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Difficulty ratings are currently very up in the air. I'm trying to fix them, I promise, but you'll need to bear with some weird stuff for the next few *years (Like needle ratings being overinflated because I'm not updating them).
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Xplayerlol
For: SlimePark
For: SlimePark
Rating based on 100% completion (Remove 1 difficulty point for any%, or maybe 0, the difference is not that big).
Brilliant 100-floor puzzle game by Necoroneko. Just like "I wanna Keypick 100" is based around the core mechanic of unlocking doors, SlimePark is a puzzle game focused on slimes with several different properties. If you've played "I wanna Gaze at the Horizon", you should be familiar with both mechanics and, if you're familiar with Keypick 100, you should be expecting a much deeper exploration of the game's core mechanic. However, even though I love Keypick 100, it's hard to deny that SlimePark is simply on another level of creativity and complexity.
The aesthetics are great. With Necoroneko's charming usual visual style, vibrant colors, varied scenarios with musics that match them well, adorable animations and visual/sound effects, we are guaranteed to have a very lively and light-hearted journey. This time, there's also a simple story that motivates our visit to the SlimePark. Like Necoroneko's other games, there's also a game manual, with basic instructions, health advice and adorable character introductions. Most importantly, the manual comes in two languages (English and Japanese)!! And the English translation is pretty nice too.
The amount of variety is beautiful. On top of the gigantic amount of gimmicks (With over 200 types of slimes and several types of modifier items that can be combined in many, many different ways), the gameplay style varies wildly between floors. Some floors feel more fluid and action-oriented, with puzzle elements toned down and enhanced platforming difficulty, whereas others feel slower, with more thinking and lots of setups required. This balance between several styles of gameplay made my experience much more enjoyable, as there's always more to look forward to as we advance to the next floor. My favorite floors are the keypick-related puzzles - which are also the hardest. Figuring out which resources should be used at which time is lots of fun.
The puzzle design is also very interesting. Unlike Keypick 100, which feels more mathematical (With numeric variables, multiple candidate solutions and backtracking strategies), SlimePark's puzzles feel more visual, with less numbers and more interactivity. The main sources of difficulty are the huge amount of candidate solutions, but also the oddity of some of the actual solutions. Thinking "There's no way that this is how..." is very common throughout the game, no matter how much you try to get used to the puzzles. Sometimes, your hunch will be correct, and sometimes there really was no way.
In terms of platforming difficulty, SlimePark is...relatively acessible. Some sections require slightly precise maneuvers and some odd ideas newer players might not be familiar with. However, for experienced players, executing the puzzles should be smooth sailing for the most part. Some saves are relatively lengthy, and others can be a little difficult, but never both at the same time, and the bigger hurdles tend to be either, near the beginning of a save, or forgiving enough to not punish mistakes with death. I would say it's comparable to an adventure game in the high 50s until the boss.
The game culminates with a boss fight against Shiratama King. It's a fight inspired by Destination's Titan Dweevil, and by far the best Destination-inspired boss I've ever seen. Shiratama King fights by chanelling the power of his 12 most powerful subordinates (probably), which results in 12 rather creative attacks (Some more than others) that call back to all the different types of slimes you met along the way. Syabon is fun, just like her expression indicates. Yoppy is a hard worker, probably won't kill you but he'll try his best. Kibatch is bizarre, his attack is one of the two most difficult in the fight and he can be really annoying to deal damage to. Reaval looks sinister, but his attack is not what I expected of a tricky manipulator (Still pretty nice). Pani is VERY annoying and difficult, and I kind of hate her - if there's one attack in the fight that's heavily reliant on luck, it's this one: Pink slimes' hitboxes are just too huge (Still an interesting attack). Mist is interesting, very reminiscing of a certain attack from Kamilia in K3. His personality reminds me of myself. Shiro is scary despite her peaceful personality. There isn't much to say about Poi's attack, but I wish her luck in her doctor career. Silva's iron will is a hurdle to overcome (But maybe he should be harder to damage, for lore reasons?). Spin is way trickier than Reaval somehow. Kanon has a scary face and a scary attack to match. Rain is another gem of the fight - super fun attack. And finally, Shiratama King is scary and intense, just like Titan Dweevil (But way easier). It's a very intense fight and, despite being way easier than the original Destination boss, it's still very challenging and highly likely to be a hurdle for any unprepared player due to its length and challenging RNG (Which is mostly fair, except for pink, but definitely not trivial). An amazing way to end the game, and just as fitting gameplay-wise as Chedar was for Keypick 100.
And that's the main game. You can enjoy an upbeat song along with the credits, finishing with the only personalized "Thank you for playing" screen I know of. Seriously, the clear screen is (or at least seems to be) randomized. And it works really well too. That's such a cool touch.
Now let's talk about the extra content. There's a lot of it. There are 7 secret keys (Combined with an eighth key that can be obtained from Shiratama King himself), which allow the player to access the Slime Museum and three guest (test player) areas. On top of that, there's a special exhibition room, if you can reach the museum quickly enough, and a short story if you can beat the guest areas.
Let's start with the secret keys. To be honest, their placement is nothing special. Walk into random corners (Usually blocked by some obstacle that can be pretty difficult to deal with), and you might unlock a red portal (There's one exception, which I feel silly for not thinking of, but nothing I can do about it now). The result is that, if you want to hunt the secrets yourself, you must be willing to run into corners and maybe even throw away attempts at every floor just to examine some suspicious corners that may have a hidden secret but most likely won't. And throwing attempts just gets more and more painful the further you progress. Definitely not peak design for hiding secrets. I found two of them, absolutely hated the experience, realized that they were ruining my enjoyment of the game and decided to follow the guide provided in the "CheatsTips" file. Yes, the maker provides us with a guide to find the seven secret keys, which kind of fixes the issue with secret hunting, but feels like a duct tape fix: It works, and I appreciate it a lot, but it doesn't quite solve the main problem (Which is the secrets being boring to find for anyone that wanted to find them on their own).
The contents of the secrets, on the other hand, are absolutely amazing. They mainly consist of unused gimmicks, and there are some really creative ideas in there that complement the main game very well. Secret 5, in particular, is amazing, very different and one of my favorite parts of the game. It's been a long while since I've done 'that' type of puzzle, and it was really fun. Absolutely worth sinking a little bit of extra time into (Assuming you don't try to find them on your own).
The Slime Museum is exactly what you would expect from the description and the author's screenshot. A peaceful memory trip, as you remember several moments of your playthrough while you gaze at the adorable slimes and learn more about them. Wait, why is that guy staring at me? Knot is on screen, you should be staring at him, stop staring at me, oh no, HELP.
If you beat the game within 10 hours, you will be eligible to visit the Special Exhibition. I originally thought that this was intended to be done on your first playthrough (and that I was just bad for taking so much longer), but after replaying the game and just barely making it, I'm pretty sure that it's a speedrun goal of sorts. Even on your second playthrough, remembering the solutions of all the puzzles is not that easy, many floors are extra-choke-able when you are in a hurry and, on top of that, you still need to deal with Shiratama King's shenanigans. The Special Exhibition introduces you to a few more...interesting slimes. There isn't that much content, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you really want to replay the game.
Finally, the guest areas - or rather, guest saves. Each test player (except for Eevee) has their own area consisting of a single floor. They are pretty interesting. Despite only using mechanics already presented in the main game, they all present new types of interactions that make them stand out from the other floors. To be honest, I did find their visuals to be a little iffy (The darker tilesets don't blend very well with the ever-so-colorful slimes), and Kiehi Area's boxes are a little buggy, but these are minor issues. Kiehi Area is probably the hardest area in terms of puzzle (Though I would rank it below some of the main game areas), while Sugar Area is leagues above the rest of the game in terms of platforming difficulty (Easily 60+, or even 70+). Kikka's Area doesn't strike me as particularly challenging in either regard (When compared to late main game, anyway), but it's still a little difficult in both directions. They are all very creative and definitely worth having a look at.
For negative points, there are some minor issues and inconveniences. I'll number them. 1) The platforming can be very slow at times: The core mechanic of the game is slimes, and most slimes move veery sloowly. Like I mentioned before, most of the longer saves are not that difficult platforming-wise (i.e. you won't spend too long in them, so the length won't be as much of an issue), but you may find yourself yawning every now and then. Remember the manual's health advice? I normally ignore these, but for SlimePark alone I'd consider taking it. Short breaks do wonders for puzzle games. 2) There's a couple of odd skips that abuse the slimes' moving hitboxes (That is, a slime's hitbox will change according to its animation). To enjoy the game's puzzles as intended, consider banning the following two moves from your gameplay: - Shooting right near the tip of a slime's head. If you time it right, your bullet might pass through the slime and hit a slime right behind them; - Squeezing Knot between two nearby slimes. It's a precise needle jump, but it's doable, and seems to not be intended, as it allows an alternative solution for at least one puzzle (Although it's so much harder than the intended solution I'd not consider it worth the effort). 3) As previously mentioned, Pani's RNG can be very suspicious. She doesn't ruin the fight, but it's still worth mentioning. 4) The secrets are not fun to hunt on your own (which is kind of the point of having secrets in your game). Still, those are minor issues in the grand scheme of things.
As for the difficulty rating, it's hard to tell. From the highly complicated puzzles to the beginner-unfriendly platforming and a boss that floats around the 60s to 70s in my book, I feel like 75+ is a pretty good estimative. In Necoroneko's website, he ranked this game's puzzle difficulty as higher than Gaze's, and I'm somewhat inclined to believe (Though I highly disagree with both platforming difficulty ratings being so close). There are just so many details to remember about all the types of slimes and their interactions, and the amount of possible solutions for every floor is overwhelming. On the other hand, 80+ would be a little too much, since I still think that both are easier than Variety 100 in terms of puzzle difficulty (Although in SlimePark's case it's harder to be sure). Finally, like I mentioned in the beginning, the secrets and extra are more or less even in difficulty with the main game - just a complement for extra fun.
But wait! It's not over yet. There's a hidden door somewhere in the Special Exhibition room, which holds the True Ending. The thing is, the requirements to open this hidden door are so outland-ish, I'd rather not mention them. Add a LOT points to the difficulty rating and call it 101% if you do decide to go for it. Thanks to Shinobu for letting me know.
SlimePark is an amazing puzzle game that shows Necoroneko's creativity yet once again - but even more intensely this time. It's not a very acessible game, but I highly recommend it to experienced players (that enjoy puzzles).
[4] Likes
Brilliant 100-floor puzzle game by Necoroneko. Just like "I wanna Keypick 100" is based around the core mechanic of unlocking doors, SlimePark is a puzzle game focused on slimes with several different properties. If you've played "I wanna Gaze at the Horizon", you should be familiar with both mechanics and, if you're familiar with Keypick 100, you should be expecting a much deeper exploration of the game's core mechanic. However, even though I love Keypick 100, it's hard to deny that SlimePark is simply on another level of creativity and complexity.
