Delicious Fruit
Download Game Screenshots
-
by DerpyHoovesIWBTG
-
by Emmanating
-
by Emmanating
-
by DerpyHoovesIWBTG
-
by DerpyHoovesIWBTG
-
by DerpyHoovesIWBTG
Creator's Comments:
TheNewDerf [Creator]
Hey -- I appreciate everyone who has taken time to leave feedback, even though I don't make games anymore.
Just to clear up a common observation on XIFT: this game was part of a larger structure of games which all had certain states of mind as their theme. This game's theme was anxiety. That's the reason why the saves are invisible (to keep players in a state of unease), and it's the reason why the visuals force the player to constantly focus on reading the spikes, instead of passively relying on knowing their shape. These decisions clearly have quality-of-life drawbacks (as with most of the games I made, I was to a certain degree trying to alienate the player), but at the time I felt they were justified to make a unique experience which was different to a normal 50-floor needle game.
You can make your own mind up as to whether or not this was a worthwhile trade-off (just because these decisions were intentional doesn't mean they were good design choices for you, of course). I just wanted to leave this here for the people who think these decisions were thoughtless or arbitrary. Nothing in my games was ever thoughtless--even if a lot of what I made didn't work out the way I wanted it to, and in a lot of respects failed. I was a teenager, and a novice--but I was always passionate about fangames. I think a lot of people were like that, and that's part of the joy of the community.
[14] Likes
Just to clear up a common observation on XIFT: this game was part of a larger structure of games which all had certain states of mind as their theme. This game's theme was anxiety. That's the reason why the saves are invisible (to keep players in a state of unease), and it's the reason why the visuals force the player to constantly focus on reading the spikes, instead of passively relying on knowing their shape. These decisions clearly have quality-of-life drawbacks (as with most of the games I made, I was to a certain degree trying to alienate the player), but at the time I felt they were justified to make a unique experience which was different to a normal 50-floor needle game.
You can make your own mind up as to whether or not this was a worthwhile trade-off (just because these decisions were intentional doesn't mean they were good design choices for you, of course). I just wanted to leave this here for the people who think these decisions were thoughtless or arbitrary. Nothing in my games was ever thoughtless--even if a lot of what I made didn't work out the way I wanted it to, and in a lot of respects failed. I was a teenager, and a novice--but I was always passionate about fangames. I think a lot of people were like that, and that's part of the joy of the community.
Rating: N/A
Difficulty: N/A
Sep 14, 2019
62 Reviews:
bereavement
I felt nothing when playing this. Seems like the intention was to make you feel anxiety through obfuscating saves and having confusing visuals.
However, for me, that only led to slight annoyment - the idea quickly disappeared, when the pattern for the saves could easily be deduced. In the earlier stages, a few jumps and you get your save. In the later stages and especially the last one, it was basically one save per screen. Could have benefited from having more saves, especially one screen in particular, with the drop into half spike, but I never felt that I was specifically yearning for a save. Maybe if the game had longer saves or harder jumps, maybe then it could have meant more to me.
Not saying that the game is bad, but I really don't get why it's lauded by some as the greatest fangame ever.
However, for me, that only led to slight annoyment - the idea quickly disappeared, when the pattern for the saves could easily be deduced. In the earlier stages, a few jumps and you get your save. In the later stages and especially the last one, it was basically one save per screen. Could have benefited from having more saves, especially one screen in particular, with the drop into half spike, but I never felt that I was specifically yearning for a save. Maybe if the game had longer saves or harder jumps, maybe then it could have meant more to me.
Not saying that the game is bad, but I really don't get why it's lauded by some as the greatest fangame ever.
Tagged as: Needle
[0] Likes
Rating: 6.5 65
Difficulty: 55 55
Apr 7, 2024
quadstuffed
10/10 atmosphere, a game with fully realized artistic vision. The platforming is arguably uninteresting with many "hallways" and short hops that are become trivialized with jump cancel tech, but I'd argue this game shows that a great needle game doesn't need to be mechanically mind blowing, or have never before seen techniques and movements.
