notmaxwell's Profile
Send a PMJoined on: Aug 3, 2025
Bio:
aka 457
every game i've left a rating or review on i have cleared.
clear list is only used for monumental or impactful clears, or my favourite clears.
(My favourite games tab is different to my clears tab).
I don't tend to give rating or difficulty values anymore, since it's meaningless and was demotivating to be placed alongside people who didn't play through the game, or can't tell the difference between a problem with the game or themselves.
I've submitted:
137 Ratings!
64 Reviews!
2 Screenshots!
137 Games
64 Reviews
For: I Wanna Eat the Winter King
Something that makes fangames so interesting to me and makes me enjoy playing them as much as i do, especially very difficult ones is just how different the experience and game itself is compared to the usuals most videogames offer, this is a key reason as to why I'm such a fan of precision games, or L-needle, that kind of design and gameplay is so niche and rarely seen outside of fangames which makes it so unique and interesting to me, and I feel the same way about this game. Visually it's beautiful, some of the best art i've ever seen in a fangame and the theme is amazing. I can't stress that enough, I love the theming this game goes for, the way you start off comfortable in some kind of lab building, with a radio playing calm music, and transition further and further into screens that are less forgiving and more intense, after exiting the lab through what seems to be a hole in the wall with the intense blizzard from outside leaking in, alongside an unknown red mist seeping in through the bottom, you get to screen 2, which completely embraces the blizzard. Now the player is outside in the open, in the middle of an audibly intense storm, the ground and blocks are covered in snow, and you can see what resembles a tree branch above the platforming, while still being able to slightly hear the radio from the first screen yet drowned out by the storm. I didn't mention this in screen 1, but the subtlety of this game is so beautiful, it's the only game of such difficulty where you can actually take a second away from the grind to examine the visuals and have fun, while doing this i actually broke the radio and it jumpscared me so bad but that's the kind of detail I love. The art is genuinely so good that it feels to me on par with famous indie games such as hollow knight or rain world, and i'm bringing this up here since I've firsthand known people who haven't seen this game before get it mixed up with both of those, it's that good. Anyway, back to screen 2, there's some nice framing, white snow-ridden blocks on the bottom, black tree branch on the top, snowy christmas blocks in the middle, it's well done. There's also subtle layers in the background, it all just adds a lot to the atmosphere that I really can't stress is fantastic. Screen 3 is mostly similar, except the player is now shown the trunk of the tree, with an entrance that has light pouring into it. I mentioned before, but I like the framing this game does, in this screen the tree takes up the whole middle quadrant, it's the main focal point and it immediately asserts itself as your goal, that the player has to get inside of that tree. I won't talk about the screen transitioning here, since that's for the gameplay portion, but as questionable as it is, it's unique, and it does tie into this, on screen 2 your able to see there's gameplay on the tree branch, and at screen 3 the player is given their goal of where to reach. Once at the top, you leap over into the tree, entering the final gameplay screen of the game, and the vibe is completely different. Once inside the trunk, the visuals change drastically, the primary colour is now black, juxtaposed to the white of the constant blizzard, it's dim and mostly brown (as you'd expect from being inside of a tree trunk), with some particles of snow falling in. I really like this change, the sudden transition and music change really cements it aswell, it really makes it feel like the final push to reach somewhere that by all means you shouldn't be able to reach. The screen is menacing by design too, there's only 2 jumps, first of which is divisively messed up, more on that later but it's a very compact screen, you can only see 7 blocks wide, it's very condensed and it really just provokes emotions when you get there, it's really amazing. Afterwards there's a fall and then the clear screen. I love a good clear screen after a difficult game and this one is amazing, certainly in my top 5 of all time for sure. You can see the winter king (presumably) dead laying on the ground above a pit seeping of red unknown mist, it's mysterious, but that's great, it leaves you with questions that don't necessarily need answers. Not only is it a great clear screen but it delivers on the name & is interactive, you eat the lad, during so his arm and sword falls off into the pit, and the screen gets darker, rolls the credits and the game closes itself. It's cinema. I love this ending, it still gives you some things to think about, even if not intended by the creator to be that purposeful, like why is there blood on the king's sword & how did he die, alongside the whole notion of the red mist from the pit that isn't just in the trunk but also in the lab at the very start.