The aesthetics are great. With Necoroneko's charming usual visual style, vibrant colors, varied scenarios with musics that match them well, adorable animations and visual/sound effects, we are guaranteed to have a very lively and light-hearted journey. This time, there's also a simple story that motivates our visit to the SlimePark. Like Necoroneko's other games, there's also a game manual, with basic instructions, health advice and adorable character introductions. Most importantly, the manual comes in two languages (English and Japanese)!! And the English translation is pretty nice too.
The amount of variety is beautiful. On top of the gigantic amount of gimmicks (With over 200 types of slimes and several types of modifier items that can be combined in many, many different ways), the gameplay style varies wildly between floors. Some floors feel more fluid and action-oriented, with puzzle elements toned down and enhanced platforming difficulty, whereas others feel slower, with more thinking and lots of setups required. This balance between several styles of gameplay made my experience much more enjoyable, as there's always more to look forward to as we advance to the next floor. My favorite floors are the keypick-related puzzles - which are also the hardest. Figuring out which resources should be used at which time is lots of fun.
The puzzle design is also very interesting. Unlike Keypick 100, which feels more mathematical (With numeric variables, multiple candidate solutions and backtracking strategies), SlimePark's puzzles feel more visual, with less numbers and more interactivity. The main sources of difficulty are the huge amount of candidate solutions, but also the oddity of some of the actual solutions. Thinking "There's no way that this is how..." is very common throughout the game, no matter how much you try to get used to the puzzles. Sometimes, your hunch will be correct, and sometimes there really was no way.
In terms of platforming difficulty, SlimePark is...relatively acessible. Some sections require slightly precise maneuvers and some odd ideas newer players might not be familiar with. However, for experienced players, executing the puzzles should be smooth sailing for the most part. Some saves are relatively lengthy, and others can be a little difficult, but never both at the same time, and the bigger hurdles tend to be either, near the beginning of a save, or forgiving enough to not punish mistakes with death. I would say it's comparable to an adventure game in the high 50s until the boss.
The game culminates with a boss fight against Shiratama King. It's a fight inspired by Destination's Titan Dweevil, and by far the best Destination-inspired boss I've ever seen. Shiratama King fights by chanelling the power of his 12 most powerful subordinates (probably), which results in 12 rather creative attacks (Some more than others) that call back to all the different types of slimes you met along the way. Syabon is fun, just like her expression indicates. Yoppy is a hard worker, probably won't kill you but he'll try his best. Kibatch is bizarre, his attack is one of the two most difficult in the fight and he can be really annoying to deal damage to. Reaval looks sinister, but his attack is not what I expected of a tricky manipulator (Still pretty nice). Pani is VERY annoying and difficult, and I kind of hate her - if there's one attack in the fight that's heavily reliant on luck, it's this one: Pink slimes' hitboxes are just too huge (Still an interesting attack). Mist is interesting, very reminiscing of a certain attack from Kamilia in K3. His personality reminds me of myself. Shiro is scary despite her peaceful personality. There isn't much to say about Poi's attack, but I wish her luck in her doctor career. Silva's iron will is a hurdle to overcome (But maybe he should be harder to damage, for lore reasons?). Spin is way trickier than Reaval somehow. Kanon has a scary face and a scary attack to match. Rain is another gem of the fight - super fun attack. And finally, Shiratama King is scary and intense, just like Titan Dweevil (But way easier). It's a very intense fight and, despite being way easier than the original Destination boss, it's still very challenging and highly likely to be a hurdle for any unprepared player due to its length and challenging RNG (Which is mostly fair, except for pink, but definitely not trivial). An amazing way to end the game, and just as fitting gameplay-wise as Chedar was for Keypick 100.
And that's the main game. You can enjoy an upbeat song along with the credits, finishing with the only personalized "Thank you for playing" screen I know of. Seriously, the clear screen is (or at least seems to be) randomized. And it works really well too. That's such a cool touch.
Now let's talk about the extra content. There's a lot of it. There are 7 secret keys (Combined with an eighth key that can be obtained from Shiratama King himself), which allow the player to access the Slime Museum and three guest (test player) areas. On top of that, there's a special exhibition room, if you can reach the museum quickly enough, and a short story if you can beat the guest areas.
Let's start with the secret keys. To be honest, their placement is nothing special. Walk into random corners (Usually blocked by some obstacle that can be pretty difficult to deal with), and you might unlock a red portal (There's one exception, which I feel silly for not thinking of, but nothing I can do about it now). The result is that, if you want to hunt the secrets yourself, you must be willing to run into corners and maybe even throw away attempts at every floor just to examine some suspicious corners that may have a hidden secret but most likely won't. And throwing attempts just gets more and more painful the further you progress. Definitely not peak design for hiding secrets. I found two of them, absolutely hated the experience, realized that they were ruining my enjoyment of the game and decided to follow the guide provided in the "CheatsTips" file. Yes, the maker provides us with a guide to find the seven secret keys, which kind of fixes the issue with secret hunting, but feels like a duct tape fix: It works, and I appreciate it a lot, but it doesn't quite solve the main problem (Which is the secrets being boring to find for anyone that wanted to find them on their own).
The contents of the secrets, on the other hand, are absolutely amazing. They mainly consist of unused gimmicks, and there are some really creative ideas in there that complement the main game very well. Secret 5, in particular, is amazing, very different and one of my favorite parts of the game. It's been a long while since I've done 'that' type of puzzle, and it was really fun. Absolutely worth sinking a little bit of extra time into (Assuming you don't try to find them on your own).
The Slime Museum is exactly what you would expect from the description and the author's screenshot. A peaceful memory trip, as you remember several moments of your playthrough while you gaze at the adorable slimes and learn more about them. Wait, why is that guy staring at me? Knot is on screen, you should be staring at him, stop staring at me, oh no, HELP.
If you beat the game within 10 hours, you will be eligible to visit the Special Exhibition. I originally thought that this was intended to be done on your first playthrough (and that I was just bad for taking so much longer), but after replaying the game and just barely making it, I'm pretty sure that it's a speedrun goal of sorts. Even on your second playthrough, remembering the solutions of all the puzzles is not that easy, many floors are extra-choke-able when you are in a hurry and, on top of that, you still need to deal with Shiratama King's shenanigans. The Special Exhibition introduces you to a few more...interesting slimes. There isn't that much content, so I wouldn't recommend it unless you really want to replay the game.
Finally, the guest areas - or rather, guest saves. Each test player (except for Eevee) has their own area consisting of a single floor. They are pretty interesting. Despite only using mechanics already presented in the main game, they all present new types of interactions that make them stand out from the other floors. To be honest, I did find their visuals to be a little iffy (The darker tilesets don't blend very well with the ever-so-colorful slimes), and Kiehi Area's boxes are a little buggy, but these are minor issues. Kiehi Area is probably the hardest area in terms of puzzle (Though I would rank it below some of the main game areas), while Sugar Area is leagues above the rest of the game in terms of platforming difficulty (Easily 60+, or even 70+). Kikka's Area doesn't strike me as particularly challenging in either regard (When compared to late main game, anyway), but it's still a little difficult in both directions. They are all very creative and definitely worth having a look at.
For negative points, there are some minor issues and inconveniences. I'll number them. 1) The platforming can be very slow at times: The core mechanic of the game is slimes, and most slimes move veery sloowly. Like I mentioned before, most of the longer saves are not that difficult platforming-wise (i.e. you won't spend too long in them, so the length won't be as much of an issue), but you may find yourself yawning every now and then. Remember the manual's health advice? I normally ignore these, but for SlimePark alone I'd consider taking it. Short breaks do wonders for puzzle games. 2) There's a couple of odd skips that abuse the slimes' moving hitboxes (That is, a slime's hitbox will change according to its animation). To enjoy the game's puzzles as intended, consider banning the following two moves from your gameplay: - Shooting right near the tip of a slime's head. If you time it right, your bullet might pass through the slime and hit a slime right behind them; - Squeezing Knot between two nearby slimes. It's a precise needle jump, but it's doable, and seems to not be intended, as it allows an alternative solution for at least one puzzle (Although it's so much harder than the intended solution I'd not consider it worth the effort). 3) As previously mentioned, Pani's RNG can be very suspicious. She doesn't ruin the fight, but it's still worth mentioning. 4) The secrets are not fun to hunt on your own (which is kind of the point of having secrets in your game). Still, those are minor issues in the grand scheme of things.
As for the difficulty rating, it's hard to tell. From the highly complicated puzzles to the beginner-unfriendly platforming and a boss that floats around the 60s to 70s in my book, I feel like 75+ is a pretty good estimative. In Necoroneko's website, he ranked this game's puzzle difficulty as higher than Gaze's, and I'm somewhat inclined to believe (Though I highly disagree with both platforming difficulty ratings being so close). There are just so many details to remember about all the types of slimes and their interactions, and the amount of possible solutions for every floor is overwhelming. On the other hand, 80+ would be a little too much, since I still think that both are easier than Variety 100 in terms of puzzle difficulty (Although in SlimePark's case it's harder to be sure). Finally, like I mentioned in the beginning, the secrets and extra are more or less even in difficulty with the main game - just a complement for extra fun.
But wait! It's not over yet. There's a hidden door somewhere in the Special Exhibition room, which holds the True Ending. The thing is, the requirements to open this hidden door are so outland-ish, I'd rather not mention them. Add a LOT points to the difficulty rating and call it 101% if you do decide to go for it. Thanks to Shinobu for letting me know.
SlimePark is an amazing puzzle game that shows Necoroneko's creativity yet once again - but even more intensely this time. It's not a very acessible game, but I highly recommend it to experienced players (that enjoy puzzles).
Rating: 9.9 99
Difficulty: 79 79
Oct 16, 2021
Xplayerlol
For: I wanna Variety 100
For: I wanna Variety 100
Rating based on Standard mode and normal difficulty.
Brilliant puzzle game made by...OccultCube? Yeah, that's right, the same person that made one of the fangames I despise the most also made one of the fangames I loved the most. Isn't that ironic? I'm so proud for no reason.
So, this is a really well-made and highly difficult 100-floor puzzle game. Just like the name implies, this game is brimming with variety. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen this much variety ever since I played "I wanna Gaze at the Horizon". And it's no wonder. From the highly detailed game manual (Featuring a VERY complete tutorial for beginners!) to in-game references to the very nature of the game itself, this game seems to be highly influenced by Gaze. And that's one hell of a good influence to have!
