Delicious FruitElCochran90's Profile
Send a PMJoined on: Aug 25, 2018
Bio:
About time I updated this bio.
Name: Edgar Cochran
Country: Mexico
Currently living in: Mexico City
-God's servant and one of his blessed sons (John 1:12; John 3:16).
-Lover of the entire animal and plant creation.
-Film lover and reviewer for Letterboxd.com (https://letterboxd.com/elcochran90).
-Adjunct professor and personal tutor of Statistical Inference, Business Forecasting, Marketing Research and Portfolio Theory.
Fangaming experience began in August 2018, so only modest achievements here. However, I'll describe some relevant FAQs here made to me during my stay here since 2018:
Q: Are videogames art?
A: Yes
Q: Are fangames videogames?
A: Yes
Q: Why are your reviews long and unconventional?
A: I am a film reviewer; in a way, I sort of unconsciously dragged my style of film reviewing to the world of fangames. I often involve personal experiences in my writing. Expect that structure; I'm not planning to change it.
Q: How are you rating games? Do you compare fangames as normal games that your ratings are lower than all other people ratings or are you just a critical person?
A: My ratings are not lower than people's ratings all of the time regarding fangames, but they are most of the time. However, this is not my intention. I am rating them as normal games, as in, I don't have a different spectrum for rating "normal", "official" games than fangames. They are in the same scale, because they are all videogames. I don't like to think myself as a critical person; ratings are just subjective numbers. However, I have realized that I rate games more harshly than I rate films/short films, which I do more often.
Q: What are your favorite fangames?
A: I have not played enough fangames to make a comprehensive and representative list, but this can be answered by going to my Favorites list. Anything getting 6.7 or higher will be considered immediately as a favorite.
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380 Ratings!
380 Reviews!
792 Screenshots!
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380 Games
380 Reviews
ElCochran90
For: I wanna be the Strongest Fairy
For: I wanna be the Strongest Fairy
No major complaints. It is a short game for players wanting to get their first experience on intricate needle platforming and avoidance bosses. The avoidance song is a nice pic and the game has replay value, but not for long. Recommended for beginners and has a nice design with few troll traps that will be forgotten quite easily. Beginner players seeking to speedrun the game will find the save gimmick frustrating.
[0] Likes
Rating: 4.5 45
Difficulty: 30 30
Sep 10, 2018
ElCochran90
For: I wanna be the Dark Blue
For: I wanna be the Dark Blue
It is a beginner game, and I would recommend it as such. This serves as a very proper introduction to many gimmicks and traps. The Miku reference hyped me for the wrong reasons, and the final boss, although referenced later on in other fangames, is a bizarre disappointment. Nevertheless, it fulfills its purpose, and might kill some time if you are in an advanced stage as of now in your fangaming career, but replay value is low.
[0] Likes
Rating: 3.6 36
Difficulty: 35 35
Sep 10, 2018
ElCochran90
For: I wanna kill the Guy
For: I wanna kill the Guy
Unfinished is, unfortunately, unfinished, and this harms the game a HUGE deal: an amazing, interesting, original story not concluded, the lack of a Boss 2, only two thirds of a VVVVVV experience available, an impossibly buffed time-trial challenge impossible to do... Not giving closure to something unusually great is a slap to the face. There is the lack of many bosses and a whole chapter, but what remains is a very respectable follow-up, not to the fangame community exploding and experimenting with new ideas full of Miku references, but to Kayin's adventure game that paid tribute to many classic console games. The introduction is magnificent and it properly sets the tone for what was meant to be one of the finest experiences out there. The soundtrack is a blast, the gameplay is consistently addictive, the worlds are quite unique and there is even some fun puzzle solving. The optional challenges add the feeling of playing an authentic game you would be willing to pay for, the cameos are great and the soundtrack is explosive, being my favorite song "Midnight" from cornandbeans.
And yes, DJ SRAY is a great and awesomely fun optional challenge that I find myself often replaying again and again.
Funny as it trolls with your existence and continuing with the meme tradition of laughing at you in a friendly way, this is an experience that, no matter how many times Thenewgeezer swears won't complete, we will always wait for that resolution because it deserves it. I will make sure to update my rating out of 10 that day.
