Delicious FruitYaBoiMarcAntony'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:
260 Ratings!
229 Reviews!
5 Screenshots!
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260 Games
229 Reviews
YaBoiMarcAntony [Creator]
For: A Sky Blue Denouement
For: A Sky Blue Denouement
NOTE THAT I DON'T FEEL LIKE PUTTING IN THE README BECAUSE I'D HAVE TO REUPLOAD THE GAME: Nader made the visuals and shader in stage one, but I made everything else.
Hello!
This is a small game I started working on around September of this year, then abandonded halfway through the month, THEN came back to it a week ago to finish it up and release. The need-to-know info is that this is a game made up entirely of long saves and is intended to be very difficult. The intro stage, made by the brilliant thenadertwo, will act as this game's shibboleth: if you have not the stuff to beat it, then you have not the stuff to beat what comes after. It stands around 70 difficulty which is also where my first save stands, and after that the difficulty skyrockets, so be warned of that.
Other important info can be found at the top of the readme, but just be aware of the fact that this is not a big game. This was made at first to toss a couple saves I had made in gamemaker that I liked, and then from there I made a couple more saves and threw them all together in the game. Then, I asked nader to make a stage so I could have that litmus test intro and also basically as a thank you for being a big help to me throughout 2022. Don't go in expecting another April or Nebulous Thoughts, although this game certainly goes toe to toe with those two in terms of difficulty.
Thanks for playing!
[0] Likes
Hello!
This is a small game I started working on around September of this year, then abandonded halfway through the month, THEN came back to it a week ago to finish it up and release. The need-to-know info is that this is a game made up entirely of long saves and is intended to be very difficult. The intro stage, made by the brilliant thenadertwo, will act as this game's shibboleth: if you have not the stuff to beat it, then you have not the stuff to beat what comes after. It stands around 70 difficulty which is also where my first save stands, and after that the difficulty skyrockets, so be warned of that.
Other important info can be found at the top of the readme, but just be aware of the fact that this is not a big game. This was made at first to toss a couple saves I had made in gamemaker that I liked, and then from there I made a couple more saves and threw them all together in the game. Then, I asked nader to make a stage so I could have that litmus test intro and also basically as a thank you for being a big help to me throughout 2022. Don't go in expecting another April or Nebulous Thoughts, although this game certainly goes toe to toe with those two in terms of difficulty.
Thanks for playing!
Rating: N/A
Difficulty: N/A
Nov 17, 2022
YaBoiMarcAntony
For: Summer Feast Needle 2020
For: Summer Feast Needle 2020
Hard collab game that also acts as one of the very best of its kind, only dipping slightly on a couple saves in the otherwise-phenomenal penultimate stage. The final area is the highlight of the game and perhaps the single best collab area I have ever had the pleasure of playing, the entire game is worth it for that alone (and of course, the entire game is worth it for everything else, too).
[1] Like
Rating: 9.0 90
Difficulty: 80 80
Sep 27, 2022
YaBoiMarcAntony
For: WannaFest 22
For: WannaFest 22
As if you needed anyone else to tell you, WannaFest 22 is a truly brilliant and awe-inspiring game, worthy of all the time and love put into it from start to finish - and from playing it, I can tell you that's more than most can possibly fathom. Mentioning words such as "heart" and "personality," "character" or other phrases like that is essentially not worth the time it takes for me to write them out on their own, these are the words that come to you upon opening the game, not to mention the words which float about your mind as you play through it. This game, in every way, is a love letter to both fangames and just games altogether, a love letter that I would be more than stunned to receive myself.
While I find that my enjoyment across the game is not equal, it's just so damn easy to forget the moments of annoyance or dis-interest when considering the whole. Having finished the game, I'm not thinking about those few frustrating moments in Gunstar Heroes or Super Monkey Ball, I'm thinking of the pure shock of experiencing the Klonoa stage or diving deep into my own nostalgia for Sonic the Hedgehog. And of course, each stage is touched by excellency, there is no filler, no wasted space - even Parappa, the shortest of the bunch, I found to be just charismatic enough to not mind how quickly it ended. If there's anything to commend WannaFest 22 for, which there really is so much to commend it for, then it is the incredible quality maintained throughout even despite the level of insane variety inherent to its design.
