FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[scaling a mountain using the second amendment]

Pretty neat Happy Wheels/Getting Over It rage game you got here! I'm a fan of these kind of games and for the most part it felt pretty nice: the world had a challenging construction to it and a neat sense of progression with checkpoints and upgrades, the gun being your method of transport was cool, and it was fun to try and master the intricacies of the reload/reset mechanic since it does so when you just brush against the environment instead of necessarily landing.

I'm a bit torn though on whether this is a game I'm going to beat, though. As said, I'm a fan of these types of games, but the goofy non sequitur nature of this makes me afraid that I'm just bring jerked around: that the world and controls aren't as elegantly and fairly designed as its contemporaries and that it's not a game that can be won through skill, but rather random dumb luck. Since there is a volume control for the narrator that can be used to make them shut the hell up, though, maybe I'll keep trying: it's in the nature of these kind of games where they can seem random and impossible at first, after all.

A bit annoyed that the save feature doesn't seem to work: I made it all the way to the third checkpoint and wanted to take a break, only for it to start me all over with zero upgrades...what is the point of the save, then?

crow-seeds responds:

Hmmm, never had anyone have an issue with the save mechanic. Did you make sure to click the save game button in the pause menu? Saving isn’t automatic when you quit the game. Thanks for the review as always!

[Off the Grid - Summer 2024 Collab]

Cute art collab! Always neat to see other artists and their interpretations of each other's characters, and seeing all of this art in this intuitive grid layout with all the information you'd want, topped off with some chill vibes and neat special effects like the intro animation, is great stuff!

If I were to have any feedback, it's that I wish I could speed up the navigation at times, like being able to double-click to skip the sloooow transition and just snap to the next picture immediately. Either that or I wish we could actually free-form navigate as well, like dragging the grid around and zooming in with the mouse wheel as we please. It'd also be nice if there was some sort of credits and information window about the event, perhaps. I suppose I'd like if maybe it had a bit more razzle-dazzle as well: it's practically a sterile room with how white and clean it is, haha! But yeah, this is all small potatoes, as it's generally a nice gallery!

alsoknownas1 responds:

Thanks! As always your comments are super constructive. You're absolutely right that the balance here between minimalism and effects was a bit awkward. Not just because of you--of course--but we're definitely leaning towards the razzle dazzle (or at least novelty) in the next few projects. Would be very interested in your thoughts. Stay tuned!

[THE SUBSPACE EMISSARY COLLAB]

Pretty neato art collab! I was pleased to see that I got exactly what I expected looking at the title/thumbnail, being a very Smash-esque trophy/gallery view with all the neato bells-and-whistles I could want, from the authentic sounds and 3D rotating art, to various quality-of-life features like clickable artist profile/social links and the different categories for viewing. I can always wish for more, like being able to click on the art and be able to rotate it around as I like, or an actual subspace emissary game where you collect the art, but what is here is perfectly acceptable. Nice work, and nice art!

ElRandomGMD responds:

U are a legend :D

[Deep Snake]

Cool stuff! I feel like this is a perfect game jam result, in that, while it does have some rough aspects like a lack of music and some confusing design choices like the apple which doesn't change size, the overall concept is very memorable and the gameplay execution of it has resulted in an addictive and trippy arcade experience that I can't help but love and wish I had even more of!

Now excuse me while I chase this 31st apple: I swear I'll catch up to it at some point!

dietzribi responds:

the 31st apple is just very close to the loop point, if you see it disappear go back "away" from it and you'll get close to it again.
I'll leave it to you as homework to think why the apple doesn't change size ;)

[Goblins Revolt]

Pretty neat little mini RPG! It's a bit rough in a lot of aspects which made my first impression not the greatest, but it nevertheless had enough charm to its presentation that I couldn't help but stick with it and before I knew it, I had made it through with a full clear on medium! There are some pretty neat strategic concepts at play here, such as how you can't always use a bunch of turns for a full map clear or constant rests since that would allow the enemy to grow too strong, and how the intuition resource is not just used for map intel but battle intel as well. Another big aspect that I always appreciate is when an RPG makes it so that you can't just attack and heal over and over, but need to use buffs and debuffs in strategic ways, as well as a nice variety of enemies with strengths/weaknesses instead of just punching bags, and that was done here quite well!