Overall, the visuals in this game are undoutebly amongst my favourite from a fangame ever, and it's really up there in terms of video games as a whole for me. Genuinely, this is the stuff I love and I cannot describe enough how much this game slaps visually, it turns it into such a unique experience and journey.
Now for gameplay, this is the most questionable and divisive part of the game by a large margin. It's certainly different from games around it, whether for the better or worse, I can't deny that it made the game stand out. First of all, the game uses a 32px grid for most of the gameplay, so i'll be mainly comparing it to other games similar, it's not really a game that revolves around 'setup needle' for the most part though, it's somewhat it's own thing. In my opinion, the overall difficulty balance of the game is S2 > S1 > S4 > S2-4 intermission, and the gameplay quality for each screen would be S4 > S2 > S1 > S2-4 intermission. Starting off with the first screen, it's mostly pretty decent in my opinion, there's some jumps that feel great to pull off & that I found to get very consistent and a few jumps that I struggled with a little bit. I didn't find it to be much of a problem outside of the occasional circumstances, and this screen as a whole got very consistent for me. Special mention to the final jump, I think it's very unique and cool, and it also limits the gameplay for the screen to be solely on the left side while having a large gap. Screen 2 is interesting, it starts off alright, the 2nd jump I think is a bit questionable, I personally found it a bit arbitrary with the left and right movement presses, it gets consistent but it doesn't feel great when you die to pressing a movement key 1f too long or short. The jump afterwards is actually just a fj, this game has a custom engine feature where your starting valign doensn't change from some region in the .4 range, which means that doing a fj for this jump is 100% consistent. I think a point could be made about how the game doesn't mention that anywhere (atleast from what i've seen), since it is somewhat useful to know but it's not a big deal. The jump afterwards is a required 1-2p double fj (or 22f, possibly 21f) with a very strict turnaround. This jump is one of, if not the most awkward in the entire game to me, it's just too arbitrary to be put in a long difficult save such as this, it's not really a setup-orientated jump, and don't get me wrong it doesn't have to be, but it's just a pretty intense hand movement that doesn't feel great to die to, and doesn't seem to get very consistent past a certain threshold. The jump afterwards I actually quite like, except for the screen transition making the double jump a bit visually weird. I'll talk about the screen transitions after, but overall I still do quite enjoy this screen, it's fun, and while the 2nd & 4th jump are a bit weird, they do still get quite consistent and they didn't bother me too much. The jumps inbetween S2 and S4 I'll talk about separately, so it's onto screen 4 now. Screen 4 is my favourite screen in the entire game gameplay-wise. I love it, it's absolutely mean and harsh but that's what makes it so good. The first jump is kind of ridiculous, the start of it is extremely visually vague and somewhat awkward to perform at first, especially because it's on 32px grid, it does not feel at all like a jump made for such grid, I personally like that, but I understand other people not. Anyway, the rest of the jump is just turnarounds, I find them quite enjoyable, though it's worth noting what makes this jump so difficult is that the turnarounds are commonly impossible depending on how you do the start of the jump, it relies upon itself, and because of it looking so seemingly open it can be an incredibly deceiving jump. It's also in my opinion the most difficult jump in the entire game, placed at the very end, furthering that notion I mentioned before about how screen 4 feels like that final push, having the hardest & most vague thing in the game saved right for last is mean, it's evil but it's unique and I love it. The second half of the screen consists of some precise water jumps, they're pretty chokeable especially with the emotions you feel after passing the first jump, it's nothing too crazy but I actually found them to be quite fun, atleast in practice, in the real thing I found them to be decently good although due to the location you don't get many attempts here. The final jump from the platform is absolutely nerve wracking, you can fall down and fj up, I chose not to due to practicing without that strategy, so it's a bit of a risky one. Screen 4 overall is just so different to me, I can't deny, you could argue (and be right for the most part) that the screen is absolutely evil bullshit. But that's what makes it so good, it's damn hostile but it deserves to be.