Each stage really is completely different from the last, so much so that it's insane to even think of these stages as being within the same game. Of course, variety would be worth nothing if the quality of the gameplay were not also up to par, and thus is the truly difficult part of designing games in such a fashion. Luckily, and almost expectedly, WannaFest is not a game which lives and dies merely on its variety, it lives and flies thanks to the fact that each stage is made with such care and attention to detail that it is as if they were each made by the original creators behind the games which inspired every stage.
Admittedly, I have not personally played much of what is referenced here, but I think that is not a unique factor for me, nor many in this community. For the most part, many are too young to have played these games in the flesh, and not everyone developed an interest for these classics - but of course, if you've played any one game referenced here, you're in for an absolute treat, as was the case for me and Sonic. Even so, it's not as if that is therefore my favorite stage, as that would in fact belong quite neatly to Klonoa, the absolute height of gameplay for WannaFest 22 and the moment where I realized just how special this game is, so it's not as if you need to have done the required reading in order to get anything out of this course.
Truthfully, though I don't quite love this game as much as others do, it matters not a bit because it just makes me so happy to see all the love and admiration come out in full force for a game that completely deserves it. Furthermore, the boundaries pushed here make this such a commendable project that it essentially doesn't matter what I or anyone else feels about this game. Instead, what matters is we now see just how far the realm of fangames can be pushed, we can see just what any one of us are capable of if we put in the time and effort, the dedication that Cherry Treehouse has in spades. Certainly, it's not as if any given game NEEDS to push these "boundaries," but to see it done at such a level as it is here, well it's just a sight to behold, is all.
Though this game may not be for everyone, I think it is a game that everyone should at least give a try, if not to enjoy it then to see what creators in this community are capable of and because this game is a gift to our community. It is a gift that inspires me and will certainly inspire many others, it is just aching with love for these games we've dedicated so much of our collective time to and it's a pleasure just to bask in that, a pleasure unlike few others that have been released in all the years since the original I Wanna be the Guy came out. A spiritual successor unlike no other, WannaFest 22 is a game worthy of a thousand clears, it is worthy of everyone's love and admiration, and I think it is worthy of that assumed title: I Wanna be the Guy 2.
[10] Likes
While I find that my enjoyment across the game is not equal, it's just so damn easy to forget the moments of annoyance or dis-interest when considering the whole. Having finished the game, I'm not thinking about those few frustrating moments in Gunstar Heroes or Super Monkey Ball, I'm thinking of the pure shock of experiencing the Klonoa stage or diving deep into my own nostalgia for Sonic the Hedgehog. And of course, each stage is touched by excellency, there is no filler, no wasted space - even Parappa, the shortest of the bunch, I found to be just charismatic enough to not mind how quickly it ended. If there's anything to commend WannaFest 22 for, which there really is so much to commend it for, then it is the incredible quality maintained throughout even despite the level of insane variety inherent to its design.
Each stage really is completely different from the last, so much so that it's insane to even think of these stages as being within the same game. Of course, variety would be worth nothing if the quality of the gameplay were not also up to par, and thus is the truly difficult part of designing games in such a fashion. Luckily, and almost expectedly, WannaFest is not a game which lives and dies merely on its variety, it lives and flies thanks to the fact that each stage is made with such care and attention to detail that it is as if they were each made by the original creators behind the games which inspired every stage.
Admittedly, I have not personally played much of what is referenced here, but I think that is not a unique factor for me, nor many in this community. For the most part, many are too young to have played these games in the flesh, and not everyone developed an interest for these classics - but of course, if you've played any one game referenced here, you're in for an absolute treat, as was the case for me and Sonic. Even so, it's not as if that is therefore my favorite stage, as that would in fact belong quite neatly to Klonoa, the absolute height of gameplay for WannaFest 22 and the moment where I realized just how special this game is, so it's not as if you need to have done the required reading in order to get anything out of this course.