As said, despite my enjoyment, I did have a bit of a rough time with it. In particular, the UI/UX wasn't the best: I'll grant you that the game does have some nice tooltips for the most part for stuff like attacks, but there were a lot of other places where I wish I could get tooltips or a log or more information, but I couldn't. For example, the text that pops up for enemy stat increases, as well as plenty of other text, can be very difficult to read due to how fast it can go by with no log to refer to, as well as the text not being outlined so it gets hard-to-read when it's overlapping something else. Some information was also just conveyed in a confusing manner: I don't understand the two totals for goblin assignment, some buttons react on hover to let you know you can use them whereas others don't, and so on. Finally, it's also missing some quality-of-life like an options menu, the ability to save/load, and so on. Still, as said before, it's not too shabby!

Drowsierstone responds:

THANK YOU FOR THE REVIEW :D

I agree with all the things you mentioned and I do plan on remaking the entire game from the ground up somewhere in the future as this was made to a be uni project ,where our deadline was getting closer. So many cool things had to be cut and also the code in this game...could be improved XD and I did want to add the quality of life features you mentioned but construct 3...has wierd way of doing things. But I will keep everything you said along with others as great critiques to keep in mind for the future :D Thank you!

[Beetle Battle]

Not bad for a boss rush prototype! Obviously it's a bit simplistic in terms of presentation and mechanics, and is lacking content, having only one boss in total, but the boss pattern is varied, fun and challenging to battle so you've got decent fundamentals. Looking on the bright side: while overall the package presented here is a bit paltry and only a prototype, all things considered, it did leave me hungry for more instead of outright dismissing it, so I'd say it shows promise and I'd love to see a future enhanced version of this!

litroj responds:

Thanks for playing and feedback! I will sure comeback to this game after I finish my other projects!

[Lightning Katana [Demo]]

Didn't expect to see a new demo for this so shortly after the last one, but the progress is nice to see!

Glad to see that some of my previous feedback has been rectified, such as the new foot animation for kicking, and the inclusion of a narrative and other cool effects like the way enemies get chopped in half is pretty cool.

Some of my previous feedback is still present, such as how I don't like these weird auras that deny weapon usage on enemies and would prefer a new enemy type be created instead for those purposes, but I assume either they will be addressed later on or you wish to keep them.

In addition to the above, here are some other feedback I can offer:

*The cooldown between slashes is obvious because of the way the arms go down and don't come back up until it's ready, but the same can't be said for parries: there is a cooldown phase where you can't slash or parry, but it's not obvious because your arms are still up. I'd like it if there was more consistency in this matter.

*Soundscape could be a bit better as apart from the initial alert sounds that enemies make, they are totally silent, which makes it so that they can easily seem to come from nowhere as they make no footsteps or attack sounds. Perhaps it's intended as part of the challenge that you need to be swooshing your camera around constantly to keep an eye on them, but I dunno: I'd like it if I could keep track of them through sounds as well.

*Menus are very inconsistent in terms of control: some of them can be used with the mouse to click the buttons, while others force you to use the keyboard. It's just really confusing and frustrating to figure out what each one wants.

*The new HUD is nice, but I wish it was more clear what power you are currently carrying. Yes, once you get good enough you can memorize the colors that represent each power and look at your arms, but it's very confusing when you're starting out as you can be picking up powers at a rapid pace before you even see what you pick up and have no idea what you're carrying. I'd say that the power icon should not only be somewhere on your HUD to reference, but the icon should also briefly flash in the center of the screen when you pick it up to help acknowledge it.

Keep up the good work as I'm looking forward to hacking and slashing in the full release!

FCPXAV responds:

Glad you enjoyed! I liked the idea of an entirely new enemy for enemies that are immune to weapons, but we don't have the resources right now to add that to the game :(

The flower that represents your health also flashes depending on whether or not you have a powerup/what powerup you have but I'm aiming to add more obvious feedback on picking up an ability in the full game!

I just finished working on/adding a big new level to the game with a fair amount of new mechanics that took up all my dev time for the past couple weeks as they required reworking a lot of the code, so things like some of the menus have fallen to the wayside but that's also on the fix list for the final game!