That's a promise. Just like he "swore" a next version would add what is missing, which is a lot.
[2] Likes
And yes, DJ SRAY is a great and awesomely fun optional challenge that I find myself often replaying again and again.
Funny as it trolls with your existence and continuing with the meme tradition of laughing at you in a friendly way, this is an experience that, no matter how many times Thenewgeezer swears won't complete, we will always wait for that resolution because it deserves it. I will make sure to update my rating out of 10 that day.
That's a promise. Just like he "swore" a next version would add what is missing, which is a lot.
Rating: 6.4 64
Difficulty: 50 50
Sep 10, 2018
ElCochran90
For: I wanna be the Boshy
For: I wanna be the Boshy
The order of things took me to this insanely difficult platformer after playing what was, for many, back in the 2000s, the "mandatory first experience with fangames": Kayin's I Wanna Be the Guy: The Movie: The Game. How this game was initially made is a story we all know: BoshyTime said Kayin's game was "too easy" for being branded the most difficult gaming experience, and so, Solgryn, maintaining the adventure spirit of the original, maximizes the amount of gimmicks, gaming references, uses his own engine (which I find respectable and should be work that is recognized instead of criticized) and creates what was considered by many the most difficult fangame experience ever. YouTube exploded with people beating Sonic and the infamous Danish oatmeal box, for then discovering there was something even more extreme: Cheetahmen.
Production value is sky high, the jokes are amazing and it is so 2000s regarding its Internet/popular culture/meme jokes. It is not everybody's sense of humor, but this raised the bar for what many considered as an acceptable upper limit, and the task of finishing this even in Totally Average Mode (which was, obviously, my first experience with the game) felt incredibly rewarding when finally being sung that you are the Boshy now.
I should note that I rate fangames and "official games" in the same scale, not making any distinction whatsoever or having "special considerations" for any category because they are still videogames, and also a form of art. Being this one of my highest-rated fangames, I should specify the cons, and also counter-attack other commonly mentioned cons that don't make much sense. First is some sections of platforming. This doesn't have to do with having an engine of its own (people complaining about fangames for having a different engine, with all due respect, do not even deserve being listened to seriously), but the needle platforming is wacky at some times. I think about the infamous spring screen of Stage 2 after defeating Kracko, the third screen of Stage 6 before encountering Simon Belmont, or the infamous "Good Level Design" screen of Stage 9. Those screens are challenging because the engine is not made for needle. Some jumps require not only a perfect pixel allign, but also a weird velocity that cannot be explained and is difficult to get used to. When it comes to needle, the game faulters. Also, the game might kill you right after entering a screen for no reason, especially those concerning a gimmick, such as the "mirror" screen of Stage 3 featuring the red ball right before the boss. It's awkward in design. Finally, some achievements are not registered in the Trophies section because the game doesn't feel like it. Also, if the game crashes (which is very rare, I will recognize), there is a grave danger of your file's complete deletion, either standalone or a multiplayer file. Finally, the multiplayer experience is very fun. There is half a second of delay of response at the least between two PCs. What the multiplayer does best is that it reduces the effort of each player by half (or proportionally to your friends' skills). Whoever gets to a save first saves the effort for the other player(s). The problem lies in the fact that both cannot fight a boss together. The player is "there", but making his/her own attempt without actually having an impact over your fights. Granted, it is the first stage of online multiplayer fangaming, and it set good foundations, but there are tons of improvements, the ones that got fixed magnificently in I Wanna Be The Co-Op. Finally, the difficulty curve is very, VERY messy: the hardest world is not the last; the final path, although magnificently-looking, made us all scratch our heads regarding why it was so easy and short; the hardest screens are not in the last Stages (one is in Stage 2); the bosses do not correlate with the worlds, like, ever (which is strange because you have worlds AND bosses of a particular franchise in the game, but not put together); and arguably the second most difficult boss is in Stage 5, not to mention some of the easiest bosses are, not at the beginning (or at the end, which would be a disaster), but in between. Like, why?