Truthfully, though I don't quite love this game as much as others do, it matters not a bit because it just makes me so happy to see all the love and admiration come out in full force for a game that completely deserves it. Furthermore, the boundaries pushed here make this such a commendable project that it essentially doesn't matter what I or anyone else feels about this game. Instead, what matters is we now see just how far the realm of fangames can be pushed, we can see just what any one of us are capable of if we put in the time and effort, the dedication that Cherry Treehouse has in spades. Certainly, it's not as if any given game NEEDS to push these "boundaries," but to see it done at such a level as it is here, well it's just a sight to behold, is all.
Though this game may not be for everyone, I think it is a game that everyone should at least give a try, if not to enjoy it then to see what creators in this community are capable of and because this game is a gift to our community. It is a gift that inspires me and will certainly inspire many others, it is just aching with love for these games we've dedicated so much of our collective time to and it's a pleasure just to bask in that, a pleasure unlike few others that have been released in all the years since the original I Wanna be the Guy came out. A spiritual successor unlike no other, WannaFest 22 is a game worthy of a thousand clears, it is worthy of everyone's love and admiration, and I think it is worthy of that assumed title: I Wanna be the Guy 2.
Rating: 9.4 94
Difficulty: 60 60
Sep 25, 2022
YaBoiMarcAntony
For: Not Another Needle Contest 2
For: Not Another Needle Contest 2
While it is no secret that NANC 2 is a fantastic game, perhaps the best collab ever in terms of the quality of the content - and the sheer amount of content available, it is also true that I must nonetheless talk at length about the game as if everything I could possibly say about it isn't already well known to all that have played it. For the most part, I tend to think of the reception to NANC 2 as being pretty even across the board - that is, I think it's clear why the game is well beloved, and it's clear why some may not really take to it as much as the fans do. For my part, I side entirely with the fans!
All that said, what are the problems of NANC 2? What could be said to detract from the overall experience? Well, perhaps the largest issue would be that of variety, which is also the game's greatest boon. Variety, though being the spice of life, can also be the poison in the tea for many as while sure there is always gonna be something for everyone, it's the case that if you should decide to do everything, you're almost inevitably going to run into something you don't like. Insofar as NANC 2 is concerned, I think that for the most welcoming of players (welcoming in the sense of welcoming any and all styles and shades of gameplay), you'll find yourself mostly playing a smoothed out experience - something that is very much thanks to the extensive testing and adjustments made by the NANC2 Crew. Nonetheless, even I ran into a few things that were not quite my cup of tea, though nothing repulsed me, which is essentially all I ask from a game that it doesn't repulse me.
To pause quickly on a previously mentioned topic, I find myself wondering how much of what one plays in this game, insofar as the main stages are concerned, is the work of the participants and how much is the work of the NANC2 crew. I won't get too far into it as I don't want to besmirch the NANC2 creators undeservedly and I like to think that even if there were extensive changes made, these changes were made while keeping the spirit of each stage intact. Nonetheless, that's not something I can really be sure of, but what is most painfully evident about the game is that it's most certainly not lacking in spirit.
Each and every stage has some measure of character and personality, from beginning to end you really do get the feeling that everyone involved in the game cared about it. There were no weak links, no stages that I felt missed their respective marks. Even the worst stages were in some way a positive because they were all something different, something that shook things up. If you were to sit down and play dozens and dozens of screens of basic needle, there's essentially nothing keeping you there except for momentum. Even if what you're playing is downright fantastic, there is some limit to the number of similar screens you could play, whether that's ten, twenty, two hundred, it all differs from person to person. I mean, why should you keep playing a game when you know exactly what you're gonna be getting half an hour later? There is no sense of progression in that, no feeling of change or anything that makes it all feel worth doing.