Now for the jumps inbetween screen 2 & 4. There's the screen transitions, that go hand in hand for these jumps, as you'll be switching between S2 & 3 quite a lot. For the record, screen 3 only has technically 1\2 jump\s. A good align ledge to get up to screen 2's F jumps, and a fj to get into the trunk entrance for screen 4. The latter of which I quite like, I actually can't say too much about it, since I never practiced it, and I didn't die much to it, but it's a satisfying jump to pull off and it's generally just interesting due to how it's made with the screen transitions in mind. The ledge is good, It's a bit basic so there isn't much to say, the jump over back to screen 2 is a bit questionable with the double jump input timing & first jump height being vague, but so is every screen transition jump except for the fj. I didn't have any problems with the F jumps, though I had one instance where my eyes got a bit tired (alongside my brain I guess) so after passing the last F jump I held left right into the spikes, but that's not even the game's fault other than having so many screen transitions in a short timeframe might be a bit taxing on the eyes, although this is probably barely true. My main problem with the screen transitions comes from the last jump of screen 2's double jump over to screen 3. It's really difficult to tell at first what the proper jump height is for the djump unless you've made note of this jump before playing the game, it's just a bit too tight for it's own good in my opinion, for example if you 10f into the jump to my knowledge the double jump height has to be either a 10f or 11f, and both of those are effectively blind since you can't see the spikes to avoid on screen 3 and the input release is so close to the transition. All the other jumps in the transitions aren't nearly as tight as this one, so it just felt like it didn't deserve to be this way, and also I think it's a bit harsh if your playing this game blind. Once on screen 3 you can piece together the route without having to do trial and error, but if someone were to play this game blind one or more deaths to this jump are confirmed as there's no way for them to see it coming. It's not a big deal truthfully, but I think it's a bit bothersome when talking about the gameplay.
I'd also be wrong if I wasn't to mention the ... Deaths? that happen in this game. For some currently unknown cause to me, a lot of odd deaths just happen in the S2-4 intermission. Failing F jumps, holding left into spikes, etc, it doesn't feel good when it does happen due to this segment being vastly easier than all the other segments of this game, so it ends up leaving the player disappointed and with the sour taste of a 'wasted attempt', though I don't know if this is the game's fault or not. It just happens, for instance I just kept having this at the ledge in Screen 3, and a few F jump deaths aswell even though dying to those is incredibly uncommon for me. Be warned if you are going to play this game, this is a real issue, I don't know why it happens, it would be great to have a solution but expect your brain to just suddenly lose all power once at this portion of the game. My current theory is either something todo with the screen transitions visually 'zoning' me out, or the custom engine used in the game as I had some other input problems that have a chance to be from the same cause, but if so it's certainly not noticeable enough to actually know for sure. I'm not really taking this into account for the game's quality, and for me atleast the visuals and interest I have with this game overcome this problem, but do be warned that it does detract from the experience of playing this a good bit, it's not very enjoyable to die to effectively everything for no realistic reason, you just kind of die everywhere in this game and it's pretty draining & demotivating as a result. Though, on the other hand, it absolutely gives you an experience that is unique even within games similar to this, good or bad it's something special.
I'm going to end it here now, this game is quite special to me and does mean a lot, it's something I saw years ago and found it so cool and interesting, but thought i'd never be able to actually play it. It's genuinely beautiful, and it's such a unique game and experience as a whole that I wholeheartedly love, even though it's taxing and harsh on the mind at times, it pulls through and feels unforgettable to clear. I'm very happy I played this game.
For: I wanna Escape the Sleepywood
Visually there isn't much, especially for an ftfa-like, there isn't really any effort on structuring, which does make it seem a bit distinct from what i'd generally call ftfa-like with it's open-ness. Alongside this, the game just has a default unchanged clear screen, which is pretty disappointing to see. Overall even for an ftfa-like it's not really anything special visually & it doesn't really try to be so either. Presumably the game is focusing more on the gameplay department, which in my opinion also isn't anything great by any means. There's a few cool jumps, the first 5f & the 2 final 5fs are all interesting enough, satisfying & consistent alongside the 6f 3f which is decently unique and fun (+ the 4f wallhug fj is also quite nice). All these jumps are on the easier side of jumps in this game though (atleast in my opinion) as sadly the hardest jump in this game by a significant proportion is the fj frame perfect 8f turnaround to grab align 0 in the middle of the screen, it's a really difficult and pretty evil jump, I found that it takes a decent while to get consistent at and isn't the most responsive jump to play. It's position doesn't help either, it's effectively a big wall in the middle of the save. Furthermore, the 18f 1-3p fj inbetween inverts is also a kind of irritating jump, but that might just be me.
