YaBoiMarcAntony's Profile
Send a PMJoined on: Apr 26, 2020
Bio:
I used to be here four years ago but I left. I was Guitarsage2k/Parallax5.
These fangames mean a lot to me (attempt at order)
1. I Wanna Kill the Kermit 3
2. I Wanna Walk Out in the Morning Dew
3. I Wanna Be the Volatile Presence: Stagnant Edition
4. Crimson Needle 3
5. I Wanna Kill the Kermit 2
6. I Wanna Figure
7. Phonotransmitter
8. VoVoVo
9. I Wanna Reach the Moon
10. untitled needle game
11. I Wanna Burnmind
12. Domu
13. I Want To Meet Miki
14. I Wanna Go Across the Rainbow
15. Alphazetica
16. I Wanna Stop the Simulation
17. I Wanna Hydrate
18. I Wanna Be the Ocean Princess
19. I Wanna Vibe with the Gods
20. I Wanna Be the Vandal
21. I Wanna Pray to the Platform God
22. I Want
23. I Wanna Pointillism
24. I Wanna Be Far From Home
25. I Wanna Be the RO
I've submitted:
276 Ratings!
237 Reviews!
5 Screenshots!
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276 Games
237 Reviews
For: I wanna be the MMM
For: I wanna be the Block
Make no mistake, this is a game that almost no one can enjoy, and my own enjoyment is at times in spite of itself rather than because of its own qualities that I suppose. Mainly, it comes from the fact that somehow, despite everything, this game truly does feel like it was made with intention. Certain decisions in its makeup force me to contend with the idea that the maker wasn't just spamming objects and seeing what could happen, it's as if they were intending on creating a cohesive experience with a certain ebb and flow to it. Perhaps it's accidental, but really I think it's a bit more than that. What really forced me towards this feeling was the fact that there was one certain structure that appears three times throughout the game. Once? Meaningless without any further context. Twice? Maybe it's just a coincidence, or maybe they just reused it out of laziness. Three times? And that third being in fact a variation on a theme? Well, I can't call it genius, but it's notable to me.
There are these moments that feel more like quality of life decisions rather than cases where you're breaking the game or cheating, many moments where you can abuse the fact that you can shoot through certain blocks or that saves have no save blockers. You could say this comes down to the maker's own inabilities, but then there are moments where there are in fact real blocks which stop you from abusing such a fact, so who's to say? Beyond that, there are these weird moments where a choice was made to offer you, for example, a safe space in the middle of a save for no reason, but then you find you can use that space to save. The hardest save by far in this game is itself neutered by the fact that there's a hidden save, one that you'd only find if you happened to be spamming shoot while playing this save.
It's decisions like these, moments that feel like callbacks to previous sections, choices that seem like they were made for - or distinctly against, the player's own benefit. These are the moments that remind me a real person made this. It's not some randomly generated game, nothing artificial spat this out, it's a real game made by a real human with real intentions behind their decisions. Maybe these intentions were meaningless, maybe it only came down to them just wanting to do things for the sake of it, but all the same it came about through their own efforts. It's not to say that something having intention behind it applies innately that there is worth, but in this case, I think it ultimately contextualized this game for me.
It's not like the game is a hidden work of art, mind you, this is still a game that I would recommend to essentially no one. I won't say it's bad but I liked playing it, I don't go for that sort of thing. It's an okay game and I liked it, but I think there are very few other people that would feel this way. I mean, really, this game does nothing right according to the rulebook. Like I said at first, it's chock full of unusual, time-consuming design choices that force waiting or continuous deaths to learn how to progress through a save. Add this on top of some genuinely not trivial moments as well as some highly RNG dependent sections, and you get something that most people will not consider worth their time. Essentially, I write about this game because it made me consider my first works as an artist - not as a fangame maker, but just as an artist altogether working with any given medium.
Thinking about my very first experiences creating, I remember making a lot of choices that simply would appear to others as being without reason or completely random. In fact, at one point while playing this game, a friend of mine asked how someone could possibly have come up with parts of this game. To me, the answer is simple: these choices just kind of come when you're first starting out making stuff because you truly have no inhibitions, no rules to hold yourself to. I think about the fangame screens I would draw in elementary art school and I think about the "gameplay decisions" I was making, and they don't abide by any conventions or tradition by any means, they simply were decisions made based on what was in my head at any given moment.