NANC 2 is a very long game, something that will take everyone at least ten hours to clear, and yet I could find myself playing for hours on end because there's so much to see and all of it is different from each other. If you were to put all the levels in the game in a hat, shook it up, then picked out five stages at random, I'd bet everything that you'll get five totally different stages, either differing in gameplay, mood, style, or all of the above. As such, I can't find myself particularly angered or vexed by any given stage because even if I wasn't having fun, I could be certain that I wouldn't be having that same experience even ten minutes after the fact, I had an assurance that if there was something I didn't like, then I would not need to spend much time with that thing. Besides which, I don't think there's a single thing in the game I'd call unfun outright, just a few stages or sections here and then which were not quite up to snuff for me.
But, despite the fact that I've said so much already, I would be remiss if I didn't dedicate some time to what stands out as the obvious highlight of the game, that being the star stages and the final stage. The star stages are essentially the game up to that point turned into six stages, each stage using gimmicks from their respective floors (star stage one using gimmicks from floor one, etc.). As such, you'll find that the variety is turned up to an eleven, every stage being extremely unique and so insanely jam-packed full of interesting and original content that you'd be hard-pressed to find anything else like it in any other fangame. These stages are the obvious culmination of NANC 2 and seem to me one of the finer moments in fangame history in terms of gameplay and the sheer amount of possibilities available to anyone concerning what they could make. The whole point of the needle contest which spawned this game is, to my eyes, to show just how much creativity is available in the community and to show the immense catalog of things to play with even just in terms of already-made gimmicks and doodads. Even singular gimmicks can be taken to an insane level, but when you start to consider the possibility of combining these gimmicks, or even creating new gimmicks to combine with THOSE gimmicks (which can help redefine a well-known gimmick), you begin to almost quake at the mountain of potential available in this community, concerning both its makers AND what these makers can, well, make.
And all that doesn't even begin to touch on the specifics, the words that every maker deserves for their excellent work. Think of princeoflight's fantastic Catharsis-inspired level, one of the more emotive stages in the game. There's the obvious crowd-pleasers like the Pastel Tower, home to one of the best long saves ever made, or the big collab stage DREAM, itself being a delightful microcosm of what NANC 2 is all about. And even if you step back from those big names, you find there are little secrets stowed away in the lower rankings, just because a stage isn't ranked well doesn't mean it can't be fantastic. Starz0r's stage is one of my favorites and it's in the bottom-half of the game! If you want to talk about personality, Give Up! Kid has it in spades, and alongside that personality it also has a phenomenal gimmick used to great effect in every single screen, plus one hell of a boss to end it all off. I don't think it really matters what any stage is ranked, but my point here is that even in what is considered the "worse" part of the game, you'll find love and care. Another excellent example of lower-tier stages having higher-tier quality belongs to shign's White Hell, a puzzle stage that'll be sure to give anyone a few wrinkles in their brain from the intellectual workout. Hell, even all the way near the bottom, you have very cool's LSD-infused stage, one which floats in the void and takes a trip through several different gimmicks, not pausing on any one gimmick for long but doing well with every one of them.
And then, above all that, you have Tralexium's work. I've already spoken on the star stages, though I do feel the need to stress just how brilliant these stages are, but then you come to the final stage. My first time through, I have to admit I didn't like all of it. Even now, there's a save or two that I could do without, but hell if it isn't one of the most glorious stages ever made. The length can be off-putting to some, but for my own part I didn't mind it my second time around, presumably because I wasn't just rushing to get to the next part and instead was just enjoying myself. This stage introduces new concepts and plays around with gimmicks hitherto unseen in the game, an obvious move to make seeing as we've just spent around 40 stages playing with these gimmicks but a move deeply appreciated all the same, the primary of which being a chasing gimmick. There's two variants of it, one which uses a shadow kid that recreates your exact movements a few seconds after you start a save, and another which is a more general large orb that follows you around. Both of these gimmicks are used to utter perfection, both styles culminating in some of the best saves in the game.
Capping off the final stage, then, is the final boss of NANC 2, a magnificent fight which spans two totally different phases. The first is a more "straight-forward" boss made up of three mini-phases with the same set of attack concepts, the difference between each phase being each attack is made more complex. As such, the process of phase changing (which is essentially a punishment for poor aim as you only change phases when you hit the boss directly during the eye phases), while making the boss harder, also just makes the boss more fun and exciting. The second phase takes a totally new approach, being sort of vaguely similar to Starfox (I think it's supposed to be a Kirby thing, but I am not familiar enough with the games to say) and being focused on the stars picked up from their respective stages. This phase is, as could be expected, a bit easier once you get used to handling the kid, but all the same it, alongside phase one, closes the game out perfectly.
