Delicious FruitCthaere'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:
237 Ratings!
158 Reviews!
9 Screenshots!
237 Games
158 Reviews
Cthaere
For: StrathGaze
For: StrathGaze
As a disclaimer, this review is going to be split into 2 parts that are only very loosely related - one talking about the game itself, and another about certain aspects of the gamemaking meta that rose in my mind while playing this. Please do not conflate the two parts, and more specifically please avoid associating my thoughts about the meta part with my overall thoughts about the game, since I do not wish to review the game in light of what it COULD be as opposed to what it IS. The two perspectives are kept fully separate, even when I use this game in specific as an example as part of the gamemaking section.
Part 1: Strathgaze
Strathgaze is a gimmick needle collab between Chatran, Skull, Marc and Stonk. The game boasts a wide array of mostly common, simple gimmicks that manage to facilitate a wider range of movements than would be possible without gimmicks within the relatively minimalistic needle aesthetic the game (mostly) conforms to. The game is of moderate length and divided into several stages in a way that is overall quite confusing; Personally, I find the game to have 3 main stages Reveal Spoilerbeing colored spike introduction, jump refresher stage, and cycle speed stage, as well as a scattering of transition screens. The game is very desaturated and the bgm is mostly "cold" feeling idm, resulting in a clean (if somewhat muted) atmosphere despite the "noise" on some of the background.
Regarding the needle itself, while there is a wide variety of movements that are generally good, there are also quite a few places in which feel as though they require polish. Jump contouring and general precision are quite inconsistent, and can result in jumps that should feel smooth feeling very awkward to pull off. These rarely feel like they add to the game either. The game tries giving you information ahead of time, to allow you to understand the consequence of shooting a colored spike or touching a trigger. While it is mostly successful in this regard, and figuring out the strats is a major part of the fun, there are a few places where this falters; Either because a trigger that should be visible is not such, or because of certain mechanic combinations working in a weird manner. These usually are fine, given that the most logical thing to do while trying to search for the solution is usually the right solution, and given that this was for a blind needle race, but it still felt quite annoying given that you need to clear a good chunk of the save to have an attempt at testing your theories. Most of these that I can recall had extremely awkward execution too, so either I figured them out wrong (which I hope but strongly doubt is the case), or the payoff for solving the puzzle is a massive disappointment. There were several saves that felt like an undue difficulty spike that added a good bit of frustration, and a few that I found downright unfun. To reiterate from the start, I do think the needle is good overall, the core movements are satisfying and on par with what you'd expect from the makers, the variety is refreshing and showcases the makers well, and there are a few great moments in this that do shine through, but as a whole I felt a bit too frustrated to have had as great a time with this game as many others seem to.
Overall, I would likely recommend this game for people who have similar skill, more patience, and lower expectations than I did when I went into it.
Part 2: Collabs
Strathgaze is a light gimmick needle collab between Chatran, Skull, Marc and Stonk. All 4 are renowned for their needle, and interestingly they are renowned for different facets of it: Chatran has always had a very unique and creative style; Skull has been producing consistently good needle for years, and has adapted very well to the smooth needle meta; Marc's games have some of the highest emotional resonance in needle; Stonk's IF series and Hydrohomies stage show a great sense for gameplay and prove that despite not being as prominent of a name, he is not to be underestimated and certainly earns his place among the others here.
When you play the game, it becomes very clear that each maker made their own selection of saves, scattered all throughout the stages. It is quite apparent the 2nd stage has strong Marc and Chatran influences, while the first and third fall much more in line with what you'd expect from Skull and Stonk. In this, you rarely see each maker at their best, and the game does not feel as though it becomes better than the sum of its parts. Marc's emotional resonance, Chatran's general creativity, the movement smoothness of Skull are fairly rare; Stonk's trigger needle mastery is the only thing fully on display here, but it is still clear that it is not due to Stonk deciding to do the trigger design for the project as much as it is that the other makers also make damn good trigger needle.