The game consists of 20 stages, with 5 screens each, no bosses. Each stage spans a moderate set of (often very unorthodox, sometimes even unique) gimmicks, which is then added to previously introduced gimmicks to form increasingly complex puzzles that, at their peak, cannot be currently compared to any other fangame. Yes, I'm including Necoroneko's games in that list. This game's puzzles can get incredibly complex, particularly in the later half of the game, which can be a turn-off for some people. However, I couldn't be happier to find out that such a game exists. I should mention, of course, that high complexity doesn't directly correlate to high quality in a puzzle game. However, I do believe that OccultCube did a great job in making highly complex puzzles that don't feel overly reliant on brute force, instead rewarding the player for any clever insights they might eventually have...For the most part. I will elaborate on this further when I'm talking about the stages individually. And, in my book, that's how you make quality puzzles of high difficulty. We still don't have many of those in fangames. This complexity is matched by the platforming difficulty, which I would compare to Crimson Needle (Floor 92 not included), Contact with Spikes (Hard mode) or SSR2, with a few saves I would directly compare to each of those games. This combination makes this game a brutal challenge both physically and mentally, one I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I would.
In terms of production value, Variety 100 is good. Pretty good, even. For a game that goes through the trouble of naming its stages, I feel like the ambiance is a little weak. The stages do look distinct from each other, but some of them fail to establish an identity of their own. For example, the Doppelganger Cavern has a cavern background, but the tilesets definitely don't match. Likewise, the mechanics don't always look like they belong in their respective area (See stages 8 and 11, for example). This incongruence is made worse by the fact that these mechanics are used across multiple stages, which means that some objects from previous stages do not blend well with the colors of the current stage. Plus, some stages look a little more bland than others, with a single-color background and overly simplistic tilesets. In later areas, that might have been the maker's solution to avoid the color issues I mentioned earlier. It works for stages 18 and 19, which actually look rather pleasant despite their simplicity. On the other hand, stage 20 honestly just looks kinda ugly. Maybe ugly is a bit of a stretch, but definitely not great. Likewise, the music choices are pleasant, but don't always match the visuals of their stage. The title screen and the clear screen are extra bland (No pretty credits scrolling down either). I mean, I'm not that picky about those two aspects, but come on. Sounds like the opposite of the ambiance section of my Gaze review, come to think of it. Still, the visuals and music choices are pretty good (For the most part, and they never fall below 'nice'). The visual and sound effects associated with certain mechanics, coupled with some small details like the jump refreshers changing their orientation depending on the gravity, definitely tell me that there was effort behind this field as well. Another positive is how easily you can tell the gimmicks apart, despite the massive ammount of gimmicks, many of them involving objects with similar, simple geometric shapes. Likewise, no matter how much the screen is filled, it never looks visually polluted, just a little overwhelming at most. Given the complexity of this game, that's also commendable. So yeah, the production value is good. Not amazing, but good.
Edit: I also forgot to mention, but the game has the original Guy's death sound. For a needle game, that's REALLY gross. Ew. At least the musics don't restart.
The game has three difficulty modes. Out of these, "normal" is the only one that really makes sense in my book, but who knows. Likewise, this game has two modes: "Standard" and "Assisted". The Assisted Mode introduces savestates, which can mitigate the platforming difficulty for those that feel like they can't go on. Personally? I advise not using it. Delete it from your folder as soon as you download the game. It just feels like the trigger for a downwards spiral that might ruin your experience. Playing the platforming is half the fun, and even if you tell yourself "I will just use it for this one screen", chances are you will find the next screen even harder and feel tempted to use savestates again. And suddenly, beating the game doesn't feel as fulfilling anymore, even though you only used an in-game tool. I mean, for this particular downwards spiral, I have no personal experience, I could be wrong. It's just my intuition telling me that using savestates is a really bad idea. This game is absolutely humanly possible from start to finish, and I don't think any save gets too unreasonable in terms of difficulty or length, so the use of savestates is dispensable in my book (Even for practice). With that being said, I appreciate that the option is there. Giving the player an option is hardly ever a negative.
Speaking of options, it seems that some puzzles have multiple solutions. Yet, most of the time, these solutions are all more or less even in terms of execution difficulty. Which is great! Having multiple solutions is a great way to reward the player's creativity! Yeah, I said most of the time. Some floors have solutions that are unbeliavibly simple for the stage they are in, both in terms of puzzle difficulty (How hard it was to come up with that route) and platforming difficulty, which leads me to think that these solutions were not intended to exist. We will call these solutions 'Skips', and I'll mention a few examples in the spoiler section. For now, just know that some floors have 'skips', which kind of means you can just forget that floor's existence. Nobody is going to use the intended solution if there's a much simpler solution available - which is why it's the maker's duty to make sure that skips do not exist. With that in mind, I should also mention that skippable floors are somewhat rare in this game, and in terms of level design crimes they rank rather low in my list, so I wouldn't be too harsh here. Just be aware that this is more of a, say, 95-floor game than a 100-floor game.
Finally, there are some extra details worth mentioning. The first of them is the game manual, which includes a summary of the game, basic fangame instructions as well as one or two advanced fangame instructions that might be useful, description of the stages (Featuring in-game difficulty ratings for puzzle and platforming, which works wonders to elevate the tension upon entering a new stage), credits and some extra notes. It's pretty detailed, and rather pleasing visually. I like it. Makes me wish fangame manuals were more common than they actually are. The in-game mechanics are mentioned in the manual, but only described in detail once you reach their respective stage...Most of the time. We'll get to that in time as well, but be aware that there's one section in the game featuring a relatively strange gimmick that should have been explained beforehand but wasn't. Hard to excuse that one. The gimmicks are introduced through a sign at the beginning of their respective stage, but, if you forget the details of one of them, you can open the "Spoilers" folder and check the image. It's a large PNG with the contents of every in-game sign. Very convenient, since it's so easy to forget something in such a complicated game. Finally, I should mention that backing up your save upon clearing the game is a good idea. Why? Uh...Just trust me, for now.
So, I wanna Variety 100 is a really good and really difficult puzzle platformer with its difficulty distributed evenly between both aspects of its gameplay. The gameplay quality is through the roof, but the aesthetic field is not. Don't expect that much of this game in that department. With that in mind, I wanted to talk about each stage separately. Partly because there are some things I want to say about each specific stage, but also because that's how I planned to make this review at first, back when I didn't expect to finish this game. However, just like Ocean Princess, I also feel like there's a lot of value in not reading this section, so that you can be caught by surprise at every stage by their respective gimmicks. There are some real hidden gems out there. With that disclaimer in mind, I'll mark this portion of my review as a spoiler, so that you can choose the option that best suits you.
First off, let me explain what lies ahead. The in-game manual divides the stages in five "areas" (They don't have any name, but I will call them areas). For each stage, I will present its name, its core mechanic(s) and my own thoughts on it. Originally, I was going to present the in-game difficulty for each stage as well, but I don't know, that kind of kills the appeal of the manual. So instead, I will exploit the fact that I disagree with half of the game's difficulty ratings and present my own difficulty ratings for each stage. My idea is that, by looking at the in-game difficulty ratings and comparing to the ones I'm presenting, the player can have a better idea of what to expect from each stage. I normally wouldn't do this, but there are some difficulty ratings I drastically disagree with, so I kinda have to.
Area 1
Comprising the first 25 floors of the game, this is the introductory area of the game. If the manual's difficulty ratings are to be trusted, this is supposed to be the easier section of the game, featuring a low level of difficulty in both ends, with trivial platforming and simple puzzles. Do, however, note that this low level of difficulty is relative to the game. In practice, the puzzles ARE rather simplistic, but the platforming already goes well above average in difficulty.
Stage 1: Plains of the Beginning
Mechanic: Toggle Spike
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 2/10
Puzzle: 0/10
The first stage. Don't take it too lightly, it's close to a 40-50 in difficulty. As the puzzle rating implies, there isn't much thinking involved. Oddly enough, this mechanic is never used again in the game. Ever. I guess it's just hard to make it relevant in a puzzle, rather than just an annoyance, when other mechanics are involved. I'm trying to think of a good way to use it, and I can't find any. The platforming is straightforward, but rather fun. There isn't much else to say.
Stage 2: Iridescent Pathway
Mechanic: Single-use Gravity Coin
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 1/10
Puzzle: 1/10
The first puzzle area of the game. Although floor 10 is the only real puzzle floor. It's nothing groundbreaking, but we are just starting after all. A few things the game doesn't mention:
- Gravity flips have the side effect of heavily increasing the Kid's weight, even before you use them. Keep that in mind, it's important. This mechanic makes some sections very annoying, and it will continue to throughout the whole game. Thankfully, it's harmless most of the time.
- The red gravity flip in floor 10 is a gravity de-flipper, which sets your gravity flip count to 0. I wonder if there's an occasion where it is necessary. I don't think there are any skips in this stage.
- Everybody knows gravity arrows, right? I hope so. The game uses a couple of them in this stage, well before introducing it. They are intuitive, but...why? Why are they here? You could easily use more gravity flippers instead.
Stage 3: Subzero Arctic
Mechanics: Ice Physics; Water3
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 3/10
Puzzle: 0/10
Very straightforward area. I hate ice needle, but the ice is relatively bearable in this stage: There's enough water to make us forget that the ice is there for the most part. The water needle is very fun, and we won't see ice ever again after this. The visuals are not as good as in the previous stages (Background does not mesh well with the tiles), but they're still not bad. They remind me of some Dagger games. Fun stage overall.
Stage 4: Stellar Fortress
Mechanic: Jump Stars
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 4/10
Puzzle: 0/10
Rather straightforward area as well. Although the puzzles are still rather simplistic, the platforming is very inventive, which makes this stage a blast. I love this area. Floor 19 is a highlight and would probably work well as the last save of the stage.
Stage 5: Nocturnal Hills
Mechanic: Gravity Arrows
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 4/10
Puzzle: 1/10
More or less as difficult as Stellar Fortress, the platforming is just as well made and just as fun. I REALLY love the addition of the yellow gravity arrows. When every gravity arrow rotates the screen, it's very easy to give the player a headache. On the other hand, when the gravity arrows don't rotate the screen, it becomes extra difficult to execute somewhat complicated jumps. This stage is the perfect balance between these two aspects: The screen rotating flippers are not overused, but they are enough to always allow the player to setup for the more complicated jumps without straining their eyes.
Area 2:
This is where the game starts to pick up in complexity. In-game difficulty ratings start to reach slightly worrisome numbers. Namely, this is where the game begins to show that it is, in fact, a puzzle game.
Stage 6: Abstract Warehouse
Mechanic: Needle-removing explosives
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 0/10
Puzzle: 4/10
Favorite stage #1
The first real puzzle area of the game, one could say (Backed up by the difficulty rating). The mechanic in this stage is very reminiscent of Gaze's keypick area, but much more fluid and with many more potential uses. Indeed, even past this area, this is one of the game's main gimmicks.
This is one of the must fun gimmicks ever. I cannot overstate how much I love it. I. love. this. It's one of the more unique gimmicks in the game, and it spans some seriously interesting puzzles.
In terms of design, it's closer to "I wanna Keypick 100" than to Gaze's stage 7. Although the rainbow explosives do increase the number of candidate solutions exponentially, the routes that do seem to get somewhere are few and easy to spot. For that same reason, Floor 29, despite looking rather overwhelming, is very fair in my book.