NANC 2 is one of those games that really brought out some of the best in this community. We can see plain as day the heart and soul of the community, love for these games packed up in one massive, insanely varied package. While it may not be my favorite fangame of all time, and in fact it wasn't even my favorite to grace 2021, it is nonetheless one of those fangames that I think will consistently be ranked as one of the best for the rest of this community's lifetime. Though one's quiet hope is that we should like to go even further beyond the benchmark set by NANC 2, I think it will take some time before such a hope can be realized.
[2] Likes
All that said, what are the problems of NANC 2? What could be said to detract from the overall experience? Well, perhaps the largest issue would be that of variety, which is also the game's greatest boon. Variety, though being the spice of life, can also be the poison in the tea for many as while sure there is always gonna be something for everyone, it's the case that if you should decide to do everything, you're almost inevitably going to run into something you don't like. Insofar as NANC 2 is concerned, I think that for the most welcoming of players (welcoming in the sense of welcoming any and all styles and shades of gameplay), you'll find yourself mostly playing a smoothed out experience - something that is very much thanks to the extensive testing and adjustments made by the NANC2 Crew. Nonetheless, even I ran into a few things that were not quite my cup of tea, though nothing repulsed me, which is essentially all I ask from a game that it doesn't repulse me.
To pause quickly on a previously mentioned topic, I find myself wondering how much of what one plays in this game, insofar as the main stages are concerned, is the work of the participants and how much is the work of the NANC2 crew. I won't get too far into it as I don't want to besmirch the NANC2 creators undeservedly and I like to think that even if there were extensive changes made, these changes were made while keeping the spirit of each stage intact. Nonetheless, that's not something I can really be sure of, but what is most painfully evident about the game is that it's most certainly not lacking in spirit.
Each and every stage has some measure of character and personality, from beginning to end you really do get the feeling that everyone involved in the game cared about it. There were no weak links, no stages that I felt missed their respective marks. Even the worst stages were in some way a positive because they were all something different, something that shook things up. If you were to sit down and play dozens and dozens of screens of basic needle, there's essentially nothing keeping you there except for momentum. Even if what you're playing is downright fantastic, there is some limit to the number of similar screens you could play, whether that's ten, twenty, two hundred, it all differs from person to person. I mean, why should you keep playing a game when you know exactly what you're gonna be getting half an hour later? There is no sense of progression in that, no feeling of change or anything that makes it all feel worth doing.
NANC 2 is a very long game, something that will take everyone at least ten hours to clear, and yet I could find myself playing for hours on end because there's so much to see and all of it is different from each other. If you were to put all the levels in the game in a hat, shook it up, then picked out five stages at random, I'd bet everything that you'll get five totally different stages, either differing in gameplay, mood, style, or all of the above. As such, I can't find myself particularly angered or vexed by any given stage because even if I wasn't having fun, I could be certain that I wouldn't be having that same experience even ten minutes after the fact, I had an assurance that if there was something I didn't like, then I would not need to spend much time with that thing. Besides which, I don't think there's a single thing in the game I'd call unfun outright, just a few stages or sections here and then which were not quite up to snuff for me.
But, despite the fact that I've said so much already, I would be remiss if I didn't dedicate some time to what stands out as the obvious highlight of the game, that being the star stages and the final stage. The star stages are essentially the game up to that point turned into six stages, each stage using gimmicks from their respective floors (star stage one using gimmicks from floor one, etc.). As such, you'll find that the variety is turned up to an eleven, every stage being extremely unique and so insanely jam-packed full of interesting and original content that you'd be hard-pressed to find anything else like it in any other fangame. These stages are the obvious culmination of NANC 2 and seem to me one of the finer moments in fangame history in terms of gameplay and the sheer amount of possibilities available to anyone concerning what they could make. The whole point of the needle contest which spawned this game is, to my eyes, to show just how much creativity is available in the community and to show the immense catalog of things to play with even just in terms of already-made gimmicks and doodads. Even singular gimmicks can be taken to an insane level, but when you start to consider the possibility of combining these gimmicks, or even creating new gimmicks to combine with THOSE gimmicks (which can help redefine a well-known gimmick), you begin to almost quake at the mountain of potential available in this community, concerning both its makers AND what these makers can, well, make.
