mouse, it didn't translate to a fun time as it felt like I was battling my own controls rather than battling for a high score. As it is right now, I think this game could be fun if the intention was to make a fumblecore game like Surgeon Simulator where fumbling and learning the obtuse controls is the fun part. Anyway, once you get past the controls, I feel like the gameplay could use a bit more hype and direction to it: at the moment it feels like you just fly around aimlessly and nothing poses a threat until you run outta fuel. Some more music and sounds, more exciting enemies, a radar and more chatter and this could be something really cool as I think the graphics and explosions are already pretty neat and satisfying!

PatrickOReilly responds:

Thanks so much! That was just the review I needed, and I think I'm going for all those suggestions.

[HardPlatform]

A bit dry, but neverthless has a unique and clever puzzle mechanic that I've never had the pleasure of dealing with before! Had fun going through it, though the level design did seem a bit slapdash and random at thimes, but did make for a fun amount of variation. Could definitely stand to have a lot more juice and pizazz to it, such as music, sound, special effects and such not only to make it more fun and inviting, but it could also be used to illustrate the mechanics better and guide the player.

kbvpneofit responds:

++++
thank

[Hoisted]

A rather interesting and unique golf prototype that is a bit too bare-bones at the moment, but could become something really fun! Controls are a confusing at the moment. I think games like this usually have clicks close to the character be low power, while clicks far away from the player be high power, but this game inverts it. This is a bit of fun to rework your brain to get used to it, but maybe the game could have some sort of instructional graphics to help the player understand this better. Also, its frustrating when the spot you want to place the bomb is off-screen. I wish the game would reward you based on how well you're shooting: at the moment, you get the same fireworks whether you got 1 under par or a hundred over par. It doesn't even give you a scorecard at the end to show you how you did with a medal or something. Basically, its a little bland at the moment and could use a lot of juice, but the concept is fresh and inventive and worthy of expansion!

rmkubik responds:

Thanks! I'm glad you think this prototype has some merits!

I'm hoping to get some time in the future to give the game more polish and structure.

Your comment on controls is interesting! I had it that way originally, but it's intended that the player is propelled away from the explosions triggered on click. However, you're right it's super unclear. I'd love to figure out a better way to show that in the future too.

[Laser Piguin Spring Break]

Not bad! Game definitely oozes style throughout as it all looks very well put together with a professional design and graphics. Gameplay is no slouch as well, especially with the explosions which are very satisfying due to the particle and sound design. Only gripe I would have is that the game is a bit overly simple with no real challenge or sense of objective. While it is nice to shoot due to the satisfying explosions, it still takes a bit too long to get going and doesn't have a real drive to it. Still, it's that very same essence that actually makes it a bit chill and relaxing. I guess I'd just love to see this come back with more to it, like levels or a story, since it is so well put together!

Dezue responds:

Heyho, FuturecopLGF!
Thank you for playing! Glad you liked the game! :)
I agree with you on the simplicity on the game and am gathering ideas to expand on what's there, so expect more Piguin laser fun sometime in the future. Pew pew!
Stay funky,
Dez

[Guitar Munchers]

Pretty cool game that I think has a lot of heart in it! I love the arcade aesthetic that reminds me of games like Burger Time and Pacman, especially the goofy cutscenes you get as a reward for every few levels. Feel like the graphics, music and design are top-notch, and I loved my time with the game once I grasped it and started setting up combos and such. Only problem is it took a long time for me to grasp the game, and I doubt a lot of people will have the patience for this: heck, I almost dropped it myself plenty of times! The first few levels are really hard where the enemies just home into you and destroy you: felt like the later levels were easier actually since the enemies had less relentless patterns. Munching can be frustrating at times: sometimes I'd be trying to do the final bite on a string only for the game to think I'm biting the pixel next to it, leading to death. The combo system is neat, but really unintuitive, explained oddly, difficult to reproduce because of the above munching placement issues, and introduced too late and then the game doesn't explain it further. This is one of those games that toes the line between being 'satisfying hardcode retro difficulty' and 'frustrating and unintuitive': I came out alright, but could definitely use some help to make it shine for everyone else like it deserves for all the work you put into it!

LeSam responds:

Hey there! Random comment after ten months but I just got around to fix (I think) this problem you had in your video :

> Munching can be frustrating at times: sometimes I'd be trying to do the final bite on a string only for the game to think I'm biting the pixel next to it, leading to death.

Previously what it did is that it destroyed according to the biggest segment around the bite. So if you were eating a string on a part that was on its last life, but you were also just a little above another one with full health, it first destroyed the one with full health. Now it should only do that if you're really on that full health segment (which should be a bit more intuitive, so hopefully less frustrating)

Just woke up this morning thinking about this and was like "Why did I never fix this?" :D Anyway, happy new year ;)

[Biker Hero]

Not too shabby; it's a fun and goofy little prototype that I could see growing into something big! I actually felt like I liked the game better before I discovered that I had the ability to shoot. When you can shoot, you can just blast away through everything, but if you can't shoot, you have to dodge around the interesting bouncing enemies you've set up, which is a lot of fun and very challenging. Maybe make it so that the bike transforms into gun mode only at bosses, but for everything else, it's in speed mode where you just dodge through enemies. Obviously it could use some polish: animated sprites, smaller hitboxes, more special effects and such for pizazz, etc, etc, just don't lose those sound effects, haha!

BobbertOC responds:

Thanks for all the feedback! I think you're right about the shooting making it too easy, and I like your idea about the bike transforming at boss stages. If I pick this up again, this is definitely something I would consider adding. :)

[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!