And to some degree, that's the impression this game gives me. It's like you've been dropped in the mind of a child who just wants to make a game and no one's told them the things they can and can't do. And hell, I can even see the story that was possibly playing out in the creator's head when they were making this, the impossible to glean story that's really nowhere but in the head of the maker - or, my own alone.
You begin in the i wanna engine screen, a legendary start screen. Thereafter, you go into another, similarly familiar screen, hearkening back to the original Guy. Once past that, however, things start to go off the rails a bit. You enter into this place which gives the impression of a liminal space, the somewhere inbetween. After this, a return is made to a part of the engine screen, but it's been remade and given a new spin. From here, things catapult off into space. Essentially the game moves between the various flavors of what I've just described, all the while consistently using what I will legitimately refer to as leitmotifs in the form of jump sections (the previously mentioned structure, several very similarly shaped diagonal sections, two small apple towers, etc.). Then, you get this impression of a story told about a fight with this great being that looks somewhat similar to you but dressed up in new clothes. Perhaps they're the alien form of you? Maybe they're your brother? All I know is, they're dedicated to trying to beat you, essentially fighting you three times. Of course, one can go from here to consider the boss fights before hand as being the sentinels which guard your great foe, each classic red orb being ways of the kid powering up so they can face them.
And then, once you've beaten him once and for all, you're faced with the true final boss, a block with a number on it itself protected by two other blocks which are all bouncing around fervently. I imagine this as some grand machine, like it's the core of something powerful that we, the kid, have come to destroy and that's what the sentinels and the other, potential alien kid, was protecting. One could even think we're the bad guy if you viewed the story in another light. Who's to say this machine should be destroyed? Maybe it's what powers the world this game lives within?
All of that of course is just fanfiction, really, there's no way to say this is what was in the maker's head when they made it, but these are the sorts of stories I would spin in my head. It's this level of creativity and imagination that becomes lost as you grow older, not necessarily through loss of innocence or what have you, but thanks to some undefinable quality either gained or lost, we essentially lose this ability to spin freeform stories which hold no structure agreed to by people who know what they're doing. Indeed, we lose this ability to be truly, earnestly creative. Or at least, most do. So, in some odd way, this game makes me recall the times when I could fall into my imagination and create without a worry toward anything making sense or holding to its own internal logic. Decisions didn't need explaining because they were made as a means to an end, or ultimately just for the sake of it. Really, it was all in good fun, and it's something I can't say I've really experienced or thought about consciously for a long, long time.
Remarkably, they for the most part create things that are palatable (at least... if you're willing to hear the game out - and you're patient), but even if it weren't a palatable experience, I think I would come away from this game with something positive to think about. It's just charming! That's the very best I can say about it, this is a charming game and it reminds me that there really is no reason to abide by the rules, I can break them as I choose and just see what comes out. As for why this differs for any of the other hundreds of fangames in this vein, I could not tell you. Maybe it just caught me on the right mood, or maybe there really is something special about this game. Whatever the case, I think it is an amazing example for me that even these 0 out of 10 games on delfruit can be worth my time. Perhaps not all the time, most of the time, or even half the time - but sometimes, they have something to offer.
For: I Wanna Leave This Hell
For: I Wanna Escape Into My Mind
The gameplay itself bears no discussion because it's just all high quality all the time. I do not need to talk of the effortlessly creative design that comes pouring out like hot lava, or the evocative artstyle that defines Escape Into My Mind. Indeed, this is a game one could use as a point on a graph to highlight the journey we've gone on as a community. To compare this to our earlier works like from that of carnival and the like, you may not find it to be a strictly better experience, but it is undeniable that this is a more clear and overt vision when it comes to what this game is trying to say. I don't deny that there has been something lost from times of old, a sort of nebulous concept of character and heart that people love the old fangames for, but to claim that there is no heart or character in fangames of today when people are making stuff like this? Well, it's a bit silly, to say the least.
The most impressive aspect of the game has to be in that mentioned clarity of vision. It is not enough to say that the game is clearly meaningful, it is so much more than that. I love most when games like this attempt to marry meaning with gameplay, and Escape succeeds in every way when it comes to this task. Even small choices seem to bear great meaning, such as that your heart in one of the latter stages tries to kill you throughout the stage - that each chosen character takes on a different style and in the end are all going against you, while I cannot say what every little choice in design means, I am certain that most if not all of it had purpose behind it beyond a mere capitulation to the "wacky" artstyle.