Since I bashed on stage 3's visuals a little, I should take a moment to appreciate this stage's visuals too. The tilesets and background are very simple, but they mesh very well with the multicolored spikes and explosives. It's pretty.
Stage 7: Abandoned Waterworks
Mechanic: Water Melons
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 1/10
This is where the saves start to get...Slightly abnormally long. This new mechanic allows some really lengthy segments to take place in just a short screen. The main sources of difficulty in this stage are the lengthy saves and the awkward physics associated with the green-ish water and that one gimmick that really shouldn't be here. This sounds horrible on paper, but in practice it's done pretty well. It's important to note that, although there's a decent amount of backtracking, the nature of the stage's mechanic makes it so that the platforming is always slightly different when you do need to backtrack, so it doesn't really feel repetitive.
This stage also uses a gimmick from the next stage in F34. It's a very unique gimmick and, as such, it can be complicated to figure out what it does without the in-game guide, so using it before introducing it is just cheap. Still, ignoring that fact, this stage is pretty fun too, save for F35, which has this one annoying segment that requires the player to hug the ceiling and needs to be traversed twice.
Stage 8: Precious Metal Mineshaft
Mechanics: Push blocks; Full jump cherry
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 3/10
Puzzle: 3/10
Full jump cherry is that one gimmick that makes you feel like a beginner again, back when you didn't know that releasing shift earlier would make you jump lower. It limits the platforming in interesting ways, resulting in some surprisingly cool puzzles, for a gimmick that sounds like absolute cancer on paper. I'll take a theoretically bad gimmick that turns out to be good over the opposite any time of the day.
Pushable blocks are a puzzle game staple. This stage focuses on their most basic usages and, at their most basic, there's only so much that can be done with pushable blocks. However, this stage also teases the interactions between pushable blocks and other mechanics - namely gravity flippers, and I really like the way it's done. It's not even a required step in the platforming, it's just something that catches your eye in the background. I'm not sure if it was an intentional introduction or not, but it was clever.
The two mechanics in this stage don't have any particularly incredible synnergy. My theory is that the maker thought that a stage consisting of only one of those gimmicks would end up becoming a little bland - which I agree with. Good decision. Combined, these two mechanics make stage 8 a very entertaining one as well.
In terms of difficulty, this area is surprisingly not bad. The saves are short, the required jumps are not overly intrincate...You do have to think a little outside of the box (heh) once or twice, though.
Stage 9: Central Processing Unit
Mechanic: Math
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 6/10
Puzzle: 4/10
A gigantic difficulty spike in the game, this is where the game starts to get tough. Floor 42, in particular, is kind of terrifying. Hard platforming, thinking outside of the box, several candidate solutions, you name it, this stage has it all. Although, the last save does NOT feel like a last save, by any means. The visuals resemble a calculator, specially with the LED numbers, which is a nice touch. Definitely one of the better-looking areas.
NEVER DIVIDE BY ZERO
Stage 10: Halfway Castle
Mechanic: Balance Platform
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 3/10
Balance platform is a tricky mechanic. It requires a lot of patience and precision to handle, and it often makes saves concerningly long. Originally, I was going to rate its difficulty a tad higher because of Floor 50, but I was looking through Youtube to refresh my memory, and it seems my solution for F50 was heavily overcomplicated, so F50 is WAY easier than I originally thought. I'm stupid. Even then, I would say the platforming difficulty matches Stage 7, just because of the sheer length some saves have. Maybe slightly lower, let's say 4.5/10. Again, creative thinking is required, but by this point of the game that's a given.
Area 3:
Where the second half of the game starts. The numbers start to get absolutely terrifying. It's by this point that the game starts to make callbacks to mechanics from previous stages. Because the puzzles weren't complicated enough. It's also by this point that the puzzle quality explodes, and the mechanics start to get more and more unique.
Stage 11: Doppelganger Cavern
Mechanic: Multiple Kids
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 5/10
Favorite stage #2
Duplicate Kid is a monster of a gimmick. There's just SO MUCH you can do with it, and the game can get incredibly complicated because of it. Besides, even more than Balance Platforms, Duplicate Kids must be handled with the utmost care and, as such, saves in this stage are abnormally long. By this point, the overly lengthy saves already became the norm. If you've gotten this far, the length of the saves won't overpower you. Not yet. These saves are not much longer than, say, F50. They are, however, much more intrincate. In fact, this gimmick is so complicated, there are aspects of some saves that I can't tell if I should attribute to platforming difficulty or to puzzle difficulty. There aren't that many complicated maneuvers required, but it's so unnatural to control multiple Kids at the same time, I cannot give this area a lower platforming difficulty.
Just like explosives, it's a vital gimmick for the rest of the game, so you should take your time and get used to it. Luckily, I would say that Stage 11 already does a good job with preparing the player to use this mechanic for the rest of the game.
I also want to give a special mention to F53 and F55. Those two floors are absolute masterpieces. But F55 introduces ANOTHER gimmick that never gets explained! Why can't I just praise good design in a floor in peace? Why do these things have to keep happening? Anyway, on the other hand, F54 is kind of a freebie. I wouldn't mind if it was a tad harder.
Stage 12: Integrated Circuit Dungeon
Mechanic: Logics
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 6/10
Favorite stage #3
Logic gates are another highly unique mechanic. Like math, it's simple on paper, but in-game it's a spawn of Cthulhu. Unlike the previous stage, both difficulty ratings are rather easy to grasp. The platforming itself is rather simple. The difficulty comes mostly from the length of the saves, with a large amount of slightly tricky jumps. Other mechanics barely make an appearance, F60 being the only one to feature a mechanic from another stage. In terms of puzzle difficulty, digital circuits are kinda insane. There's already some difficulty derived from understanding the circuits, but the main issue is finding the correct route by activating the gates in the correct order. I believe there's only one solution for all puzzles in this stage, but I could be wrong.
I also want to take a moment to appreciate the visuals in this area. I mean, the circuits are rather bizarre and I'm still not sure I understand that spawn of Satan connected to the green block in F56 (Is that a cycle? Wat?). But I really like how the circuits are visually presented in general, specially when they take more elaborate forms - see F57, for example.
Stage 13: Sliding Tiles
Mechanic: Sliding Puzzle
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 7/10
I have to say, the creativity for stage names must have died during this area. I also have to admit, I don't really like this area that much. That's because I really don't understand it. During F61 and F62, I was just absolutely confused from start to finish. With that out of the way, I have to say, this stage is actually kind of well-made. F61 and F62 give the player time to get used to this strange gimmick (Did we really need two needleless floors, though? idk), and then the actually difficult puzzles come from F63 onwards.
Anyway, this is one crazy gimmick. It's like Gaze's stage 6, but on steroids. On heavy steroids. F63 and F65 are difficulty highlights for being crazy long and full of choke-able jumps (For F65, I'm going off my notes, I don't remember it that well), while also being difficult to solve.
Not much to say besides that. It's a highly creative gimmick that results in crazy long saves, same as the previous four. The platforming is kinda fun. And maybe F62 shouldn't exist.
Stage 14: Warped Prelude
Mechanic: Teleport Coin
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 6/10
Puzzle: 6/10
Favorite stage #4?
This is the area where the puzzle complexity is taken up by a notch. That's because we already have a decently large baggage of mechanics to choose from. Stage 11 had already integrated a couple gimmicks from previous areas, but Stage 14 is on a whole new level. This stage also introduces Teleport Coins, a mechanic similar to dash items (which are a lot more common), but with a much wider range of usages. The result is a very well crafted stage with a wide range of really, REALLY interesting puzzles. This is where the game starts to get extra-good in my opinion. Quick shout-out to F68 for big brain puzzles.
On a side note, F70 seems to have a skip but my notes are too vague to tell for sure.
Stage 15: First Horizon
Mechanic: -
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 10/10
Puzzle: 0/10
The closing stage for Area 3. It's visibly inspired by I wanna Gaze at the Horizon's stage 1: It's a Uhuhu-like needle stage, with no gimmicks involved, but using several geometric shapes for spikes, rather than just triangles. Except, it's obviously bajillions of times harder. I went into it with high expectations...and it was kinda disappointing.
So, First Horizon is a pure needle interlude. It acts as a test of sorts, to see if you're ready for the final segment of the game, but man, that test is harder than nearly everything else past this point, like, what? This area strongly reminds me of Crimson Needle (here's the CN1 comparison) - not quite the longer saves like F81, but the short saves consisting of a handful of odd and REALLY complicated jumps, like F78. Looking at the in-game difficulty ratings, we were supposed to have a gradual platforming difficulty increase peaking with this stage. In practice, there was a nearly flat line, and then this stage is a gigantic difficulty spike.
Anyway, besides the difficulty curve, this stage doesn't do anything obviously wrong. The jumps aren't generic, there's no 'hardest jump at the end of the save' bs as far as I remember, it's just that there's a good number of gross jumps along the way. My wrists started hurting like hell after just a few floors. And it's a lot harder to say what makes a jump 'gross' as a general rule. I'm looking at my screenshot of F71 and my wrists already started hurting again. It reminds me of I wanna Contact with Spikes (Hard Mode).
So yeah, this stage is a huge platforming roadblock. Beware. Hopefully you like it more than I did.
Area 4:
The last batch of stages. The majority of the most brutal segments in the game is here. The majority of the most creative segments in the game is also here. Welcome.
Stage 16: Wang's Paradise
Mechanic: Wang Tiles
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 1/10
Puzzle: 10/10
A warm welcome to Area 4. Wang Tiles is an interesting gimmick. It's like a graph coloring problem, but neighboring edges must have the SAME color. Do note that you need to make your screen humanly possible, not just satisfying the puzzle. It's pretty creative, and I really enjoyed it. It looks rather reliant on brute force, but there's a lot of clever insights you can have that will guide you in the direction of a correct solution. Except for Floor 80. No amount of insights for Floor 80 saved me from needing to spend a lot of time using brute force in the end - although I'm certain it would have taken me a lot longer without these insights.
Anyway, I really like this stage (F80 not included). Including the visuals. The screen looks so pretty with all these multicolored tile containing monochrome blocks and spikes.
A few notes:
- I...I really don't understand the in-game platforming rating for this one. I can guarantee that every floor has a solution of difficulty below 40.
- This area introduces another gimmick that never gets an in-game explanation, those 'targets' you need to collect to reach the next screen. It's intuitive but, like...Why?
- When you touch a spike, you teleport to the beginning of the screen, rather than dying. That's because pressing 'R' resets the puzzle. But it's muscle memory for us to press 'R' after dying. Until you get used to this stage, there's a good chance that you will suffer a lot. I recommend taking screenshots once you solve every puzzle.
- F80 not included, the puzzle difficulty would be around 6/10. These puzzles are slightly easier than sliding tiles imo.