Overall the game has a few fun things in it, but I wouldn't really recommend playing it to clear, it's not a very fun experience and is quite unbalanced with the harder jumps being on the more annoying side. There's also admittedly not much going for it truthfully, it's quite basic even for a ftfa-like.
For: I Wanna Escape And Be Free
Unique 32px setup needle game. Visually amazing, and thematically really good too. You can tell that it has a quite high amount of care and effort put into it which is somewhat rare for stuff like this.
Gameplay wise it's somewhat questionable. Save 1 & 2 are around the same level of difficulty while save 3 is a bit easier, it's different to the rest, and truthfully had me stumped since I was doing the first jump in a horrific way that made it vastly more difficult. Anyway, save 1 is pretty good for the most part, it has a valign jump such as the prefinal 8f which i think is good, and some other jumps such as the plane into corner & the jump before the prefinal that I found enjoyable, on the other hand the first jump is a bit awkward, though it got consistent, and the 12f into corner is also inconsistent, but for reasons i'll mention later. Final jump I personally didn't vibe with much either and ended up figuring out a strategy involving align 2 that made it better, but I still think it's a bit questionable to have it there at the end.
Moving onto screen 2, I really don't like how align 0 is forced upon you if you grab align 2 from screen 1, I know it's the good ledge align, but it's kind of a shame since the ledge jump in screen 2 is one of the hardest, but also least enjoyable jumps by a good bit, it would be a lot better if you were able to save that align, the jump wouldn't be so irritating and inconsistent if align 0 wasn't just immediately put upon the player on the screen transition.
Screen 2 has some banger jumps, the vstring corner and djump I liked, and the final drop & jump into I'm a big fan of, though it is somewhat easy. I did the jump after the valign plane with a 14f and quite liked it, though there's other strats for it. Now on the other hand the top half of this save is diabolical, the first jump is nothing much but the 2nd jump into the forced bad align ledge is pretty iffy, I didn't like it much. Jump from the ledge is unique and I respect it conceptually but I also didn't find it great to pull off, and deaths to it seemed uncontrollable. The valign plane afterwards I'm sort of 50\50 on, I think it's a pretty interesting jump and in isolation I don't think it's bad, it just becomes somewhat frustrating after the 2nd jump & my problems with the visuals heightened this. It's not a terrible save, but it gets pretty annoying due to those jumps at the top of the screen, it's a shame. Also I lowkey died to the choke diagonal at the end but that's not even really the game's fault lmao
Screen 3 I can't talk much on but it plays very differently to all prior screens. First jump is a very cool jump and once consistent does feel awesome to pull off, though using left right priority abuse for it at first does feel unintuitive, but that's fine. The rest of the save I think is pretty good though the ledge into ledge is a wee bit awkward but that's all good.
Now my biggest problem with this game is sadly that the visuals hurt the experience quite a lot. The custom kid sprite is cool as, and I love it, but I don't think it plays well especially on setup needle gameplay as it's a bit longer horizontally (as the feet can sometimes slightly clip into spikes) and vertically from what I can tell. Alongside this, most of the background is pretty dark, and a good chunk of the kid sprite is also dark grey or black, on my laptop (which does have a poor colour range, but albeit it's not that old of a device) I couldn't properly see the kid when in motion, it all became a blur, this affected jumps like the 12f corner turnaround heavily on screen 1 and overall made the game just way harder for me. It's a shame since while the visuals are awesome they do detract from the experience of the game itself, and damn did I find it a lot harder to clear screens with these visuals compared to without. I'd love if there was an option to change the kid sprite to even just a darker coloured version of the default, or maybe a brighter coloured version of this custom sprite but I understand being against that addition.
Overall it's good, I'm kind of conflicted on it though since I didn't really enjoy a lot of it, but I still think it's a pretty good game overall and it does bring a unique experience & has some high spots (but sadly a good few low spots too)
For: I Wanna Be The GDeveloper
If this was a game that I'd have to download to play I would understand being quite harsh on it, but the fact I can play it in browser quickly does give it some intrigue, even though it's a very quick game and uses default everything.