On the other hand, there are certain criticisms that can be argued. First, there is the joke of placing a hard jump before a boss. It's funny, but if you REALLY pay attention to the game, there is a teleporter right at the end of each stage before a boss that can teleport you anywhwere if you have been there before, including a boss screen that you still haven't beaten. Same argument can be used against those claiming that the game has screens featuring nothing before the boss without a save, such as the bosses for Stage 2 and Stage 7. Also, you have complaint of having disorienting visual gimmicks, such as the ones that Piece loved to use in the Bored games. Maybe a certain gimmick is not of your taste, but if that is the case, there are only TWO screens featuring a heavy visual gimmick and, unlike the Bored games, it never makes the screen impossible to beat. Actually, your character is on screen the entire time (take notes Piece). Now, if you consider the shaky screen as a visual gimmick, true, that is consistently present throughout, and I gotta say as a beginner fangamer that it almost doesn't harm your gameplay, such as in the boss fight of Stage 7 or against the final boss.
What did this game do?
✓Set a new standard of endurance for gamers around the world
✓Have a different soundtrack for every level
✓Have a different world for every level, very distinguishable between each other
✓Incorporate traps, jokes, memes and pre 2010s culture to the extreme to a magnificent degree
✓Feature a sense of progression and personal growth after each stage that seemed impossible
✓Make all of us lose fear towards doing what we never considered achieving in a game
✓Customize our own characters
✓Feature a different song for every level, section and secret worlds, ALL of them based on original videogame classics AND hidden gems, making us remember why the majority of us started playing fangames
✓Surpass the already-great I Wanna Be the Guy
✓To be ahead of its time in terms of production value and adventure design, something that Influka, one of the most underrated developers of this site ever, learned in the best of ways
✓Set solid foundations for establishing an online community
✓Create a massive database of personal records in the game's official page so that you can tell were your abilities rank against thousands of players
✓Feature one of the most epic final boss fights in any videogame ever (including fangames)
✓Play the Underworld Theme of Terranigma during the final path, which happens to be not only one of the best RPGs ever made, but also one of the most underappreciated and obscure because of its limited release in Europe and Asia.
Everything is in here, tons of jokes, level variety and a long adventure with mandatory bosses with unique designs of their own regarding attack patterns and RNG. I will never forget this consistently entertaining, unique and intense experience, and people are certainly not forgetting it as of today. Also, the game creating an original song and rewarding you for becoming The Boshy is one of the most satisfactory fangaming experiences you will ever leave. Forget the "Thank You For Playing!" screen featured in tons of fangames: this one does bother with credits while celebrating you, only to take you to a great reward path section that notifies you of everything you did and everything you can still do.
[2] Likes
Production value is sky high, the jokes are amazing and it is so 2000s regarding its Internet/popular culture/meme jokes. It is not everybody's sense of humor, but this raised the bar for what many considered as an acceptable upper limit, and the task of finishing this even in Totally Average Mode (which was, obviously, my first experience with the game) felt incredibly rewarding when finally being sung that you are the Boshy now.
I should note that I rate fangames and "official games" in the same scale, not making any distinction whatsoever or having "special considerations" for any category because they are still videogames, and also a form of art. Being this one of my highest-rated fangames, I should specify the cons, and also counter-attack other commonly mentioned cons that don't make much sense. First is some sections of platforming. This doesn't have to do with having an engine of its own (people complaining about fangames for having a different engine, with all due respect, do not even deserve being listened to seriously), but the needle platforming is wacky at some times. I think about the infamous spring screen of Stage 2 after defeating Kracko, the third screen of Stage 6 before encountering Simon Belmont, or the infamous "Good Level Design" screen of Stage 9. Those screens are challenging because the engine is not made for needle. Some jumps require not only a perfect pixel allign, but also a weird velocity that cannot be explained and is difficult to get used to. When it comes to needle, the game faulters. Also, the game might kill you right after entering a screen for no reason, especially those concerning a gimmick, such as the "mirror" screen of Stage 3 featuring the red ball right before the boss. It's awkward in design. Finally, some achievements are not registered in the Trophies section because the game doesn't feel like it. Also, if the game crashes (which is very rare, I will recognize), there is a grave danger of your file's complete deletion, either standalone or a multiplayer file. Finally, the multiplayer experience is very fun. There is half a second of delay of response at the least between two PCs. What the multiplayer does best is that it reduces the effort of each player by half (or proportionally to your friends' skills). Whoever gets to a save first saves the effort for the other player(s). The problem lies in the fact that both cannot fight a boss together. The player is "there", but making his/her own attempt without actually having an impact over your fights. Granted, it is the first stage of online multiplayer fangaming, and it set good foundations, but there are tons of improvements, the ones that got fixed magnificently in I Wanna Be The Co-Op. Finally, the difficulty curve is very, VERY messy: the hardest world is not the last; the final path, although magnificently-looking, made us all scratch our heads regarding why it was so easy and short; the hardest screens are not in the last Stages (one is in Stage 2); the bosses do not correlate with the worlds, like, ever (which is strange because you have worlds AND bosses of a particular franchise in the game, but not put together); and arguably the second most difficult boss is in Stage 5, not to mention some of the easiest bosses are, not at the beginning (or at the end, which would be a disaster), but in between. Like, why?