And with that, we can go to talk about collabs as a whole. There are quite a lot of ways to go about collabs, but two are generally considered both more standard: In the first, all makers make discrete chunks of content for the game, which are then presented together (either in form of a stage select, or in case of certain needle collabs by just putting the screens one after the other), as is almost always the case with the public megacollabs such as GBC, Back to Basic, and JTool Jamplex. In the second, the entire project is a team effort, where a typically small private circle has a unified vision and all parts are made to fit according to said vision, as in Double Turn Team, Wannafest, and RNG Dungeon. The first case tends to become more than the sum of its parts through variety, featuring many different takes on a simple core idea; The second tends to become more than the sum of its parts by having each maker playing to their strengths and having the full perspective of the team regarding aesthetic and thematic choices, general improvement suggestions, and even just simple brainstorming to come up with new ideas and content for the game. Both of these, then, are great formulas for a collab.
What happens if we swap the cases? Well, a massive public megacollab with a unified vision is frankly humanly impossible to achieve. After all, why spend 200 hours making an avoidance to a song someone else chose when you could work on the song YOU wanted to use? Why "waste" a banger set of visual on a game you do not have creative control over? Why would you lead such a project, knowing full well that you WILL be getting subpar pieces of content, that are going to be a drama nightmare to reject and a making nightmare to turn into an even barely acceptable piece of content? Well, if such a collab existed, it'd need to fully embrace the variety. It would need to be a collection of extremely high effort, polished shitposts - even the serious parts - so that everything fits by virtue of shitpostiness. An "anything goes" collab, to the point it threatens to turn back into the "discrete stages" formula.
Well, no point in vagueposting about farewell medley (yes, it may technically be private, but come on it's so big that it counts). It's the only project like this thus far, after all. The fact we only have 1 of those, and the dev hell it has been through, only speak to the monumental challenge in organizing these.
On the other hand, what happens when a small, private circle makes collabs where each person gets their own stage? The answer is that this happens quite commonly, and frankly almost always feels like a waste. The variety factor is generally not enough due to the reduced amount of people, while it generally does still hurt overall cohesiveness. It is much less easy to forgive the bad parts, given that the collab is private and the makers are usually quite experienced. You generally just wish the best parts were made into a full length game instead. While I'm not expecting every game to be a full effort project - indeed, even well respected makers have their JTool dumps, and it's perfectly ok for them to do so - it is still always saddening to see a project full of potential fail to reach it. While this game may fall into the "unified vision" category in technicality, in spirit it feels much more in line with the "discrete stages" model - I can roughly tell which people made which parts, and it does not really contain the kind of brilliancy you'd expect from seeing several strong makers combine the best of their strengths together.
Of course, there are countless ways to do a collab, and I would hesitate outright calling any of them "wrong", but I do wish to see more collabs that carefully consider the implications of their structure, and that strive to become more than the sum of their parts. As with medleys, it also feels like there's a whole lot of design space to have a unique spin on the structure and/or methodology that will cement the game as a great creative endeavor, and I wish to see these more as well.
[0] Likes
Part 1: Strathgaze
Strathgaze is a gimmick needle collab between Chatran, Skull, Marc and Stonk. The game boasts a wide array of mostly common, simple gimmicks that manage to facilitate a wider range of movements than would be possible without gimmicks within the relatively minimalistic needle aesthetic the game (mostly) conforms to. The game is of moderate length and divided into several stages in a way that is overall quite confusing; Personally, I find the game to have 3 main stages Reveal Spoilerbeing colored spike introduction, jump refresher stage, and cycle speed stage, as well as a scattering of transition screens. The game is very desaturated and the bgm is mostly "cold" feeling idm, resulting in a clean (if somewhat muted) atmosphere despite the "noise" on some of the background.