Particularly, the choice to make the final boss each character you took on at the end of previous stages was a great one. It is as if each character was originally an attempt to conform to this image that the main character believes they should look like if they want to be who they want to be - and in the end, the revelation comes that they should feel comfortable looking however the hell they damn well please so long as it fits into their own preferences. It's not a matter of looking like the image of what you want to be, but looking like what YOU want to be no matter how it ends up looking for other people.
It is this expression of individuality that I take away from this game, one that can work both as an artistic statement and a personal one. Indeed, the creator is one of a kind within our community even if their inspirations are obvious. Releases like this are what continue to assure me that our path as a community is surely the right one, or at least the one that I'm glad to be journeying on alongside the rest.
For: Selected Needle Works 21-23
Yes, Selected Needle Works is quite difficult, representative of the sort of base level of difficulty for most needle games of this ilk, that of the more artistically inclined. I will say, this is probably the most difficult of the bunch within this vague genre type I've tried to briefly pin down here, but for those of us willing to chew on something like this, it proves to be more of a boon than anything. Setting aside the difficulty, there's also some outright malignant design choices throughout the game, malignant of course to get across a certain emotional concept rather than just as a screw you to the player. If you view long saves as a malignant decision in this respect, then there's plenty of that, but you'll also find a few stages designed around the concept of obfuscation - stages where it's difficult to truly see what you're doing if not almost impossible unless you really focus. I'm sure some will find it frustrating, but I find the way it's implemented to be far more thoughtful than that.
I will not attempt to pin down any themes within the game, but there is obviously intent behind a lot of the design throughout the game - and even beyond that obvious intent and what the creator is trying to convey, this effort lends itself to memorable imagery that you just won't find other makers creating. I mean, I cannot point to any other person's style that is truly similar to what Theo makes here. One can make comparisons to Morning Dew or that of dopamine's games, but certain aesthetic choices give the game a unique flair that in turn makes it undeniably Theo in nature. Particular highlights would be the stage somewhat based around roots covering jumps or, in particular, the second screen to the Tree of Life stage.
Insofar as the quality of the needle is concerned, it is absolutely rock solid. There is perhaps one jump I could point to as problematic insofar as myself is concerned, but I think it is through no fault of the implementation and instead merely that I just fundamentally dislike the idea (you'll find the jump in the stage based strongly around platforms, and you'll likely know exactly what jump I mean when you get to it). Nevertheless, one jump versus the many throughout the game? Well, it's a good batting average, I'll put it like that. I cannot claim to absolutely adore everything in the game, there is certainly variance in quality; on the subject, there inevitably will be a level of variance to this game that you won't find in others, a small lack in coherence inherent to the game's creation.
Selected Needle Works 21-23, it's a literal name, being made up of various screens and stages made throughout these years, and as such you'll get essentially a collage of the creator's journey throughout the years. With that in mind, the game really does have some surprising sense of cohesion, but it does not play like a game composed from beginning to end, more like one pieced together to form a whole - and that is not a critique! I find that this method of transcription tends to bring about particularly interesting and varied experiences, and while I will not claim that this is one of the most varied games I've ever played - it mostly boils down to longform needle along with some light gimmicks and experimentation strewn about, I won't claim that it is one of the most varied games ever, but I can't really claim any one stage as being totally alike another.
With all that in mind, it's clear that I have a lot of respect for this game. Certainly, there is some bias inherent to my feelings given that I am friends with the creator, but I promise you that none of what I say is meant to butter them up purely because of that reason. Whether I knew them well or absolutely hated them, I would not be able to deny the high quality of this release, one of the top releases of 2023 so far. Please, if you can handle the difficulty of this game, you owe it to yourself to give this game a try. I promise you won't find another game like it.
9 Games
Game | Difficulty | Average Rating | # of Ratings |
---|---|---|---|
A Sky Blue Denouement | 88.8 | 8.4 | 10 |
April is the Cruelest Month | 84.8 | 8.8 | 19 |
I Wanna Flying Disc | 91.5 | 9.3 | 4 |
Frankie Teardrop | 2.2 | 6.0 | 10 |
I Don't Wanna Dwell | 69.2 | 7.3 | 14 |
Nebulous Thoughts | 80.0 | 9.1 | 32 |
Strewn Detritus | 69.0 | 7.3 | 14 |
The Sunken Cathedral | 69.5 | 8.2 | 28 |
I Wanna be the Ziggomatic Drukqs | 70.5 | 7.3 | 9 |
48 Favorite Games
256 Cleared Games