Cthaere's Profile
Send a PMJoined on: May 25, 2020
Bio:
I play fangames or stuff.
I try rating game compared to what they are trying to achieve rather than compared to fangames as a whole, and with knowledge of what you're getting into; If I rate a corridor needle game, I assume the person reading the review wants to play corridor needle, as if they don't they shouldn't bother playing it anyway. With that said, I tend to be very generous on needle ratings while being very skimpy on avoidances (although you likely won't see it as if I'd give it less than a 7 I just won't clear it instead).
with extremely rare exceptions, 9/10+ is reserved to games that have left deep emotional impact, while 10/10 is reserved for games I love unconditionally.
If I reviewed it and the review doesn't say otherwise, it's safe to assume I cleared it. I try adding my clears to df but I never really cared to keep track, so some might be missing.
don't expect diff ratings to be very accurate.
I've submitted:
236 Ratings!
157 Reviews!
9 Screenshots!
236 Games
157 Reviews
For: I Wanna Escape The Harsh Reality of Being Polish
The level design itself changes wildly between the stages. Stage 1 is about short (but not too short) saves designed to utilize the gimmick cycle to force the player into going through the save in a pace dictated by the maker. The second stage has even shorter saves, each with 1 pure idea/concept (some of which used to be 2 per save, but it got nerfed; I would be very much inclined to agree with the nerfs, given that it was the hardest stage for me still by a wide margin). The third has longer saves with easy individual segments, while the fourth is more of a fun proof of concept that takes a while to build up.
Atmospherically, the game seems very much burnmind inspired, except with a much higher level of abrasiveness. The music choices are undoubtedly going to become grating if you have to grind through this, which is not an unlikely assumption. It does come together aesthetically and thematically, however it still does feel like the hit to pure player enjoyment is too much.
All in all, the game is great, even if it does feel like the style hasn't been fully developed yet; It's not a result of lack of polish (ba dum ts), but rather more fundamental design decision making and attention to detail that comes with experience and deep study of other games. A very promising pseudo-debut and a game well worth checking out if the core premise sounds appealing.
Do note that on the (as of writing this review) current version (1.1.0), stage 2 contains 2 save skips, a partial save skip, a cycle that lines up badly, and at least one softlock (very likely more). Stage 1 also seems to have high softlock potential. I trust that these would be fixed in the near future.
For: I Wanna Escape Into My Mind
I doubt there's much I can say that has not been said already, however there are a few points I would like to add and accentuate. First of all, I agree with most of what marc and derf were saying, and I am glad that we're starting to take steps towards having games with well executed narratives. Too often, even when games do try to have a narrative, they tend to be either personal to the maker to the point of being near-unrecognizable to anyone else, so vague as to feel like the author only wanted the player to FEEL like there's a narrative where there isn't one, or the "narrative" is just some plot to give the kid an excuse to be where they are, without any real significance or commentary on anything. Many of them also feel very flat, where once you figure them out you can only go "was that it? is that all?". This game, in contrast, has multiple layers that make the existence of a narrative obvious, as well as its general shape, while not revealing all the cards immediately, which I wish more games would do. Many parts are also much more broadly open to interpretation, which I also appreciate.
As far as executing the concept, it is very well done and feels both direct and purposefully designed, with the final result coming together as a well made, cohesive and rich experience. I do feel like there are a few nitpicks. First, I have a personal hangup regarding high energy songs that are coupled with relatively static vfx. This shows up a few times and in nearly all of them I would have liked seeing new vfx styles and strong effects, something that I want and burnmind do well but feels a bit missing here. Final stage also feels overly long and has some big frustrating moments. The choice to bring all the gimmicks back together also felt not quite fleshed out to me; while one can very easily make the reading of the game being a journey of facing and overcoming one's anxieties, and thus the final stage could be an allusion to either having a panic attack or taking the final step to overcome them all, the final stage still doesn't sit right with me in this context (or any similar one), as it feels that either the concept can be portrayed in the abstract with minimal unpleasantness, or that the unpleasantness must be experienced whole in which case I would have preferred it to be made more explicit and turned even higher.