[0] Likes
Rating: 8.8 88
Difficulty: 60 60
Feb 5, 2024
Renko97
The visuals are cool
Tagged as: Needle
Visual_Challenge
[0] Likes
Rating: 7.0 70
Difficulty: 50 50
Sep 20, 2023
YaBoiMarcAntony
What you're never gonna get from a Derf game is something without meaning. In every single thing he does, there is purpose and reasoning behind it. XIFT, naturally, is no different, though naysayers would have you believe otherwise. I was a naysayer myself, in fact! I wasn't much of a fan of the game myself for a long time, believing it to be a terribly awkward game that rode on the spectacular atmosphere. I acknowledged why aspects of the game were awkward and I respected that vision, but it just didn't make for enjoyable gameplay insofar as I was concerned. This is the big thing about games which try to do something beyond make good gameplay: just because it's trying to do something else doesn't mean it suddenly has to be okay or that you have to like it! I can acknowledge the purpose or goal of some thing which appears to me as a negative gameplay-wise and it can still remain a negative beyond that. Of course, I also think the role of anyone who tries to approach a game honestly is to nonetheless accept what a game is trying to do and not to just disparage it because what it wants to do doesn't fit into what you like. There's a fine line between acknowledging what a game attempts to do while still not liking it and just totally rejecting what it's trying to do in the first place.
All that is to say, I simply didn't like what XIFT tried to do because I felt like it did not improve the gameplay for me. For a long time, I was totally focused on gameplay and took anything else as a nice bonus. It was those nice bonuses which made me fall in love with a game, but I would never like a game if the gameplay wasn't up to what I deemed as par and no game could have gameplay really improved by those things I deemed "nice bonuses." Nowadays, I think that's a bit of a reductive view, though I still maintain the importance of quality gameplay. It's just, I also recognize how much gameplay can be affected by a game's purpose and meaning. XIFT is a game which deals in anxiety, something Derf has outright said himself. I've always understood that the purpose of invisible saves was to therefore create a sense of anxiety within the player, though I never actually made the connection between the design of the screens themselves and that purpose of anxiety.
Perhaps I shouldn't say I understood the purpose of what Derf did because more accurately I acknowledged that he had a purpose and I understand what he has said about that purpose and what it is - but I never actually internalized the feelings he was trying to impart. While playing XIFT for the second time, I very much honed in on that sense of anxiety built not only by the invisible saves but that in tandem with the unconventional gameplay. Derf's sense of needle design and what feels good to do is at a level that most other needle players could never hope to reach because he knows exactly what feels nice to do and therefore knows exactly what to make in order to convey a sense of unease with his gameplay in XIFT. There is something delightful in clearing what I deem to be a terribly awkward jump and then realizing there's no guarantee I won't have to do it again if I screw up. The entire game is built on that sense of unease from moment to moment, you can never really know when you're feet are touching the ground as the reality of your situation is always up in the air until you've failed.
Once I came to understand that, I started to wonder if the game wouldn't be improved with increased difficulty so as to further develop that anxious feeling, but truthfully I think that misses the point, or at least it does for me. I don't really think this game is just about anxiety but instead the acceptance of it as a reality that you have to deal with and learning to come to terms with it. Because of that, I think the game relies on the fact that it's not too hard so that the player can not feel hopeless when playing. Whether it's anxiety about failure or anxiety about the unknown, the game almost has this sense of comfort in which it says "hey, you're probably gonna fail and that's okay. You can just try again anyways and maybe you'll get further and learn something about your place in this world!" The blood effect, as small a thing as it is, helps impart that sense of accepting failure because any given death leaves a mark, but it's a mark that nonetheless fades away after some time. It leaves an impact, but not a lasting one. This attention to detail and meaning is what really sells the game for me not just because it's meaningful in the first place but because it helps elevate the gameplay to something more than it would be if taken on its own as I did before.
What I particularly love is how Derf brings these facts down to earth with the last stage. You could dismiss all of this by suggesting that these feelings of anxiety and such only exist within the alien world you visit after the meteor lands, but the last stage tells us, or at least hints at, that whether or not that meteor introduced these emotions to us, they're with us for life now and even if the epilogue is clear, there's no way of knowing that those alien worlds won't come back again.