On the other hand, there are certain criticisms that can be argued. First, there is the joke of placing a hard jump before a boss. It's funny, but if you REALLY pay attention to the game, there is a teleporter right at the end of each stage before a boss that can teleport you anywhwere if you have been there before, including a boss screen that you still haven't beaten. Same argument can be used against those claiming that the game has screens featuring nothing before the boss without a save, such as the bosses for Stage 2 and Stage 7. Also, you have complaint of having disorienting visual gimmicks, such as the ones that Piece loved to use in the Bored games. Maybe a certain gimmick is not of your taste, but if that is the case, there are only TWO screens featuring a heavy visual gimmick and, unlike the Bored games, it never makes the screen impossible to beat. Actually, your character is on screen the entire time (take notes Piece). Now, if you consider the shaky screen as a visual gimmick, true, that is consistently present throughout, and I gotta say as a beginner fangamer that it almost doesn't harm your gameplay, such as in the boss fight of Stage 7 or against the final boss.
What did this game do?
✓Set a new standard of endurance for gamers around the world
✓Have a different soundtrack for every level
✓Have a different world for every level, very distinguishable between each other
✓Incorporate traps, jokes, memes and pre 2010s culture to the extreme to a magnificent degree
✓Feature a sense of progression and personal growth after each stage that seemed impossible
✓Make all of us lose fear towards doing what we never considered achieving in a game
✓Customize our own characters
✓Feature a different song for every level, section and secret worlds, ALL of them based on original videogame classics AND hidden gems, making us remember why the majority of us started playing fangames
✓Surpass the already-great I Wanna Be the Guy
✓To be ahead of its time in terms of production value and adventure design, something that Influka, one of the most underrated developers of this site ever, learned in the best of ways
✓Set solid foundations for establishing an online community
✓Create a massive database of personal records in the game's official page so that you can tell were your abilities rank against thousands of players
✓Feature one of the most epic final boss fights in any videogame ever (including fangames)
✓Play the Underworld Theme of Terranigma during the final path, which happens to be not only one of the best RPGs ever made, but also one of the most underappreciated and obscure because of its limited release in Europe and Asia.
Everything is in here, tons of jokes, level variety and a long adventure with mandatory bosses with unique designs of their own regarding attack patterns and RNG. I will never forget this consistently entertaining, unique and intense experience, and people are certainly not forgetting it as of today. Also, the game creating an original song and rewarding you for becoming The Boshy is one of the most satisfactory fangaming experiences you will ever leave. Forget the "Thank You For Playing!" screen featured in tons of fangames: this one does bother with credits while celebrating you, only to take you to a great reward path section that notifies you of everything you did and everything you can still do.
Rating: 7.8 78
Difficulty: 80 80
Sep 10, 2018
ElCochran90
For: I wanna be the Guy
For: I wanna be the Guy
So this is it, the one that started it all, the sole reason this community exists (in many ways at least), and I could swear that Kayin never imagined to be the influence for more than 7,000 variations that have now evolved over time.
Still, the appreciation the community has over this puzzles me in a great way. The fangame variety has extended so much that a standardized engine is the one that all of us have got used to, but it wasn't like that in the beginning. This is the Genesis 1:1 of fangames and became the foundations for virtually everything that has been done today. The now infinitely iconic Megaman-esque character travelling through a Metroidvania scheme of traps, jokes, bosses, diverse platforming, spikes and delicious fruits exploring what is ultimately a massive tribute to the NES era has been immortalized through the visions of countless artists, so the complaints towards this baffle me:
1) "It is not a beginner-friendly game."