Stage 17: Energetic Factory
Mechanic: Jump refreshers
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 8/10
Puzzle: 8/10
Jump refreshers done right. Actually, jump refreshers done best. It's just a really fun stage where you need to collect all jump refreshers (Featuring some rare types of jump refreshers). It's way more complicated than it sounds, and the platforming is really difficult to match (F83 is pretty crazy).
F85 is a complete shift in tone from the rest of the stage, and it's the main reason for the high puzzle difficulty rating (The other floors would be a 5/10 to 6/10). It's pretty creative, and pretty complicated too. It's torture, but I liked it. Fun stage overall.
Stage 18: Ethereal Plane
Mechanic: Transmutable block
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 9/10
Puzzle: 8/10
The beginning of the end. These last 15 floors are the final segment of the game, and also the final stretch of difficulty.
Visually, it's simplistic, but rather nice. It's probably one the stages whose visuals most closely match its name. Nice.
Gameplay-wise, this stage is galaxy brain from the get go. Transmutable block is a mechanic with lots of potential, and this stage draws out a lot of that potential. It's also by this point that you realize that yes, the saves could still grow EVEN LONGER.
A few notes:
- The stage gimmick works as follows: The large circles give you a bullet that can transform transmutable blocks into a specific item that depends on the circle's color. The stage description presents five different colors, but there's a sixth color (Gray) that appears in the very first floor and never gets explained. I'm...really trying my hardest to defend this game here.
- F88 is absolutely skippable. Like, there's no way that 'that' was the intended solution.
- F90 is REALLY difficult. That's our 9/10 platforming (Maybe 8.5/10 is more adequate). And pretty clever too.
- This is the first 8+ difficulty puzzle stage that gathers its difficulty from finding a route through the gimmick segments. The previous stages all had their hardest puzzle segments come from non-platforming elements.
Stage 19: Physics Lab
Mechanic: Physics modifier
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 9/10
Puzzle: 9/10
Favorite stage #5
This stage is sheer madness. It's every bit of stage 18's complexity, but with modified physics to make it even more complex. Duplicate kids + Modified physics + Gravity arrows + Jump stars + Transmutable blocks is one hell of a combination. It's interesting when you think about it. Modified physics are the mechanic closest to common in the entire second half of this game. But when you combine it with every gimmick from the previous stages, there's just SO MANY more possibilities. It's beautiful. This is where the game peaks in puzzle design. The song is also a banger.
A few notes:
- I really, REALLY like F91. It's just the right mix of complex, difficult and creative. In fact, F91 is also probably the hardest floor in the stage.
- Did the game use bullet blockers before F91? I hope so. It would be REALLY cheap to introduce them in F91, where they are such a vital part of the puzzle.
- F92 and F95 are both skippable. The skips are not as trivial as F88 (F95 is kinda creative, even), but still well below the difficulty of the other saves in the area (And only using half of the mechanics on screen).
- F94 makes the player do a quasi-diagonal with enhanced speed, which makes it absolute cancer because good luck trying to do that jump consistently.
Stage 20: Final Frontier
Mechanic: Needle-block polymer
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 10/10
Puzzle: 9/10
I feel my IQ increasing just from reading these gimmick names by this point. Anyway, we are here. This is the last stage. Surprisingly, I would say that this stage is easier than Physics Lab. Every save from the Lab from F91 to F94 took me a day each. Meanwhile, I breezed from F96 to F100 in the same day.
Nevertheless, I think that this stage is just as creative as stage 19. The core mechanic is very interesting, and it features alternative usages of previous stage gimmicks that we hadn't seen yet. It's a fitting final area.
The numbers don't add up, right? Yeah, that's because F100 is very much well suited to be the final challenge of this game. It's very, VERY hard. Partly because of the absurd length, partly because of the several jumps that don't look complicated but actually are really complicated scattered through the save. I would compare it to SSR2's final save (Here's the SSR2 comparison). Actually, it's probably a little more difficult. It's definitely longer. With puzzle elements to boot. F100 is really difficult, and I wouldn't be surprised if it became a roadblock for some people. But by now you should be used to roadblocks. YOU. CAN. DO. IT.
So, now that you've beaten the game, I want to talk about the extra stage before closing the spoiler tab. It doesn't exist. Here's the thing: The readme.pdf file will say that it exists, but the more recent readme.txt confirms that it doesn't. This is why I told you to back up your save after beating the game. Entering the fake 'extra' portal will send you to a certain place that will eventually land you back on F44. If you save in there, you are screwed: You can't go back. Gross.
Long story short, this is a really good puzzle platformer and a really unique experience. I did mention a good number of issues that ate some of rating points, but none of them is even close to gameplay-breaking (Save for stage 15's wrist shenanigans, maybe). As of now, this genre of hard puzzle-oriented fangames only has a few members, and I wanna Variety 100 is an amazing addition to it, despite its shortcomings. Highly recommended. Which is rather awkward when the author himself is condemning his game in the download page. Boo.
[5] Likes
Brilliant puzzle game made by...OccultCube? Yeah, that's right, the same person that made one of the fangames I despise the most also made one of the fangames I loved the most. Isn't that ironic? I'm so proud for no reason.
So, this is a really well-made and highly difficult 100-floor puzzle game. Just like the name implies, this game is brimming with variety. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen this much variety ever since I played "I wanna Gaze at the Horizon". And it's no wonder. From the highly detailed game manual (Featuring a VERY complete tutorial for beginners!) to in-game references to the very nature of the game itself, this game seems to be highly influenced by Gaze. And that's one hell of a good influence to have!
The game consists of 20 stages, with 5 screens each, no bosses. Each stage spans a moderate set of (often very unorthodox, sometimes even unique) gimmicks, which is then added to previously introduced gimmicks to form increasingly complex puzzles that, at their peak, cannot be currently compared to any other fangame. Yes, I'm including Necoroneko's games in that list. This game's puzzles can get incredibly complex, particularly in the later half of the game, which can be a turn-off for some people. However, I couldn't be happier to find out that such a game exists. I should mention, of course, that high complexity doesn't directly correlate to high quality in a puzzle game. However, I do believe that OccultCube did a great job in making highly complex puzzles that don't feel overly reliant on brute force, instead rewarding the player for any clever insights they might eventually have...For the most part. I will elaborate on this further when I'm talking about the stages individually. And, in my book, that's how you make quality puzzles of high difficulty. We still don't have many of those in fangames. This complexity is matched by the platforming difficulty, which I would compare to Crimson Needle (Floor 92 not included), Contact with Spikes (Hard mode) or SSR2, with a few saves I would directly compare to each of those games. This combination makes this game a brutal challenge both physically and mentally, one I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I would.
In terms of production value, Variety 100 is good. Pretty good, even. For a game that goes through the trouble of naming its stages, I feel like the ambiance is a little weak. The stages do look distinct from each other, but some of them fail to establish an identity of their own. For example, the Doppelganger Cavern has a cavern background, but the tilesets definitely don't match. Likewise, the mechanics don't always look like they belong in their respective area (See stages 8 and 11, for example). This incongruence is made worse by the fact that these mechanics are used across multiple stages, which means that some objects from previous stages do not blend well with the colors of the current stage. Plus, some stages look a little more bland than others, with a single-color background and overly simplistic tilesets. In later areas, that might have been the maker's solution to avoid the color issues I mentioned earlier. It works for stages 18 and 19, which actually look rather pleasant despite their simplicity. On the other hand, stage 20 honestly just looks kinda ugly. Maybe ugly is a bit of a stretch, but definitely not great. Likewise, the music choices are pleasant, but don't always match the visuals of their stage. The title screen and the clear screen are extra bland (No pretty credits scrolling down either). I mean, I'm not that picky about those two aspects, but come on. Sounds like the opposite of the ambiance section of my Gaze review, come to think of it. Still, the visuals and music choices are pretty good (For the most part, and they never fall below 'nice'). The visual and sound effects associated with certain mechanics, coupled with some small details like the jump refreshers changing their orientation depending on the gravity, definitely tell me that there was effort behind this field as well. Another positive is how easily you can tell the gimmicks apart, despite the massive ammount of gimmicks, many of them involving objects with similar, simple geometric shapes. Likewise, no matter how much the screen is filled, it never looks visually polluted, just a little overwhelming at most. Given the complexity of this game, that's also commendable. So yeah, the production value is good. Not amazing, but good.
Edit: I also forgot to mention, but the game has the original Guy's death sound. For a needle game, that's REALLY gross. Ew. At least the musics don't restart.
The game has three difficulty modes. Out of these, "normal" is the only one that really makes sense in my book, but who knows. Likewise, this game has two modes: "Standard" and "Assisted". The Assisted Mode introduces savestates, which can mitigate the platforming difficulty for those that feel like they can't go on. Personally? I advise not using it. Delete it from your folder as soon as you download the game. It just feels like the trigger for a downwards spiral that might ruin your experience. Playing the platforming is half the fun, and even if you tell yourself "I will just use it for this one screen", chances are you will find the next screen even harder and feel tempted to use savestates again. And suddenly, beating the game doesn't feel as fulfilling anymore, even though you only used an in-game tool. I mean, for this particular downwards spiral, I have no personal experience, I could be wrong. It's just my intuition telling me that using savestates is a really bad idea. This game is absolutely humanly possible from start to finish, and I don't think any save gets too unreasonable in terms of difficulty or length, so the use of savestates is dispensable in my book (Even for practice). With that being said, I appreciate that the option is there. Giving the player an option is hardly ever a negative.
Speaking of options, it seems that some puzzles have multiple solutions. Yet, most of the time, these solutions are all more or less even in terms of execution difficulty. Which is great! Having multiple solutions is a great way to reward the player's creativity! Yeah, I said most of the time. Some floors have solutions that are unbeliavibly simple for the stage they are in, both in terms of puzzle difficulty (How hard it was to come up with that route) and platforming difficulty, which leads me to think that these solutions were not intended to exist. We will call these solutions 'Skips', and I'll mention a few examples in the spoiler section. For now, just know that some floors have 'skips', which kind of means you can just forget that floor's existence. Nobody is going to use the intended solution if there's a much simpler solution available - which is why it's the maker's duty to make sure that skips do not exist. With that in mind, I should also mention that skippable floors are somewhat rare in this game, and in terms of level design crimes they rank rather low in my list, so I wouldn't be too harsh here. Just be aware that this is more of a, say, 95-floor game than a 100-floor game.
Finally, there are some extra details worth mentioning. The first of them is the game manual, which includes a summary of the game, basic fangame instructions as well as one or two advanced fangame instructions that might be useful, description of the stages (Featuring in-game difficulty ratings for puzzle and platforming, which works wonders to elevate the tension upon entering a new stage), credits and some extra notes. It's pretty detailed, and rather pleasing visually. I like it. Makes me wish fangame manuals were more common than they actually are. The in-game mechanics are mentioned in the manual, but only described in detail once you reach their respective stage...Most of the time. We'll get to that in time as well, but be aware that there's one section in the game featuring a relatively strange gimmick that should have been explained beforehand but wasn't. Hard to excuse that one. The gimmicks are introduced through a sign at the beginning of their respective stage, but, if you forget the details of one of them, you can open the "Spoilers" folder and check the image. It's a large PNG with the contents of every in-game sign. Very convenient, since it's so easy to forget something in such a complicated game. Finally, I should mention that backing up your save upon clearing the game is a good idea. Why? Uh...Just trust me, for now.