So why is this not a 10? I hate to admit it, but I did not instantly connect with the game. I appreciate it on an intellectual level, and it is very clear what it's going for on an emotional level, however it did not work for me. It always sucks when a piece of art others love to death bounces off you, and it doubly sucks when it's a piece of art that you not only feel like you should connect with, but one that you ALSO love to death on the concept alone. But that's something you just gotta learn to cope with; this was not the first time it happened to me, and I'm certain it won't be the last.
You will also note that I avoid making a substantial and detailed reading into the game, one that I can claim full ownership of and confidently stand behind; Quite frankly, I feel unqualified to give any. My media literacy is in need of improvement, and besides this game feels like it is at least partially a personal (if not to say a cathartic/therauptic) creation, and that makes the relationship between maker and game much stickier. Besides, it's a lot better for one to form their own opinions and theories first before "getting the answer" from someone who has "figured it out", and so I feel like giving any full reading on DF would likely do more harm than good. With that said, Marc and Derf both take us in a good direction, I feel. Go read their reviews.
All in all, this is a massive step in a direction I've been waiting for fangames to go towards for a long while, and it is an exceptionally well made one to boot. Despite not having gotten as much out of it as I felt I should have, the game still gives me hope, and is an undeniable cornerstone of narrative design.
For: I wanna come from the north
For: I Wanna Escape The Poolrooms
Broadly speaking, game design philosophy has 2 big camps at the moment: One camp designs from the point of view that the designer's job is to convey an interactive experience to the player; The entirety of the game is therefore a means to serve the designer's intended experience to the player. The other camp thinks of the game as a complex and interrelated system in which the player is an integral & important part, but not the focus; By perfecting the system, you'd make for a seamless experience and players who dance to your strings completely subconsciously to get the game experience you wanted to deliver, as you have laid out the underlying systems that subtly nudge them in that direction.
I bring these up since this game is a perplexing mixture of both; The atmospheric design is stunning, the game is beautiful yet reserved; It is elegant, evocative, and immersive. The attention to detail is astounding. This sense of atmospheric design goes beyond the obvious technical capabilities of the maker, and is a separate skillset that I am deeply envious of. In this regard, the game is a masterclass, it deserves to be in a museum. I could stand in an empty room here for hours. In terms of player experience, the visual, audio, and atmospheric designs are of the highest order. The only (although admittedly big and glaring) blemish are the clowns, which you can handwave excuse as backrooms shenanigans. The tactile feel also doesn't really come across perfectly (why is the metal box just as hard to push as the corks or floats?) but that's a lot less obvious, to the point I have only noticed it while writing the review, and pales in comparison to the monumental achievement of everything else.
And then, on the other side of the coin, you have the gameplay, which feels purely system designed. The puzzle elements here are pretty much pure logic; You may have to test some interactions, find out some spikes that only reveal themselves at a certain water level, or find out what some buttons do, but in general you have all information available to you and your task is figuring out how to proceed. Whether you stand around thinking about the logical constraints to figure out a way, or just go into it trying to explore your avenues, the open information aspect of it means that once you've seen the room, there's nothing to do except get to the next. Furthermore, thinking about the logical constraints will naturally lead to asking questions such as "why are these spikes here, what purpose do they serve? what is the workaround I'm going to need to get past them?" to yourself, breaking out of the immersion to try and take a look from above. The corks, sponges, metal boxes and floats get reduced to level design mechanics, rather than natural occurrences. The only possible saving grace to cling to is the idea that the backrooms have consciously set them up as obstacles, however I have never managed to convince myself to believe it. A more atmospheric, mysterious, and exploratory puzzle game, in the vein of Limbo or Little Nightmares, would be a far more obvious choice for the gameplay to complement the atmosphere. Had that direction been taken, and had the quality been up to par with the visuals, this would have been able to seamlessly pass for a commercial game, and I would have gladly paid for it. But as it is, the gameplay aspect detracts too much from the overall experience.