And all that doesn't even begin to touch on the specifics, the words that every maker deserves for their excellent work. Think of princeoflight's fantastic Catharsis-inspired level, one of the more emotive stages in the game. There's the obvious crowd-pleasers like the Pastel Tower, home to one of the best long saves ever made, or the big collab stage DREAM, itself being a delightful microcosm of what NANC 2 is all about. And even if you step back from those big names, you find there are little secrets stowed away in the lower rankings, just because a stage isn't ranked well doesn't mean it can't be fantastic. Starz0r's stage is one of my favorites and it's in the bottom-half of the game! If you want to talk about personality, Give Up! Kid has it in spades, and alongside that personality it also has a phenomenal gimmick used to great effect in every single screen, plus one hell of a boss to end it all off. I don't think it really matters what any stage is ranked, but my point here is that even in what is considered the "worse" part of the game, you'll find love and care. Another excellent example of lower-tier stages having higher-tier quality belongs to shign's White Hell, a puzzle stage that'll be sure to give anyone a few wrinkles in their brain from the intellectual workout. Hell, even all the way near the bottom, you have very cool's LSD-infused stage, one which floats in the void and takes a trip through several different gimmicks, not pausing on any one gimmick for long but doing well with every one of them.
And then, above all that, you have Tralexium's work. I've already spoken on the star stages, though I do feel the need to stress just how brilliant these stages are, but then you come to the final stage. My first time through, I have to admit I didn't like all of it. Even now, there's a save or two that I could do without, but hell if it isn't one of the most glorious stages ever made. The length can be off-putting to some, but for my own part I didn't mind it my second time around, presumably because I wasn't just rushing to get to the next part and instead was just enjoying myself. This stage introduces new concepts and plays around with gimmicks hitherto unseen in the game, an obvious move to make seeing as we've just spent around 40 stages playing with these gimmicks but a move deeply appreciated all the same, the primary of which being a chasing gimmick. There's two variants of it, one which uses a shadow kid that recreates your exact movements a few seconds after you start a save, and another which is a more general large orb that follows you around. Both of these gimmicks are used to utter perfection, both styles culminating in some of the best saves in the game.
Capping off the final stage, then, is the final boss of NANC 2, a magnificent fight which spans two totally different phases. The first is a more "straight-forward" boss made up of three mini-phases with the same set of attack concepts, the difference between each phase being each attack is made more complex. As such, the process of phase changing (which is essentially a punishment for poor aim as you only change phases when you hit the boss directly during the eye phases), while making the boss harder, also just makes the boss more fun and exciting. The second phase takes a totally new approach, being sort of vaguely similar to Starfox (I think it's supposed to be a Kirby thing, but I am not familiar enough with the games to say) and being focused on the stars picked up from their respective stages. This phase is, as could be expected, a bit easier once you get used to handling the kid, but all the same it, alongside phase one, closes the game out perfectly.
NANC 2 is one of those games that really brought out some of the best in this community. We can see plain as day the heart and soul of the community, love for these games packed up in one massive, insanely varied package. While it may not be my favorite fangame of all time, and in fact it wasn't even my favorite to grace 2021, it is nonetheless one of those fangames that I think will consistently be ranked as one of the best for the rest of this community's lifetime. Though one's quiet hope is that we should like to go even further beyond the benchmark set by NANC 2, I think it will take some time before such a hope can be realized.