So, I wanna Variety 100 is a really good and really difficult puzzle platformer with its difficulty distributed evenly between both aspects of its gameplay. The gameplay quality is through the roof, but the aesthetic field is not. Don't expect that much of this game in that department. With that in mind, I wanted to talk about each stage separately. Partly because there are some things I want to say about each specific stage, but also because that's how I planned to make this review at first, back when I didn't expect to finish this game. However, just like Ocean Princess, I also feel like there's a lot of value in not reading this section, so that you can be caught by surprise at every stage by their respective gimmicks. There are some real hidden gems out there. With that disclaimer in mind, I'll mark this portion of my review as a spoiler, so that you can choose the option that best suits you.
First off, let me explain what lies ahead. The in-game manual divides the stages in five "areas" (They don't have any name, but I will call them areas). For each stage, I will present its name, its core mechanic(s) and my own thoughts on it. Originally, I was going to present the in-game difficulty for each stage as well, but I don't know, that kind of kills the appeal of the manual. So instead, I will exploit the fact that I disagree with half of the game's difficulty ratings and present my own difficulty ratings for each stage. My idea is that, by looking at the in-game difficulty ratings and comparing to the ones I'm presenting, the player can have a better idea of what to expect from each stage. I normally wouldn't do this, but there are some difficulty ratings I drastically disagree with, so I kinda have to.
Area 1
Comprising the first 25 floors of the game, this is the introductory area of the game. If the manual's difficulty ratings are to be trusted, this is supposed to be the easier section of the game, featuring a low level of difficulty in both ends, with trivial platforming and simple puzzles. Do, however, note that this low level of difficulty is relative to the game. In practice, the puzzles ARE rather simplistic, but the platforming already goes well above average in difficulty.
Stage 1: Plains of the Beginning
Mechanic: Toggle Spike
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 2/10
Puzzle: 0/10
The first stage. Don't take it too lightly, it's close to a 40-50 in difficulty. As the puzzle rating implies, there isn't much thinking involved. Oddly enough, this mechanic is never used again in the game. Ever. I guess it's just hard to make it relevant in a puzzle, rather than just an annoyance, when other mechanics are involved. I'm trying to think of a good way to use it, and I can't find any. The platforming is straightforward, but rather fun. There isn't much else to say.
Stage 2: Iridescent Pathway
Mechanic: Single-use Gravity Coin
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 1/10
Puzzle: 1/10
The first puzzle area of the game. Although floor 10 is the only real puzzle floor. It's nothing groundbreaking, but we are just starting after all. A few things the game doesn't mention:
- Gravity flips have the side effect of heavily increasing the Kid's weight, even before you use them. Keep that in mind, it's important. This mechanic makes some sections very annoying, and it will continue to throughout the whole game. Thankfully, it's harmless most of the time.
- The red gravity flip in floor 10 is a gravity de-flipper, which sets your gravity flip count to 0. I wonder if there's an occasion where it is necessary. I don't think there are any skips in this stage.
- Everybody knows gravity arrows, right? I hope so. The game uses a couple of them in this stage, well before introducing it. They are intuitive, but...why? Why are they here? You could easily use more gravity flippers instead.
Stage 3: Subzero Arctic
Mechanics: Ice Physics; Water3
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 3/10
Puzzle: 0/10
Very straightforward area. I hate ice needle, but the ice is relatively bearable in this stage: There's enough water to make us forget that the ice is there for the most part. The water needle is very fun, and we won't see ice ever again after this. The visuals are not as good as in the previous stages (Background does not mesh well with the tiles), but they're still not bad. They remind me of some Dagger games. Fun stage overall.
Stage 4: Stellar Fortress
Mechanic: Jump Stars
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 4/10
Puzzle: 0/10
Rather straightforward area as well. Although the puzzles are still rather simplistic, the platforming is very inventive, which makes this stage a blast. I love this area. Floor 19 is a highlight and would probably work well as the last save of the stage.
Stage 5: Nocturnal Hills
Mechanic: Gravity Arrows
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 4/10
Puzzle: 1/10
More or less as difficult as Stellar Fortress, the platforming is just as well made and just as fun. I REALLY love the addition of the yellow gravity arrows. When every gravity arrow rotates the screen, it's very easy to give the player a headache. On the other hand, when the gravity arrows don't rotate the screen, it becomes extra difficult to execute somewhat complicated jumps. This stage is the perfect balance between these two aspects: The screen rotating flippers are not overused, but they are enough to always allow the player to setup for the more complicated jumps without straining their eyes.
Area 2:
This is where the game starts to pick up in complexity. In-game difficulty ratings start to reach slightly worrisome numbers. Namely, this is where the game begins to show that it is, in fact, a puzzle game.
Stage 6: Abstract Warehouse
Mechanic: Needle-removing explosives
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 0/10
Puzzle: 4/10
Favorite stage #1
The first real puzzle area of the game, one could say (Backed up by the difficulty rating). The mechanic in this stage is very reminiscent of Gaze's keypick area, but much more fluid and with many more potential uses. Indeed, even past this area, this is one of the game's main gimmicks.
This is one of the must fun gimmicks ever. I cannot overstate how much I love it. I. love. this. It's one of the more unique gimmicks in the game, and it spans some seriously interesting puzzles.
In terms of design, it's closer to "I wanna Keypick 100" than to Gaze's stage 7. Although the rainbow explosives do increase the number of candidate solutions exponentially, the routes that do seem to get somewhere are few and easy to spot. For that same reason, Floor 29, despite looking rather overwhelming, is very fair in my book.
Since I bashed on stage 3's visuals a little, I should take a moment to appreciate this stage's visuals too. The tilesets and background are very simple, but they mesh very well with the multicolored spikes and explosives. It's pretty.
Stage 7: Abandoned Waterworks
Mechanic: Water Melons
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 1/10
This is where the saves start to get...Slightly abnormally long. This new mechanic allows some really lengthy segments to take place in just a short screen. The main sources of difficulty in this stage are the lengthy saves and the awkward physics associated with the green-ish water and that one gimmick that really shouldn't be here. This sounds horrible on paper, but in practice it's done pretty well. It's important to note that, although there's a decent amount of backtracking, the nature of the stage's mechanic makes it so that the platforming is always slightly different when you do need to backtrack, so it doesn't really feel repetitive.
This stage also uses a gimmick from the next stage in F34. It's a very unique gimmick and, as such, it can be complicated to figure out what it does without the in-game guide, so using it before introducing it is just cheap. Still, ignoring that fact, this stage is pretty fun too, save for F35, which has this one annoying segment that requires the player to hug the ceiling and needs to be traversed twice.
Stage 8: Precious Metal Mineshaft
Mechanics: Push blocks; Full jump cherry
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 3/10
Puzzle: 3/10
Full jump cherry is that one gimmick that makes you feel like a beginner again, back when you didn't know that releasing shift earlier would make you jump lower. It limits the platforming in interesting ways, resulting in some surprisingly cool puzzles, for a gimmick that sounds like absolute cancer on paper. I'll take a theoretically bad gimmick that turns out to be good over the opposite any time of the day.
Pushable blocks are a puzzle game staple. This stage focuses on their most basic usages and, at their most basic, there's only so much that can be done with pushable blocks. However, this stage also teases the interactions between pushable blocks and other mechanics - namely gravity flippers, and I really like the way it's done. It's not even a required step in the platforming, it's just something that catches your eye in the background. I'm not sure if it was an intentional introduction or not, but it was clever.
The two mechanics in this stage don't have any particularly incredible synnergy. My theory is that the maker thought that a stage consisting of only one of those gimmicks would end up becoming a little bland - which I agree with. Good decision. Combined, these two mechanics make stage 8 a very entertaining one as well.
In terms of difficulty, this area is surprisingly not bad. The saves are short, the required jumps are not overly intrincate...You do have to think a little outside of the box (heh) once or twice, though.
Stage 9: Central Processing Unit
Mechanic: Math
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 6/10
Puzzle: 4/10
A gigantic difficulty spike in the game, this is where the game starts to get tough. Floor 42, in particular, is kind of terrifying. Hard platforming, thinking outside of the box, several candidate solutions, you name it, this stage has it all. Although, the last save does NOT feel like a last save, by any means. The visuals resemble a calculator, specially with the LED numbers, which is a nice touch. Definitely one of the better-looking areas.
NEVER DIVIDE BY ZERO
Stage 10: Halfway Castle
Mechanic: Balance Platform
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 3/10
Balance platform is a tricky mechanic. It requires a lot of patience and precision to handle, and it often makes saves concerningly long. Originally, I was going to rate its difficulty a tad higher because of Floor 50, but I was looking through Youtube to refresh my memory, and it seems my solution for F50 was heavily overcomplicated, so F50 is WAY easier than I originally thought. I'm stupid. Even then, I would say the platforming difficulty matches Stage 7, just because of the sheer length some saves have. Maybe slightly lower, let's say 4.5/10. Again, creative thinking is required, but by this point of the game that's a given.
Area 3:
Where the second half of the game starts. The numbers start to get absolutely terrifying. It's by this point that the game starts to make callbacks to mechanics from previous stages. Because the puzzles weren't complicated enough. It's also by this point that the puzzle quality explodes, and the mechanics start to get more and more unique.
Stage 11: Doppelganger Cavern
Mechanic: Multiple Kids
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 5/10
Favorite stage #2
Duplicate Kid is a monster of a gimmick. There's just SO MUCH you can do with it, and the game can get incredibly complicated because of it. Besides, even more than Balance Platforms, Duplicate Kids must be handled with the utmost care and, as such, saves in this stage are abnormally long. By this point, the overly lengthy saves already became the norm. If you've gotten this far, the length of the saves won't overpower you. Not yet. These saves are not much longer than, say, F50. They are, however, much more intrincate. In fact, this gimmick is so complicated, there are aspects of some saves that I can't tell if I should attribute to platforming difficulty or to puzzle difficulty. There aren't that many complicated maneuvers required, but it's so unnatural to control multiple Kids at the same time, I cannot give this area a lower platforming difficulty.
Just like explosives, it's a vital gimmick for the rest of the game, so you should take your time and get used to it. Luckily, I would say that Stage 11 already does a good job with preparing the player to use this mechanic for the rest of the game.
I also want to give a special mention to F53 and F55. Those two floors are absolute masterpieces. But F55 introduces ANOTHER gimmick that never gets explained! Why can't I just praise good design in a floor in peace? Why do these things have to keep happening? Anyway, on the other hand, F54 is kind of a freebie. I wouldn't mind if it was a tad harder.