Regarding the needle itself, while there is a wide variety of movements that are generally good, there are also quite a few places in which feel as though they require polish. Jump contouring and general precision are quite inconsistent, and can result in jumps that should feel smooth feeling very awkward to pull off. These rarely feel like they add to the game either. The game tries giving you information ahead of time, to allow you to understand the consequence of shooting a colored spike or touching a trigger. While it is mostly successful in this regard, and figuring out the strats is a major part of the fun, there are a few places where this falters; Either because a trigger that should be visible is not such, or because of certain mechanic combinations working in a weird manner. These usually are fine, given that the most logical thing to do while trying to search for the solution is usually the right solution, and given that this was for a blind needle race, but it still felt quite annoying given that you need to clear a good chunk of the save to have an attempt at testing your theories. Most of these that I can recall had extremely awkward execution too, so either I figured them out wrong (which I hope but strongly doubt is the case), or the payoff for solving the puzzle is a massive disappointment. There were several saves that felt like an undue difficulty spike that added a good bit of frustration, and a few that I found downright unfun. To reiterate from the start, I do think the needle is good overall, the core movements are satisfying and on par with what you'd expect from the makers, the variety is refreshing and showcases the makers well, and there are a few great moments in this that do shine through, but as a whole I felt a bit too frustrated to have had as great a time with this game as many others seem to.
Overall, I would likely recommend this game for people who have similar skill, more patience, and lower expectations than I did when I went into it.
Part 2: Collabs
Strathgaze is a light gimmick needle collab between Chatran, Skull, Marc and Stonk. All 4 are renowned for their needle, and interestingly they are renowned for different facets of it: Chatran has always had a very unique and creative style; Skull has been producing consistently good needle for years, and has adapted very well to the smooth needle meta; Marc's games have some of the highest emotional resonance in needle; Stonk's IF series and Hydrohomies stage show a great sense for gameplay and prove that despite not being as prominent of a name, he is not to be underestimated and certainly earns his place among the others here.
When you play the game, it becomes very clear that each maker made their own selection of saves, scattered all throughout the stages. It is quite apparent the 2nd stage has strong Marc and Chatran influences, while the first and third fall much more in line with what you'd expect from Skull and Stonk. In this, you rarely see each maker at their best, and the game does not feel as though it becomes better than the sum of its parts. Marc's emotional resonance, Chatran's general creativity, the movement smoothness of Skull are fairly rare; Stonk's trigger needle mastery is the only thing fully on display here, but it is still clear that it is not due to Stonk deciding to do the trigger design for the project as much as it is that the other makers also make damn good trigger needle.
And with that, we can go to talk about collabs as a whole. There are quite a lot of ways to go about collabs, but two are generally considered both more standard: In the first, all makers make discrete chunks of content for the game, which are then presented together (either in form of a stage select, or in case of certain needle collabs by just putting the screens one after the other), as is almost always the case with the public megacollabs such as GBC, Back to Basic, and JTool Jamplex. In the second, the entire project is a team effort, where a typically small private circle has a unified vision and all parts are made to fit according to said vision, as in Double Turn Team, Wannafest, and RNG Dungeon. The first case tends to become more than the sum of its parts through variety, featuring many different takes on a simple core idea; The second tends to become more than the sum of its parts by having each maker playing to their strengths and having the full perspective of the team regarding aesthetic and thematic choices, general improvement suggestions, and even just simple brainstorming to come up with new ideas and content for the game. Both of these, then, are great formulas for a collab.
What happens if we swap the cases? Well, a massive public megacollab with a unified vision is frankly humanly impossible to achieve. After all, why spend 200 hours making an avoidance to a song someone else chose when you could work on the song YOU wanted to use? Why "waste" a banger set of visual on a game you do not have creative control over? Why would you lead such a project, knowing full well that you WILL be getting subpar pieces of content, that are going to be a drama nightmare to reject and a making nightmare to turn into an even barely acceptable piece of content? Well, if such a collab existed, it'd need to fully embrace the variety. It would need to be a collection of extremely high effort, polished shitposts - even the serious parts - so that everything fits by virtue of shitpostiness. An "anything goes" collab, to the point it threatens to turn back into the "discrete stages" formula.