In all, XIFT is one of those games that you either understand and you don't. I've always thought I understood it and I just didn't like it, but I'm not sure if that can really happen. Acknowledgement and understanding are two completely different things, that much is clear. It's just impossible for me to tell if the difference isn't just whether I like whatever it is I'm talking about or not. XIFT, at the very least, has inadvertently helped me towards understanding these semi-irrelevant things and in the process, I came to understand the game itself and love it for that understanding.
All that is to say, I simply didn't like what XIFT tried to do because I felt like it did not improve the gameplay for me. For a long time, I was totally focused on gameplay and took anything else as a nice bonus. It was those nice bonuses which made me fall in love with a game, but I would never like a game if the gameplay wasn't up to what I deemed as par and no game could have gameplay really improved by those things I deemed "nice bonuses." Nowadays, I think that's a bit of a reductive view, though I still maintain the importance of quality gameplay. It's just, I also recognize how much gameplay can be affected by a game's purpose and meaning. XIFT is a game which deals in anxiety, something Derf has outright said himself. I've always understood that the purpose of invisible saves was to therefore create a sense of anxiety within the player, though I never actually made the connection between the design of the screens themselves and that purpose of anxiety.
Perhaps I shouldn't say I understood the purpose of what Derf did because more accurately I acknowledged that he had a purpose and I understand what he has said about that purpose and what it is - but I never actually internalized the feelings he was trying to impart. While playing XIFT for the second time, I very much honed in on that sense of anxiety built not only by the invisible saves but that in tandem with the unconventional gameplay. Derf's sense of needle design and what feels good to do is at a level that most other needle players could never hope to reach because he knows exactly what feels nice to do and therefore knows exactly what to make in order to convey a sense of unease with his gameplay in XIFT. There is something delightful in clearing what I deem to be a terribly awkward jump and then realizing there's no guarantee I won't have to do it again if I screw up. The entire game is built on that sense of unease from moment to moment, you can never really know when you're feet are touching the ground as the reality of your situation is always up in the air until you've failed.
Once I came to understand that, I started to wonder if the game wouldn't be improved with increased difficulty so as to further develop that anxious feeling, but truthfully I think that misses the point, or at least it does for me. I don't really think this game is just about anxiety but instead the acceptance of it as a reality that you have to deal with and learning to come to terms with it. Because of that, I think the game relies on the fact that it's not too hard so that the player can not feel hopeless when playing. Whether it's anxiety about failure or anxiety about the unknown, the game almost has this sense of comfort in which it says "hey, you're probably gonna fail and that's okay. You can just try again anyways and maybe you'll get further and learn something about your place in this world!" The blood effect, as small a thing as it is, helps impart that sense of accepting failure because any given death leaves a mark, but it's a mark that nonetheless fades away after some time. It leaves an impact, but not a lasting one. This attention to detail and meaning is what really sells the game for me not just because it's meaningful in the first place but because it helps elevate the gameplay to something more than it would be if taken on its own as I did before.
What I particularly love is how Derf brings these facts down to earth with the last stage. You could dismiss all of this by suggesting that these feelings of anxiety and such only exist within the alien world you visit after the meteor lands, but the last stage tells us, or at least hints at, that whether or not that meteor introduced these emotions to us, they're with us for life now and even if the epilogue is clear, there's no way of knowing that those alien worlds won't come back again.
In all, XIFT is one of those games that you either understand and you don't. I've always thought I understood it and I just didn't like it, but I'm not sure if that can really happen. Acknowledgement and understanding are two completely different things, that much is clear. It's just impossible for me to tell if the difference isn't just whether I like whatever it is I'm talking about or not. XIFT, at the very least, has inadvertently helped me towards understanding these semi-irrelevant things and in the process, I came to understand the game itself and love it for that understanding.
Tagged as: Needle
[0] Likes
Rating: 8.8 88
Difficulty: 60 60
Jan 21, 2022