Thanks for the feedback and glad you enjoyed! (P.S. feel free to take a look at the new level/mechanics and let us know what you think of em :) )

[Stardust Journey - Artfight 2024 Mass Atack!]

Hmm, it certainly is quite the nice visual novel, what with its cute graphics and wholesome vibes. I was impressed at the inclusion of animations and numerous special CGs: certainly some effort was put in beyond the usual talking static poses that most visual novels default to. Overall it's ok, but I will say there were a lot of issues on closer examination:

The game is definitely lacking a lot of quality-of-life features. It does have a log feature which is nice, but without a skip/fast-forward or save/load, replays are an absolute chore to get through, which is important because the game is all about that! It does look like there is a 'skip intro' button that appears eventually, but not only does this only appear once you fully conquer someone (meaning if you mess up, you can't skip), it disappears if you close the game and come back to it later on.

Not all visual novels need to do this, but I felt a bit disappointed at the reactivity from choices the player can make. I like to pick the wrong choices to see what happens as they can be very interesting, but in this game a lot of them lead to just a quick and boring game over screen, upon which you need to start all over (which is annoying due to the reasons above). I wish there were more amusing conclusions like when you turn off the computer at the very start and it berates you, haha!

Finally, I will admit that I had no idea what was going on in this as I'm not familiar with these OC artfights or whatever. I was trying to pick stuff up from context clues and you can still enjoy yourself somewhat from the goofy vibes, but in the end I felt like I was an outsider reading someone's private journal that I'm not meant to read: really felt like this game was meant to just be shared with friends and not the general public. Nothing wrong with that, and I guess it's nice to learn about this world I'm unfamiliar with, but that awkward feeling is just something that can happen when you post it publicly instead of within the intended audience circle, I suppose.

Diadantist responds:

First of all, thank you for you extensive review on the game! I appreciate a lot these kind of comments. I'll answer you in order.

I'm aware of the lack of several QOL features, like the skip button and save states. The plugin I used for this game was Dialogic, which offers the possibility of adding it onto game projects, but not "directly" as the log feature, but with some extra configuration work behind. I was thinking about it throughout the entire development of the game, but due to lack of time and knowledge of how the plugin works, I ended up not adding it. Instead, I added the skip button once you reach the OC list, so at least you don't have to repeat the entire intro every time you want to do a new route. I'm working to eventually release a 2.0 version that includes both options, tho! I don't have as much time as I wished I had for this project (since I'm working on a big project that is unrelated to gamedev), but rest assured I'll add it sometime in the future.

About the wrong choices, you are totally right! Since I ran out of time, I didn't include many goofy scenes aside from a couple for some characters and the beginning. The turning off the computer thing is my favourite so far!

And about the context, it's totally true that if you aren't familiar with Artfight or how it works, it may be a little bit confusing. That's on me completely. Artfight is an annual art game that lasts 1 month and where you can fight each other "attacking" their OCs in goofy ways. The variety of attacks can vary from regular illustrations to videogames (like my attack!) so maybe that's why it felt a little bit awkward.

https://artfight.net/info/about / https://artfight.net/news/95.art-fight-2024-seafoam-vs-stardust-results

I was featured on this year's final post (where they feature art made on that year) on the videogame category, so I take it as a huge feat :) You should try the other featured games, there's one that uses other people OC's for a warioware-inspired game! https://alleesaur.itch.io/ocware-artfight-2024-edition

If you are curious about what the event is like or want to know more about it (and maybe even participate if you want!), I leave you the links here. I'm aware that one may feel unfamiliar with Stardust Journey if you don't know the full context the game was made on. I still wanted to post it to Newgrounds for archive reasons (along in itch.io too).

Anyways, sorry for the long rant! You'll be happy to know I'm working on a 2.0 version as I said earlier. Comments like yours help me not only improve the game, but notice details that I may have missed completely like the conversations. Hopefully this won't be my last time doing a visual novel, and for me it's a huge feat having finished this game just in time for this year's Artfight since I wasn't able to in 2023.

I would be very happy if you tried it again once I update it! Have a good day :)

[RPG MK. II]

Pretty neat action game! Reminds me of something like Hotline Miami or Broforce, what with its bite-size levels that blend fast-paced action with a slight puzzle/stealth element, alongside slowly unlocking an arsenal of weapons and gadgets that can influence your approaches even further. Game also has a pretty good sense of polish and presentation despite its simple graphics: in particular the intros and outros for levels were pretty slick. I had a good time with this, especially when I was trying to build optimal and speedy routes through the levels that would keep my combo up the whole way through.