So now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's talk about the puzzles in isolation. I am generally a hater of pushblock puzzles; They are incredibly tedious to execute once you've figured them out which is made worse by having to figure out functions of hard to reach buttons, and how every mistake sends you back to the start - two things that you'd expect some sort of qol for by now, although I do think that might hurt immersion (but then again the above paragraph still applies). They also feel like they cannot produce any of the brainblasting "holy shit" moments many other traditional puzzle games have achieved, and in general their highs seem limited and their lows unfortunately common. As for this game, it managed to make fairly good pushblock puzzles in general through introducing a collection of related gimmicks and building upon them, although they were mostly fairly simple up until the end, at which point it felt like every other puzzle had some sort of alternate solution or cheese to it. In general, fangame pushblock puzzles do not showcase tightness of design nearly as well as other puzzle games (the sokoban family with baba/parabox/sausage, as well as lockpick) and this game did not manage to prove me wrong; The variety of gimmicks, while lending itself to a good learning curve and amount of options to work with, does not reach the impressiveness of slimepark; There was never really any "wow" factor with the puzzles. They were just Pretty Good Puzzles that are well executed for what they are.
And that's the painful part. They're good, but they're not enough. The toll on the atmosphere is too high for the benefit they bring. I wish there was no gameplay. I would have rather walked through 100 empty but carefully crafted rooms with maybe occasional spikes/floats and some water level controls, mostly used sparsely, than have played this game. It is immensely frustrating to look at this game and see what it could have been compared to what it is.
But that doesn't mean I can give a judgement based upon it. Therefore, my rating is based on what is in the game only - Which does include the dissonance, which means the production value contribution has taken a big hit - and not the frustration of what it could have been. As an immersive experience, this game is incredible in the few short moments of respite. As a puzzle game, I didn't like it too much, but that has more to do with disliking the subtype of puzzle game the game is; The puzzles are certainly well made and the game is likely worth your time if you enjoy them, even if it doesn't reach the high highs that the other well known puzzle games do. I would recommend giving this a look even if you don't intend on playing it, especially as an aspiring gamemaker, as the level of atmospheric polish is worth studying.
For: Glob
While the comparisons to Dew are obvious, I find it important to stress a couple factors; First, is that this game feels like more of an asshole than Dew, or at least what I remember of Dew. The second, and the direct consequence of that, is that despite not being quite Dew, the asshole factor gets introduced so early and the game itself does not have nearly the same level of external hype factors that the game could not have been made and been successful without Dew's existence. Many players have already burnt out on needle in this difficulty range, much less one that pulls some of the moments this game does. Finally, while the game does evoke similar feelings to dew, it's missing the feeling of the massive journey. While length undoubtedly plays a big part in this, it feels like the difference is a bit more innate, and Dew manages to feel a lot more interconnected and cohesive. However, I would not fault this game for not living up to Dew; It must judged based on its own merits.
And with that said, the game does stand on its own. It has some fairly simple but clever gimmicks that have not been explored thoroughly yet (if at all), great needle design, and a good sense for minimalistic visuals. Song choices are good but not outstanding, and usually mesh well with the visuals. The needle style itself I would describe as "post flow"; Needle that is aware of the concepts of movement/flow and is designed largely from this perspective, but isn't trying to maximize smoothness so much as it's trying to do other things, usually trying to strike a balance that allows them to take a player out of their comfort zone while still providing enjoyable and satisfying gameplay to keep them hooked in. This style is well executed in this game, but oftentimes feels like the balance is a bit more shifted against the player rather than towards them for my taste. This goes especially for the final stage which I stopped on, as I did not feel the need to clear this, and I have already seen it on screenshare. I would have also liked to see a few more "break" rooms that weren't either 0 difficulty, 85 difficulty, or at the end of a long save; The invisible cherry room and to a lesser extent the invisible maze room striked that balance very well and were good palette cleansers, but all of the others felt a bit lacking.
This is certainly a very strong debut game, and I would like to see what the maker continues with. While I would readily recommend it to those who can handle the difficulty, I would be a bit more hesitant to recommend it as a grind and I would encourage dropping the game if it gets too frustrating, as it has a strong potential for it and I do not see the payoff as worth it. Furthermore, while this is a great game, I do not consider it a must play.
2 Games
Game | Difficulty | Average Rating | # of Ratings |
---|---|---|---|
I wanna Musiclock | 74.7 | 9.4 | 18 |
I wanna Xanadu | 59.4 | 8.2 | 6 |
32 Favorite Games
143 Cleared Games