Well, no point in vagueposting about farewell medley (yes, it may technically be private, but come on it's so big that it counts). It's the only project like this thus far, after all. The fact we only have 1 of those, and the dev hell it has been through, only speak to the monumental challenge in organizing these.
On the other hand, what happens when a small, private circle makes collabs where each person gets their own stage? The answer is that this happens quite commonly, and frankly almost always feels like a waste. The variety factor is generally not enough due to the reduced amount of people, while it generally does still hurt overall cohesiveness. It is much less easy to forgive the bad parts, given that the collab is private and the makers are usually quite experienced. You generally just wish the best parts were made into a full length game instead. While I'm not expecting every game to be a full effort project - indeed, even well respected makers have their JTool dumps, and it's perfectly ok for them to do so - it is still always saddening to see a project full of potential fail to reach it. While this game may fall into the "unified vision" category in technicality, in spirit it feels much more in line with the "discrete stages" model - I can roughly tell which people made which parts, and it does not really contain the kind of brilliancy you'd expect from seeing several strong makers combine the best of their strengths together.
Of course, there are countless ways to do a collab, and I would hesitate outright calling any of them "wrong", but I do wish to see more collabs that carefully consider the implications of their structure, and that strive to become more than the sum of their parts. As with medleys, it also feels like there's a whole lot of design space to have a unique spin on the structure and/or methodology that will cement the game as a great creative endeavor, and I wish to see these more as well.
Rating: 7.5
Difficulty: N/A
Apr 28, 2024
Cthaere
For: I Wanna Escape The Harsh Reality of Being Polish
For: I Wanna Escape The Harsh Reality of Being Polish
A short modern gimmick needle game with a humorous premise and strongly abrasive aesthetic and atmosphere, in the vein of burnmind. The gimmicks here are not new objects, but rather moderate-to-severe changes to kid physics combined with some pretty basic enemies, cycles and triggers. As such, depending on your familiarity (or raw intuition) with the physics, you may find certain parts much harder than others; With that said, the first two stages were significantly harder than the rest, and I'd wager this is going to be widely agreed upon even despite the previous point.
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.
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.
Tagged as: Needle
[4] Likes
Rating: 8.2
Difficulty: 70
Feb 17, 2024
Cthaere
For: I Wanna Escape Into My Mind
For: I Wanna Escape Into My Mind
And yet again I am forced to break my own self imposed rule. I generally do not give games that I did not have an immediate connection with 9+, however this game deserves it (and honestly, it deserves higher, but at that point I'd be dishonest to myself).
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.
[3] Likes
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.
Rating: 9.0
Difficulty: N/A
Feb 5, 2024
Cthaere
For: I wanna come from the north
For: I wanna come from the north
A game that has aged surprisingly well. The first save and the short plane meatgrinder saves were unfun and felt a bit too much like luck, and the rest is a tad too precise in places, but overall this remains very fun to play with good general movement design that holds up even into the modern era. With that said, this game seems like a classic skill cutoff case wherein being worse than a certain threshold makes the experience exponentially longer & worse while being above it makes it relatively smooth and fun. I had a generally good experience, however I cannot give this a blanket recommendation due to the high risk of frustration.
[0] Likes
Rating: 8.2
Difficulty: N/A
Jan 28, 2024
Cthaere
For: I Wanna Escape The Poolrooms
For: I Wanna Escape The Poolrooms
I wanna escape the poolrooms is a beautiful puzzle game, and one of the most curious cases in a game I've ever seen. A clash of two polar opposites that creates a mesmerizing yet bizarre result.
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.
[3] Likes
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.
Rating: 7.5
Difficulty: N/A
Jan 17, 2024
2 Games
| Game | Difficulty | Average Rating | # of Ratings |
|---|---|---|---|
| I wanna Musiclock | 74.7 | 9.3 | 20 |
| I wanna Xanadu | 60.7 | 7.7 | 8 |
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