-It wasn't meant to be. it was meant to be a nail-biting, funny, homage experience memorable for its difficulty. Its creator is not quite that much of a fan of insanely difficult fangames. This was his peak. Of course, nothing is enough for us, but this was the reasonably standard game.
2) "The engine is different. Try making a gate jump; you will understand."
-Yes, and so does Boshy, and so does the immensely loved (and unfinished) I Wanna Kill the Guy, but no complaints in the latter. The engine later changed. Not that this game required gate jumps in the first place. It is an adventure game that depends both on your reflexes, memorization and sense of humor. Knowledge of classic hardcore games is not needed, but it gives a lot of added value to the overall experience.
3) "It has been improved over time."
-After 7,200+ attempts at the time (September 10th, 2018), what would you expect? If your preference are medleys, differences in design, needle games, gimmick games, etc., then it is not comparable. This is comparable to adventure games, and I have certainly seen improvement over time, but not that much. And this is definitely not in the lower quartile or quintile of fangames quality wise.
4) "It was infamously difficult because I first played the Hard/Very Hard mode."
-Blame yourself and not your ratings.
I highly respect this game and my appreciation for it extends fay beyond what it has created several years after. It is not the best fangame I will ever play, for sure, but the basics, foundations, gimmicks, jokes, tributes, song variety and adventure spirit is there. My difficulty rating is based on this being my very first fangame (I know many claim it isn't, but you won't get me out of that mindset), and no one that had this game as a first experience will say that this was a walk through the park. If this was your 100th fangame, you will be less than surprised. But your mentality will be reversed: you will be appreciating more the elements present in subsequent fangames when it was actually this that pioneered most of the elements you love now, improved or not.
[13] Likes
Still, the appreciation the community has over this puzzles me in a great way. The fangame variety has extended so much that a standardized engine is the one that all of us have got used to, but it wasn't like that in the beginning. This is the Genesis 1:1 of fangames and became the foundations for virtually everything that has been done today. The now infinitely iconic Megaman-esque character travelling through a Metroidvania scheme of traps, jokes, bosses, diverse platforming, spikes and delicious fruits exploring what is ultimately a massive tribute to the NES era has been immortalized through the visions of countless artists, so the complaints towards this baffle me:
1) "It is not a beginner-friendly game."
-It wasn't meant to be. it was meant to be a nail-biting, funny, homage experience memorable for its difficulty. Its creator is not quite that much of a fan of insanely difficult fangames. This was his peak. Of course, nothing is enough for us, but this was the reasonably standard game.
2) "The engine is different. Try making a gate jump; you will understand."
-Yes, and so does Boshy, and so does the immensely loved (and unfinished) I Wanna Kill the Guy, but no complaints in the latter. The engine later changed. Not that this game required gate jumps in the first place. It is an adventure game that depends both on your reflexes, memorization and sense of humor. Knowledge of classic hardcore games is not needed, but it gives a lot of added value to the overall experience.
3) "It has been improved over time."
-After 7,200+ attempts at the time (September 10th, 2018), what would you expect? If your preference are medleys, differences in design, needle games, gimmick games, etc., then it is not comparable. This is comparable to adventure games, and I have certainly seen improvement over time, but not that much. And this is definitely not in the lower quartile or quintile of fangames quality wise.
4) "It was infamously difficult because I first played the Hard/Very Hard mode."
-Blame yourself and not your ratings.
I highly respect this game and my appreciation for it extends fay beyond what it has created several years after. It is not the best fangame I will ever play, for sure, but the basics, foundations, gimmicks, jokes, tributes, song variety and adventure spirit is there. My difficulty rating is based on this being my very first fangame (I know many claim it isn't, but you won't get me out of that mindset), and no one that had this game as a first experience will say that this was a walk through the park. If this was your 100th fangame, you will be less than surprised. But your mentality will be reversed: you will be appreciating more the elements present in subsequent fangames when it was actually this that pioneered most of the elements you love now, improved or not.
Rating: 7.7 77
Difficulty: 70 70
Sep 10, 2018
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