Rating: 9.5 95
Difficulty: 75 75
Sep 3, 2022
YaBoiMarcAntony
For: I Wanna Destroy the Needleverse
For: I Wanna Destroy the Needleverse
Destroy the Needleverse has a rather impressive presentation to it, a slickness and overall pleasantly clean look that I really haven't seen all that often, though nonetheless being immediately recognizable as tralexium's style as he's the only one that goes for this look. As clean as it is, though, there's really not much under the hood insofar as these visuals are concerned - character, yes, personality, sure, but it all comes out to be a bit meaningless, mostly because I find it hard to really care about these very decent visuals when the gameplay gets to be as frustrating as it does throughout Destroy the Needleverse.
I think there's a pretty clear cut 50/50 split of quality here, the good stuff being stage's 1-3, particularly 1 and 2 with 2 being the highlight of the first half of the game, then insofar as the guest stages and beyond are concerned they are themselves a bit divided except for Wolfie's which is the highlight of the game up to this point. The secrets themselves are also overall okay with stage 2's being the obvious standout, though 1 is quite good in its own right. Finally, the last save is very, very good, though diminished for me because of a glitch which makes it not really feasible to play in fullscreen.
As for the bad stuff, obviously you can glean from the design of my writing that it's everything else, but I'll get specific on a couple things. For one, stage 4 is not so much reprehensible as it is just very, very, annoying. While I could chalk this up to my distaste for the gimmicks used, I know that this game can use them well as I find they're used well in stage 2 and, to a lesser extent, stage 3. The main problem of the stage stems from the fact that it puts a focus on difficulty without accounting for whether this difficulty is any fun to experience. I've grown to enjoy games that have a clear focus on difficulty, particularly I Wanna Reach Heaven is a relatively recent example of me totally re-evaluating a game that I felt was too concerned with difficulty. In the case of that game, difficulty is used as a tool for gameplay design in the sense of creating this mountain which you climb and inevitably reach the peak of, which is a tried and true method of balance that works wonderfully when it's in the right hands.
Tralexium, then, was not the right hands at this point in their gamemaking career, which I do not fault them for seeing as this was a very early outing for them.
To get back to the main point, I suspect that Destroy the Needleverse would be a much more enjoyable experience in its EZ mode, but I don't really have the patience to try it. All the same, I do not wish to focus much more on this negativity as I think it's not what I'm going to come away from this game thinking about even with the relatively low score. Destroy the Needleverse is at its best when it's feeding you its gimmicks and letting you get a handle on them. Once the game tries to test your skills with said gimmicks, that's when it stumbles. As such, the earlier stages are as a whole better than what goes on in the later part of the game, which tends to be the opposite for most games that use gimmicks in a similar fashion.
When you consider something like Save My Boy, that's a game that introduces so many gimmicks piecemeal, then gradually stacks them up and eventually becomes a real test of your abilities with the gimmicks used. In that case, I maintain that the best part of the game is when this stacking occurs and you're asked to really go to work with those gimmicks, something which can be said to be attempted here in Destroy the Needleverse to a smaller degree, but it is not done with anything close to the amount of tact and skill as arzztt does it.
Of course, it's comparing apples to oranges, or more accurately a seasoned veteran in gamemaking to a total novice with a lot of potential that they would eventually realize completely in NANC 2, which brings me to the main thought: there's really no point in playing this game with the advent of NANC 2 unless you are interested in seeing the growth from the old to the now for Tralexium. Otherwise, I find that I'd just much rather be playing NANC 2 when I'm playing this game, for the most part. That's somewhat of an empty criticism since it's not as if this game was made knowing NANC 2 would come about, nor is it ever really the case that a game can be truly made pointless (yes, I'm sure there are exceptions, both in a literal sense and in a more opinionated sense), which holds true here. Destroy the Needleverse is a fun game, particularly from a historical standpoint as you get to see several creators in their toddler days which is interesting enough to distract me from the annoyances of skulldude and dribix's (the latter stage being the superior of the two, wolfie's stage being better than both by far and the most consistent part of the game, to be clear. And hell, history aside, the game's decent fun all the same.