That being said, I did feel like the gameplay left me a bit wanting. It's fun if you turn your brain off and enjoy the chaos, but the second you turn it back on, it's just simply too easy due to the myriad ways you can exploit the AI. I mean jeez, you can easily baffle the AI by hopping up and down between floors and whittling them down with pop shots.

I really felt like I wanted the game to challenge me more as it felt like I could handle every level with the same cheap tricks: maybe it would be better if the enemies would pursue you beyond their initial floor when they make contact with you, even sounding an alarm for the whole base if you don't kill them swiftly. Also it might help if there were more enemy types that counter certain tricks, and if the levels were constructed to limit your freedom more and funnel you towards dangerous hand-crafted situations.

As mentioned before, I had the most fun playing this game when I was trying to speed through the levels and keep up a full combo. However, I don't feel like the game does a good job at encouraging this, and that's a bit of a shame because then the player can just breeze through mindlessly. I'd love it if there were some sort of grading system for levels and, as an incentive, make it so that in order to get the weapon unlock, you need to get a high grade: this would encourage more engagement into the scoring system and offer higher replayability. Basically I want the neat quest system you have, but done on a wider scale.

In addition to the feedback above, there were also some minor issues with the gameplay, such as how incredibly awkward the melee system is where you're constantly phasing past the enemy and making follow-ups difficult. Also I'm agog and aghast at the fact that there is no save/load feature! I made quite some progress in this and was hoping to continue it after taking a break, only to find myself all the way back at the start: quite the bummer!

BlueEagle421 responds:

Thanks a lot for this review!
I’m taking a break from working on it, but I noted your feedback. I will definitely try to improve the melee and try to balance the difficulty. I also enjoy the game most while trying to get the highest combo ;) I was thinking of some scoring/ranks systems for the levels. Will see how it turns out
The save system broke unfortunately on the web version and because it’s an old project I need to rebuild a lot of stuff from ground up to get it working. I want to get it up and running asap, but it’s a technical issue. At least it works on desktop for now ;)
Cheers!

[The Planetologist DEMO]

Seems like a decent Survivors-esque twin-stick shooter! Certainly showcases some solid fundamentals, but I do have to admit that while the game isn't bad necessarily and provides some grindy shooty fun for a short time, in this world of millions of Survivors-esque games vying for attention, this really isn't exciting me or being memorable and I drop it rather quickly. You're free to make whatever you like, of course, and perhaps it's unfair of me to compare, but I feel like it's inevitable. There are some aspects on which it shows some potential to differentiate itself, such as the diverse cast of characters might allow for a lot of different playstyles, or maybe the story mode will be unique, but I don't have any proof of those yet in this small demo.

I'm spitballing here, but given that the game is named the Planetologist, I thought that there were going to be more planet or science-based mechanics, and that could be a nice way to make this game stand out in a unique way. For example, maybe the planet could have more hazardous weather conditions or natural disasters you need to deal with randomly to keep you on your toes or prepare beforehand. Maybe instead of just shooting hordes of mooks, your primary objective is to gather samples by searching for locations to setup drills you then need to defend, or hunting down unique boss enemies. You could also maybe have to build up turrets or defenses like an engineer.

Some other minor feedback would be that it'd be nice to have some sort of visual HUD element to see our roll cooldown (similar to the reload bar), and to see our EXP progress in a bigger way than tucked in the corner where it's barely visible. I also found it really weird that our gun doesn't fire a bullet but instead seems to be some sort of invisible laser: makes no sense why we get powerups about increasing bullet size or speed. More razzle-dazzle in general would be nice too.

JamesChapp responds:

Thank you so much for playing the game and leaving a review!

This feedback is fantastic because it gives us a lot to think about and work on. Guillermo and I aimed to get the demo out there to test the core mechanics of the game. It's still a work in progress, and we're receiving a ton of valuable feedback on the project.

Since it's published on Newgrounds, we're dealing with a very demanding audience that, at the same time, understands it's a project in development being carried out by just the two of us. =)