I am, inherently posting this review since I think the 0.1 rating is a bit harsh, it seems to be the creator's first game and they had passion to make a fangame in a (to my knowledge, basing of that i've never heard of this before) niche engine thing, giving it a 0.1 instantly with a snarky review calling it both a shitty game and shitty engine just seems unnecessarily mean to a newcomer.
Yes it's not great, the game itself isn't much, and the engine does feel pretty clunky, but c'mon, can't we be at least somewhat nice to people who want to share their passion?
edit: moomoo changed their review to be less harshly worded and not 0.1
For: I'll be here
"bad time"
good game though
it certainly showcases itself to have a decent amount of effort put into it, which is very nice for a ftfa-like (or aleast it seems to be, probably borderline on the definition for me personally) intro sequence is unique and cool, and the general visuals aren't anything crazy but it's different enough when comparing to other similar games of the same difficulty to where I think it holds up pretty well.
I'm just going to say it now, the last save is considerably the hardest part of this game, it took me longer than every other save combined, but I also did get massively screwed over by things outside my control, nevertheless it's still a massive difficulty jump so i'm going to just save that for last.
I quite liked every other save in this game. Some even a great amount, saves such as 3 & 5 especially I had 0 problems with any of the jumps, got incredibly consistent very quickly, and was a blast to play. Genuinely some of the best 32px setup needlde i've played before. Save 1, 2, 4 are also bangers, but they all have one jump that is a bit questionable. 2 not as much truthfully, I think I just kind of played bad, so take that with a grain of salt. Save 1 has the turnaround 2f which I found to be a bit awkward, but this is pretty much just a personal preference nitpick, I still quite liked the save and had a good time. Same with 4, the 2nd jump was a bit weird to play, but not much of a problem. Still really liked those saves and before I got to save 6 I was having a blast.
Save 6 (or the final save) is certainly the most challenging, and most questionable. This is a notion that a good few difficult ftfa-likes do, making the last save of the game the most difficult (& usually not the greatest, but those 2 things don't rely on eachother) I understand why they do this, "save the best for last" & Ftfa itself was balanced in such a way where the last save is the most difficult and questionable. I don't really love this personally, it feels too close to the source material for me, to the point where it's bringing over the faults of ftfa into games inspired by it. Up until this point, there's only been 1 jump which I think is more awkward then good (Save 4 2nd jump), and it wasn't a big deal. This save adds 2, or even more, onto that counter, while also being a good few tiers above the rest of the game in difficulty. These questionable jumps are the bottom left drop's djump, and the bottom right corner, with some honorable mentions being the 14f and the 16f. Starting with the former, this drop just didn't feel that well visualized, it ended up getting pretty consistent but it never felt fun to pull off, and deaths felt rarely fair, it's a visually open gap but in reality it's pretty tight movement-wise, and with the game's dark colour palette I found myself in a state where the player felt a bit blurred on the drop down, and with the open gap I'd usually just mess up by a frame or so, it just didn't feel that great. The corner is a weird one, since the corner itself is actually quite easy and fine, it's just the left-facing spike right after. I think this spike was added in with only the jump from the ledge in mind, which is a shame, since it affects the corner so damn badly, I just found it to be wildly inconsistent, i'd consistently just go too quickly and pass the corner just to die to that spike, it's a shame since I do a cancel to get out of the ledge, so that spike doesn't even really affect the jump out, only just the corner. It really just felt the jump wasn't a setup needle jump, and just didn't really get consistent for me. In stark's review right below me they mention "not ftfa-ish jumps", and how it wasn't the best idea for a ftfa-like, that's effectively the same problem that I had with this corner, it just didn't fit in, and didn't get consistent like the rest of the jumps, truthfully i'm probably negatively biased on it, since the amount of deaths I had to this corner is genuinely unreasonably large, but I still stand by that from the start of the save, it's just not consistent, and deaths don't leave you with much improvement, dying to other jumps such as the 9f immediately give you feedback on what you've done wrong, and you still do get that to some extent here but it's certainly not as meaningful and it doesn't really translate over to muscle memory well, atleast for me. The 14f 8p fj is an interesting jump as it is, and it doesn't suffer from my complaints about not being setup needle or visually intuitive, more does it just not feel the great to pull off, this is ~80% chance a nitpick from me, so this jump and the one I'll mention after aren't really taken into account much, I just found that 13f 8p felt so much better than 14f 8p to the point where I kept doing it way too often. 16f fj has a somewhat similar issue, 15f felt way more intuitive, and I think you can actually die from djumping on the latest frame even if you do a 16f which is a bit questionable, but I haven't checked if that was a valign thing, likely might be.