Stage 12: Integrated Circuit Dungeon
Mechanic: Logics
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 6/10
Favorite stage #3
Logic gates are another highly unique mechanic. Like math, it's simple on paper, but in-game it's a spawn of Cthulhu. Unlike the previous stage, both difficulty ratings are rather easy to grasp. The platforming itself is rather simple. The difficulty comes mostly from the length of the saves, with a large amount of slightly tricky jumps. Other mechanics barely make an appearance, F60 being the only one to feature a mechanic from another stage. In terms of puzzle difficulty, digital circuits are kinda insane. There's already some difficulty derived from understanding the circuits, but the main issue is finding the correct route by activating the gates in the correct order. I believe there's only one solution for all puzzles in this stage, but I could be wrong.
I also want to take a moment to appreciate the visuals in this area. I mean, the circuits are rather bizarre and I'm still not sure I understand that spawn of Satan connected to the green block in F56 (Is that a cycle? Wat?). But I really like how the circuits are visually presented in general, specially when they take more elaborate forms - see F57, for example.
Stage 13: Sliding Tiles
Mechanic: Sliding Puzzle
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 7/10
I have to say, the creativity for stage names must have died during this area. I also have to admit, I don't really like this area that much. That's because I really don't understand it. During F61 and F62, I was just absolutely confused from start to finish. With that out of the way, I have to say, this stage is actually kind of well-made. F61 and F62 give the player time to get used to this strange gimmick (Did we really need two needleless floors, though? idk), and then the actually difficult puzzles come from F63 onwards.
Anyway, this is one crazy gimmick. It's like Gaze's stage 6, but on steroids. On heavy steroids. F63 and F65 are difficulty highlights for being crazy long and full of choke-able jumps (For F65, I'm going off my notes, I don't remember it that well), while also being difficult to solve.
Not much to say besides that. It's a highly creative gimmick that results in crazy long saves, same as the previous four. The platforming is kinda fun. And maybe F62 shouldn't exist.
Stage 14: Warped Prelude
Mechanic: Teleport Coin
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 6/10
Puzzle: 6/10
Favorite stage #4?
This is the area where the puzzle complexity is taken up by a notch. That's because we already have a decently large baggage of mechanics to choose from. Stage 11 had already integrated a couple gimmicks from previous areas, but Stage 14 is on a whole new level. This stage also introduces Teleport Coins, a mechanic similar to dash items (which are a lot more common), but with a much wider range of usages. The result is a very well crafted stage with a wide range of really, REALLY interesting puzzles. This is where the game starts to get extra-good in my opinion. Quick shout-out to F68 for big brain puzzles.
On a side note, F70 seems to have a skip but my notes are too vague to tell for sure.
Stage 15: First Horizon
Mechanic: -
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 10/10
Puzzle: 0/10
The closing stage for Area 3. It's visibly inspired by I wanna Gaze at the Horizon's stage 1: It's a Uhuhu-like needle stage, with no gimmicks involved, but using several geometric shapes for spikes, rather than just triangles. Except, it's obviously bajillions of times harder. I went into it with high expectations...and it was kinda disappointing.
So, First Horizon is a pure needle interlude. It acts as a test of sorts, to see if you're ready for the final segment of the game, but man, that test is harder than nearly everything else past this point, like, what? This area strongly reminds me of Crimson Needle (here's the CN1 comparison) - not quite the longer saves like F81, but the short saves consisting of a handful of odd and REALLY complicated jumps, like F78. Looking at the in-game difficulty ratings, we were supposed to have a gradual platforming difficulty increase peaking with this stage. In practice, there was a nearly flat line, and then this stage is a gigantic difficulty spike.
Anyway, besides the difficulty curve, this stage doesn't do anything obviously wrong. The jumps aren't generic, there's no 'hardest jump at the end of the save' bs as far as I remember, it's just that there's a good number of gross jumps along the way. My wrists started hurting like hell after just a few floors. And it's a lot harder to say what makes a jump 'gross' as a general rule. I'm looking at my screenshot of F71 and my wrists already started hurting again. It reminds me of I wanna Contact with Spikes (Hard Mode).
So yeah, this stage is a huge platforming roadblock. Beware. Hopefully you like it more than I did.
Area 4:
The last batch of stages. The majority of the most brutal segments in the game is here. The majority of the most creative segments in the game is also here. Welcome.
Stage 16: Wang's Paradise
Mechanic: Wang Tiles
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 1/10
Puzzle: 10/10
A warm welcome to Area 4. Wang Tiles is an interesting gimmick. It's like a graph coloring problem, but neighboring edges must have the SAME color. Do note that you need to make your screen humanly possible, not just satisfying the puzzle. It's pretty creative, and I really enjoyed it. It looks rather reliant on brute force, but there's a lot of clever insights you can have that will guide you in the direction of a correct solution. Except for Floor 80. No amount of insights for Floor 80 saved me from needing to spend a lot of time using brute force in the end - although I'm certain it would have taken me a lot longer without these insights.
Anyway, I really like this stage (F80 not included). Including the visuals. The screen looks so pretty with all these multicolored tile containing monochrome blocks and spikes.
A few notes:
- I...I really don't understand the in-game platforming rating for this one. I can guarantee that every floor has a solution of difficulty below 40.
- This area introduces another gimmick that never gets an in-game explanation, those 'targets' you need to collect to reach the next screen. It's intuitive but, like...Why?
- When you touch a spike, you teleport to the beginning of the screen, rather than dying. That's because pressing 'R' resets the puzzle. But it's muscle memory for us to press 'R' after dying. Until you get used to this stage, there's a good chance that you will suffer a lot. I recommend taking screenshots once you solve every puzzle.
- F80 not included, the puzzle difficulty would be around 6/10. These puzzles are slightly easier than sliding tiles imo.
Stage 17: Energetic Factory
Mechanic: Jump refreshers
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 8/10
Puzzle: 8/10
Jump refreshers done right. Actually, jump refreshers done best. It's just a really fun stage where you need to collect all jump refreshers (Featuring some rare types of jump refreshers). It's way more complicated than it sounds, and the platforming is really difficult to match (F83 is pretty crazy).
F85 is a complete shift in tone from the rest of the stage, and it's the main reason for the high puzzle difficulty rating (The other floors would be a 5/10 to 6/10). It's pretty creative, and pretty complicated too. It's torture, but I liked it. Fun stage overall.
Stage 18: Ethereal Plane
Mechanic: Transmutable block
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 9/10
Puzzle: 8/10
The beginning of the end. These last 15 floors are the final segment of the game, and also the final stretch of difficulty.
Visually, it's simplistic, but rather nice. It's probably one the stages whose visuals most closely match its name. Nice.
Gameplay-wise, this stage is galaxy brain from the get go. Transmutable block is a mechanic with lots of potential, and this stage draws out a lot of that potential. It's also by this point that you realize that yes, the saves could still grow EVEN LONGER.
A few notes:
- The stage gimmick works as follows: The large circles give you a bullet that can transform transmutable blocks into a specific item that depends on the circle's color. The stage description presents five different colors, but there's a sixth color (Gray) that appears in the very first floor and never gets explained. I'm...really trying my hardest to defend this game here.
- F88 is absolutely skippable. Like, there's no way that 'that' was the intended solution.
- F90 is REALLY difficult. That's our 9/10 platforming (Maybe 8.5/10 is more adequate). And pretty clever too.
- This is the first 8+ difficulty puzzle stage that gathers its difficulty from finding a route through the gimmick segments. The previous stages all had their hardest puzzle segments come from non-platforming elements.
Stage 19: Physics Lab
Mechanic: Physics modifier
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 9/10
Puzzle: 9/10
Favorite stage #5
This stage is sheer madness. It's every bit of stage 18's complexity, but with modified physics to make it even more complex. Duplicate kids + Modified physics + Gravity arrows + Jump stars + Transmutable blocks is one hell of a combination. It's interesting when you think about it. Modified physics are the mechanic closest to common in the entire second half of this game. But when you combine it with every gimmick from the previous stages, there's just SO MANY more possibilities. It's beautiful. This is where the game peaks in puzzle design. The song is also a banger.
A few notes:
- I really, REALLY like F91. It's just the right mix of complex, difficult and creative. In fact, F91 is also probably the hardest floor in the stage.
- Did the game use bullet blockers before F91? I hope so. It would be REALLY cheap to introduce them in F91, where they are such a vital part of the puzzle.
- F92 and F95 are both skippable. The skips are not as trivial as F88 (F95 is kinda creative, even), but still well below the difficulty of the other saves in the area (And only using half of the mechanics on screen).
- F94 makes the player do a quasi-diagonal with enhanced speed, which makes it absolute cancer because good luck trying to do that jump consistently.
Stage 20: Final Frontier
Mechanic: Needle-block polymer
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 10/10
Puzzle: 9/10
I feel my IQ increasing just from reading these gimmick names by this point. Anyway, we are here. This is the last stage. Surprisingly, I would say that this stage is easier than Physics Lab. Every save from the Lab from F91 to F94 took me a day each. Meanwhile, I breezed from F96 to F100 in the same day.
Nevertheless, I think that this stage is just as creative as stage 19. The core mechanic is very interesting, and it features alternative usages of previous stage gimmicks that we hadn't seen yet. It's a fitting final area.
The numbers don't add up, right? Yeah, that's because F100 is very much well suited to be the final challenge of this game. It's very, VERY hard. Partly because of the absurd length, partly because of the several jumps that don't look complicated but actually are really complicated scattered through the save. I would compare it to SSR2's final save (Here's the SSR2 comparison). Actually, it's probably a little more difficult. It's definitely longer. With puzzle elements to boot. F100 is really difficult, and I wouldn't be surprised if it became a roadblock for some people. But by now you should be used to roadblocks. YOU. CAN. DO. IT.
So, now that you've beaten the game, I want to talk about the extra stage before closing the spoiler tab. It doesn't exist. Here's the thing: The readme.pdf file will say that it exists, but the more recent readme.txt confirms that it doesn't. This is why I told you to back up your save after beating the game. Entering the fake 'extra' portal will send you to a certain place that will eventually land you back on F44. If you save in there, you are screwed: You can't go back. Gross.
Long story short, this is a really good puzzle platformer and a really unique experience. I did mention a good number of issues that ate some of rating points, but none of them is even close to gameplay-breaking (Save for stage 15's wrist shenanigans, maybe). As of now, this genre of hard puzzle-oriented fangames only has a few members, and I wanna Variety 100 is an amazing addition to it, despite its shortcomings. Highly recommended. Which is rather awkward when the author himself is condemning his game in the download page. Boo.
Rating: 9.4 94
Difficulty: 86 86
Oct 1, 2021
Xplayerlol
For: I wanna Walpurgis
For: I wanna Walpurgis
No Sayaka boss, 0/10.