[1] Like
I think there's a pretty clear cut 50/50 split of quality here, the good stuff being stage's 1-3, particularly 1 and 2 with 2 being the highlight of the first half of the game, then insofar as the guest stages and beyond are concerned they are themselves a bit divided except for Wolfie's which is the highlight of the game up to this point. The secrets themselves are also overall okay with stage 2's being the obvious standout, though 1 is quite good in its own right. Finally, the last save is very, very good, though diminished for me because of a glitch which makes it not really feasible to play in fullscreen.
As for the bad stuff, obviously you can glean from the design of my writing that it's everything else, but I'll get specific on a couple things. For one, stage 4 is not so much reprehensible as it is just very, very, annoying. While I could chalk this up to my distaste for the gimmicks used, I know that this game can use them well as I find they're used well in stage 2 and, to a lesser extent, stage 3. The main problem of the stage stems from the fact that it puts a focus on difficulty without accounting for whether this difficulty is any fun to experience. I've grown to enjoy games that have a clear focus on difficulty, particularly I Wanna Reach Heaven is a relatively recent example of me totally re-evaluating a game that I felt was too concerned with difficulty. In the case of that game, difficulty is used as a tool for gameplay design in the sense of creating this mountain which you climb and inevitably reach the peak of, which is a tried and true method of balance that works wonderfully when it's in the right hands.
Tralexium, then, was not the right hands at this point in their gamemaking career, which I do not fault them for seeing as this was a very early outing for them.
To get back to the main point, I suspect that Destroy the Needleverse would be a much more enjoyable experience in its EZ mode, but I don't really have the patience to try it. All the same, I do not wish to focus much more on this negativity as I think it's not what I'm going to come away from this game thinking about even with the relatively low score. Destroy the Needleverse is at its best when it's feeding you its gimmicks and letting you get a handle on them. Once the game tries to test your skills with said gimmicks, that's when it stumbles. As such, the earlier stages are as a whole better than what goes on in the later part of the game, which tends to be the opposite for most games that use gimmicks in a similar fashion.
When you consider something like Save My Boy, that's a game that introduces so many gimmicks piecemeal, then gradually stacks them up and eventually becomes a real test of your abilities with the gimmicks used. In that case, I maintain that the best part of the game is when this stacking occurs and you're asked to really go to work with those gimmicks, something which can be said to be attempted here in Destroy the Needleverse to a smaller degree, but it is not done with anything close to the amount of tact and skill as arzztt does it.
Of course, it's comparing apples to oranges, or more accurately a seasoned veteran in gamemaking to a total novice with a lot of potential that they would eventually realize completely in NANC 2, which brings me to the main thought: there's really no point in playing this game with the advent of NANC 2 unless you are interested in seeing the growth from the old to the now for Tralexium. Otherwise, I find that I'd just much rather be playing NANC 2 when I'm playing this game, for the most part. That's somewhat of an empty criticism since it's not as if this game was made knowing NANC 2 would come about, nor is it ever really the case that a game can be truly made pointless (yes, I'm sure there are exceptions, both in a literal sense and in a more opinionated sense), which holds true here. Destroy the Needleverse is a fun game, particularly from a historical standpoint as you get to see several creators in their toddler days which is interesting enough to distract me from the annoyances of skulldude and dribix's (the latter stage being the superior of the two, wolfie's stage being better than both by far and the most consistent part of the game, to be clear. And hell, history aside, the game's decent fun all the same.
Rating: 5.5 55
Difficulty: 74 74
Sep 2, 2022
9 Games
| Game | Difficulty | Average Rating | # of Ratings |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Sky Blue Denouement | 91.0 | 10.0 | 2 |
| April is the Cruelest Month | 86.5 | 8.8 | 9 |
| I Wanna Flying Disc | 90.0 | N/A | 2 |
| Frankie Teardrop | 3.3 | N/A | 7 |
| I Don't Wanna Dwell | 70.1 | 7.3 | 13 |
| Nebulous Thoughts | 81.1 | 9.1 | 20 |
| Strewn Detritus | 69.4 | 7.4 | 13 |
| The Sunken Cathedral | 70.3 | 8.3 | 21 |
| I Wanna be the Ziggomatic Drukqs | 71.0 | 7.3 | 8 |
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