Overall the save does have it's high points, the final jump I think is cool and good, the 9f 9f I think is also quite good, the 5f is nice and while I did say the 16f was questionable it does feel quite good to pull off. It's a good save overall truthfully, as you can see my rating is still pretty high, while it does have issues I don't think I would've had much of a problem if at all if it wasn't for me being absolutely screwed over.
Now a quick disclaimer, I'm not sure if it is windows 11 causing this, or a weird laptop problem, but i've spoken to a few people on windows 10 and they haven't had this issue, so for now I presume it is windows 11. I also think this is caused by the engine, as i've noticed on other games with the same engine this same problem, while some other studio 1.4 games don't have this issue.
This game had absolutely broken 2 inputs on 1 frame for me. Like, insanely messed up, it was incredibly noticeable on the last save, likely since I wasn't paying much attention prior, but it's absolutely devastating for setup needle. It turned almost every single jump into a slight lottery chance, I'm going to use numpad 2 keys on 1 frame as a basis to show how much it got messed up on this, but it's not just a numpad problem, ofc after noticing this I tried not using numpad at all and still had the same issue, I also noticed that 1fs are considerably less consistent and almost always 2f, same with numpad 1fs, barely happen. Anyway, 2 inputs on 1 frame in topi's jtool is around ~90% with numpad for me, while ingame it's like ~60% (The weirdest part about this, and the main reason I'm kind of unsure if it might just be some laptop issue, is that session by session it seemed different, at one point I opened the game and it dropped down to ~20%, immediately quit out and a few hours later got back on and it was ~50% or so, it never went above ~70% though.)
This made the last save especially incredibly messed up, it's like if you just had a 30% chance to die every jump for no reason. As expected, this resulted in a incredible amount of deaths at the end of the save, since the numbers don't discriminate, so as mentioned prior, my view on the last save has definitely been tainted because of this. I won't complain like crazy, but I can't stress this enough that it was Really, Really, not a lot of fun to play with this, it's setup needle and this problem just made the game insanely frustrating and not much fun to deal with.
It quickly got to a point where I was certainly good enough and consistent at every jump to clear the save, but I just had to wait for the damn RNG to not kill me, I had a last jump death where it killed me as a result of this too, and truthfully the fact I only died there once is a damn miracle, but almost all of my deaths far into the save were just as a result of this, it was terrible. Pair this with my unreasonable lack of skill at the corner and you get a not very good experience. I even had a clip where I got up to the corner 3 times in a row, which is exceptionally funny since normally that's quite far into the save, but with this input reg problem & my skill issue it felt like getting nowhere. Overall I had like ~70 or so deaths to the corner (I stopped counting at ~30, but that was far, far before I cleared the save), ~15 or so to the jump after the ledge, 5 to the 14f and once to the final jump, 4\5 of my deaths to the 14f were as a result of my input reg, and ofc that final jump death was too.
Clearing the final save was more of a challenge against this (presumed) windows 11 problem then it was a challenge against the actual game. This is why I haven't given this a low rating, it's not the game's fault, it's whatever is causing that damned problem. I think the last save quality wise is fine, I just got such a bad experience from things outside my control.
Also the ending crash and re-open is super cool I think that's awesome
Overall, good game. I think gameplay wise it's quite nice especially for an ftfa-like of such difficulty, visually stands out a decent bit and is pretty high quality in a genre that's notoriously low quality. I'd recommend this, but if your on windows 11 and notice an input problem then I'm not sure if I would encourage continuing on.
2 Games
| Game | Difficulty | Average Rating | # of Ratings |
|---|---|---|---|
| crude riverbed | 63.3 | 7.0 | 5 |
| Vaisravana | 75.0 | N/A | 2 |
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