Walpurgis is a fun, medium length adventure game. It consists of four stages of platforming, with one boss at the end of each stage. The platforming is great. There's a very much healthy variety of gimmicks, with a few amusing traps sprinkled in - not quite on the soul-reading level that some modern trap fangames reach, but comparable to a high mid-tier trap fangame like 針ゲ or hanamogeta. The difficulty generally comes from a few particularly precise segments, but nothing that requires that much effort. I want to reiterate the variety part because there is a mini-metroidvania-not-really-a-metroidvania-but-let's-call-it-a-metroidvania-anyway (All items are more or less keys in the end, so it's not really a metroidvania by these standards https://platformadventure.weebly.com/uploads/8/6/9/1/8691987/metroidvania-flowchart-reddit-ver_orig.png) stage, and I really liked it.
The bosses are themed on Madoka Magica (ft. one Idolmaster boss???), and even though the platforming is also great, I feel inclined to call them the highlight of the game. All of them feature smoothly animated movement, shouting out attack names and, most importantly, a very nice variety of attacks. The last boss could have been a tad harder, but it's fine.
It's a pretty great game overall. Doesn't do anything particularly wrong, does a lot right. Would definitely recommend.
Side note: There's a short avoidance mini-boss, which is why I'm using the avoidance tag, but it's short and relatively harmless, so even if you don't like avoidances, don't let that stop you.
[1] Like
Walpurgis is a fun, medium length adventure game. It consists of four stages of platforming, with one boss at the end of each stage. The platforming is great. There's a very much healthy variety of gimmicks, with a few amusing traps sprinkled in - not quite on the soul-reading level that some modern trap fangames reach, but comparable to a high mid-tier trap fangame like 針ゲ or hanamogeta. The difficulty generally comes from a few particularly precise segments, but nothing that requires that much effort. I want to reiterate the variety part because there is a mini-metroidvania-not-really-a-metroidvania-but-let's-call-it-a-metroidvania-anyway (All items are more or less keys in the end, so it's not really a metroidvania by these standards https://platformadventure.weebly.com/uploads/8/6/9/1/8691987/metroidvania-flowchart-reddit-ver_orig.png) stage, and I really liked it.
The bosses are themed on Madoka Magica (ft. one Idolmaster boss???), and even though the platforming is also great, I feel inclined to call them the highlight of the game. All of them feature smoothly animated movement, shouting out attack names and, most importantly, a very nice variety of attacks. The last boss could have been a tad harder, but it's fine.
It's a pretty great game overall. Doesn't do anything particularly wrong, does a lot right. Would definitely recommend.
Side note: There's a short avoidance mini-boss, which is why I'm using the avoidance tag, but it's short and relatively harmless, so even if you don't like avoidances, don't let that stop you.
Rating: 8.2 82
Difficulty: 51 51
Sep 13, 2021
Xplayerlol
For: Panasonic Bluray
For: Panasonic Bluray
Rating based on version 1.05, back when the last boss wasn't nerfed yet.
An interesting adventure-like floor game that comes with a simple story to justify your journey. It consists of 80 floors of needle, equally divided across 8 stages, each of which has a very distinctive theme and set of gimmicks. In other words, despite being a little long, it displays enough variety to not feel repetitive in the slightest. The visuals are really pretty, the music choices are nice, and there are some nice visual/audio effects to make things livelier. Also, the death sound is low, which is always appreciated. There's just a lot to appreciate here.
Yet, I really didn't have a good time with it. I can blame half of it on my computer lagging for no reason, but even after it stopped lagging, I still wasn't having a good time and I don't know why. I really didn't enjoy my playthrough at any point, and I don't know if I just wasn't in the mood to play a fangame or if there's really something gross in the level design that I can't quite put into words.
I can, however, confidently say that the last boss is absolutely horrendous. Everything about it is simply disgusting. The visuals are gross. The projectiles don't have an outline, so some of them just blend in with the background or the foreground, which obviously make them really hard to see. The boss helps with the visual pollution by being painted in colors just as bright as his own projectiles, which makes it very difficult to tell which one is which. Especially annoying are the hand projectiles, which easily blend in with the black outline of the boss, and the pink spikes that seem to be somewhat transparent. My eyes hurt. But the balance is gross too. 'Pepper' is a gross curving attack that sometimes just seems to gravitate towards you. Depending on how the projectiles are set up, there's just no reliable way of avoiding this thing. 'Burst' has some amazing wall potential. In fact, every time I hear that voice announcing 'Burst', I can't help but remember I wanna be the Burst, which is just as gross. Then, there's the hands. I hate those hands. They shoot some black projectiles that move at a snail's speed, which in turn gives wall potential to every other attack in the fight - 'Rocket', 'Laser' and 'Spikes', while doubling the wall factor for 'Burst' and 'Pepper'. Then, there's the second phase, which forces you to approach the wall in order to attack. While you are near the wall: 'Burst' becomes an instant kill 50% of the time; 'Rocket' becomes a jumpscare - you better move away before the projectiles start to spawn; at least 'Pepper' becomes slightly more bearable, since the projectiles don't spawn right beneath your feet; but, in exchange, 'Spikes' spawns closer to you, which enables walling potential for that attack too. Without the hands, 'Laser' is kind of a freebie, though it can be annoying when it covers the spot you were supposed to be standing on. The entire thing is just a disgrace. I hate this boss.
The other bosses are there, I guess. There are a few normal bosses, which are kind of nice, with a decent variety of attacks. Then, there's an avoidance, which is alright. It's short enough to not make you hate life, even though the beginning is a little gross (Or maybe my strats are just bad. In this case, I don't really know). Finally, there's a quiz boss. I consider quiz bosses bad by default, but this is as good as a quiz boss can be. The questions are fangame-related, which is the best possible topic for a fangame quiz (After all, it's kind of a given that fangame players would know stuff about fangames) and, even if you fail, you can beat this boss fairly easily in a trial-and-error fashion. Even after you fail the first question, you still have a few seconds before you die, during which you can shoot at random to find out the responses to the next questions, should you choose the brute force strategy. I don't think it gets much better than this. All the bosses have a meme-like visual style, which looks ugly but kind of fits with the lighthearted story, I guess.
Finally, there are a couple more things to mention about the plaforming. For one, the water physics feel a little too floaty. However, the underwater segments don't quite require any precise maneuvers, so I think it's fine. Also, the gravity inversion segments were pretty iffy.
Anything else I want to mention? I don't think so. I feel bad. I really thought I would enjoy this game a lot, but it seems that wasn't the case. I will skip the recommendation section of the review. I don't think that this game's issues warrant a 'not recommended' but, on the other hand, I really don't feel like recommending it either. It's one of those games I really didn't enjoy but, save for the last boss, I can't really name a reason why. It's been a while since I've played one of those.
[2] Likes
An interesting adventure-like floor game that comes with a simple story to justify your journey. It consists of 80 floors of needle, equally divided across 8 stages, each of which has a very distinctive theme and set of gimmicks. In other words, despite being a little long, it displays enough variety to not feel repetitive in the slightest. The visuals are really pretty, the music choices are nice, and there are some nice visual/audio effects to make things livelier. Also, the death sound is low, which is always appreciated. There's just a lot to appreciate here.
Yet, I really didn't have a good time with it. I can blame half of it on my computer lagging for no reason, but even after it stopped lagging, I still wasn't having a good time and I don't know why. I really didn't enjoy my playthrough at any point, and I don't know if I just wasn't in the mood to play a fangame or if there's really something gross in the level design that I can't quite put into words.
I can, however, confidently say that the last boss is absolutely horrendous. Everything about it is simply disgusting. The visuals are gross. The projectiles don't have an outline, so some of them just blend in with the background or the foreground, which obviously make them really hard to see. The boss helps with the visual pollution by being painted in colors just as bright as his own projectiles, which makes it very difficult to tell which one is which. Especially annoying are the hand projectiles, which easily blend in with the black outline of the boss, and the pink spikes that seem to be somewhat transparent. My eyes hurt. But the balance is gross too. 'Pepper' is a gross curving attack that sometimes just seems to gravitate towards you. Depending on how the projectiles are set up, there's just no reliable way of avoiding this thing. 'Burst' has some amazing wall potential. In fact, every time I hear that voice announcing 'Burst', I can't help but remember I wanna be the Burst, which is just as gross. Then, there's the hands. I hate those hands. They shoot some black projectiles that move at a snail's speed, which in turn gives wall potential to every other attack in the fight - 'Rocket', 'Laser' and 'Spikes', while doubling the wall factor for 'Burst' and 'Pepper'. Then, there's the second phase, which forces you to approach the wall in order to attack. While you are near the wall: 'Burst' becomes an instant kill 50% of the time; 'Rocket' becomes a jumpscare - you better move away before the projectiles start to spawn; at least 'Pepper' becomes slightly more bearable, since the projectiles don't spawn right beneath your feet; but, in exchange, 'Spikes' spawns closer to you, which enables walling potential for that attack too. Without the hands, 'Laser' is kind of a freebie, though it can be annoying when it covers the spot you were supposed to be standing on. The entire thing is just a disgrace. I hate this boss.
The other bosses are there, I guess. There are a few normal bosses, which are kind of nice, with a decent variety of attacks. Then, there's an avoidance, which is alright. It's short enough to not make you hate life, even though the beginning is a little gross (Or maybe my strats are just bad. In this case, I don't really know). Finally, there's a quiz boss. I consider quiz bosses bad by default, but this is as good as a quiz boss can be. The questions are fangame-related, which is the best possible topic for a fangame quiz (After all, it's kind of a given that fangame players would know stuff about fangames) and, even if you fail, you can beat this boss fairly easily in a trial-and-error fashion. Even after you fail the first question, you still have a few seconds before you die, during which you can shoot at random to find out the responses to the next questions, should you choose the brute force strategy. I don't think it gets much better than this. All the bosses have a meme-like visual style, which looks ugly but kind of fits with the lighthearted story, I guess.
Finally, there are a couple more things to mention about the plaforming. For one, the water physics feel a little too floaty. However, the underwater segments don't quite require any precise maneuvers, so I think it's fine. Also, the gravity inversion segments were pretty iffy.
Anything else I want to mention? I don't think so. I feel bad. I really thought I would enjoy this game a lot, but it seems that wasn't the case. I will skip the recommendation section of the review. I don't think that this game's issues warrant a 'not recommended' but, on the other hand, I really don't feel like recommending it either. It's one of those games I really didn't enjoy but, save for the last boss, I can't really name a reason why. It's been a while since I've played one of those.
Rating: 8.0 80
Difficulty: 55 55
Apr 20, 2021
Xplayerlol
For: I wanna MADONGA the MADONGA
For: I wanna MADONGA the MADONGA
Yet another entry for worst subgenre of "avoidance", the "Get lucky for X seconds" subgenre. It's just as cancer and efortless as the others. I feel like I wrote something similar before, but the games are all the same anyway so it's only fair. Highly not recommended.
Tagged as: Avoidance
[3] Likes
Rating: 1.0 10
Difficulty: 51 51
Mar 14, 2021
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