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31 Games
30 Reviews
ActualKale [Creator]
For: I wanna find a Needle in a Haystack 2
For: I wanna find a Needle in a Haystack 2
I made this game so not gonna rate it. Forgot the password for my "Kale" account so can't review it as the maker either. Lately I've felt like talking a bit about the thought process behind some of my games so maybe this will be a series of reviews for a number of my games.
I'm starting with Haystack 2 which is one of my absolute favorite games among the ones I've made. The game has been sparsely played since release and has been the target of lots of meaningless and empty criticism along with some that was probably more warranted or better supported. This naturally puts me in a position where I wanna defend my game, especially since so much of the criticism comes from people who haven't played it.
The Haystack "series" are buffed versions of Crimson Needle which is the first game I've made. Crimson Needle is already a tough and really long game (100 floors) so it's no wonder people are gonna find the thought of a harder version to be a turn-off. Haystack 2 was preceded by Haystack 1 which was a somewhat lazy rework of the first 24 floors of Crimson Needle. The level design in Haystack 1 consists mostly of fairly unique and clever jumps and I don't find it uncomfortable to play for the most part, but the game still feels like Crimson Needle with more spikes tacked on. It's just not particularly exciting despite having decent design (a problem most needle games suffer from nowadays now that we have "seen it all") and the difficulty balance between rooms is not doing the game nay favors.
There is also a hard version of Haystack 1 which is made as a joke but ended up taking much more effort than it deserved. The hard version also has what I'd consider interesting design but I'll be the first to admit that I prioritized difficulty ahead of other considerations such as "comfort", "smoothness" and "difficulty balance" for a lot of the game.
Seeing how "Haystack 1" and "Haystack 1 hard version" are what they are it might not be so surprising that the series garnered a pretty bad reputation prior to the release of Haystack 2. I will now go into why I think a lot of the criticism directed at the first two Haystack games doesn't really apply to Haystack 2 while simultaneously talk about what I actually set out to do which is to describe the process of making the game.
First off, if you criticized Haystack 1 for its difficulty then it would be entirely consistent to criticize Haystack 2 for the same thing, seeing how it is probably even slightly harder than its predecessor on the whole. This is fucking lame criticism though and it's tiresome to still see this nonsense argument thrown around. If there is such a thing as "quality" that a game can possess then that is surely completely detached from how hard the game is. I was fully aware of how hard these games were when I made them, it's not some gamemaking error and it was not ignorant of me to assume that hard games can be enjoyable. It's niche but what is bad about that? My loss if anything, since less people will play it. Besides the Crimson Needle games, almost none of the stuff I've made is extraordinarily hard, and I've made a lot of fucking games. The Haystack series is an anomaly in my catalogue and the biggest reason I was interested in making games like this in the first place was to do something different and challenge myself in making something that is challenging but in a pleasant way.
Secondly, this game is not half-assed in any sense of the word which is something you might to some extent accuse Haystack 1 of. This was a 2-3 month project, making a 25 floor game where the screens are this dense and varied takes a long time to begin with. This however took an exceptionally long time because I set as a goal to make each screen distinct. I always started with an original screen from CN that I was gonna buff and then I tried to come up with a "quirk" that would drastically change how it's played while still maintaining it as recognizable enough for someone familiar with the old version. The alterations I made would often include changing the room layouts/path and that combined with wanting to use up most of the available space means that the buffs ended up taking much longer to make than it takes to make a new screen from scratch. The gimmicks and their applications would also prove quite hard to come up with at times.
To be honest I think I succeeded very well. The variety in this game is a feat. Of course unique or creative design doesn't in itself amount to enjoyable gameplay but when the wiki is flooded with nearly identical needle games every day it has to count for something when something fresh arrives. It's also interesting to note how much quicker people will be to shit on something like this than on your everyday snooze-needle. Bland games are simply inoffensive, no one really likes them but no one really cares either. I think it would be the nicest if no one trashed anything that has effort behind it but it has become clear to me that this is not a sentiment shared by the majority in our community.
This game's merit is not solely that it has some creative ideas, if that was the case I wouldn't hold it so high. I'm even more happy with how I managed to weave the gimmicks into my usual style of design (usual since circa CN2, a lot of my design is very different from game to game) to make segments that just flow well and almost never feel awkward to play (for me at least). There is also, like mentioned, a lot of variety. There is variety in the room layouts, how big changes I made from the original and in the gameplay the gimmicks bring. If you're going in blind the game will surprise you and I think there is some excitement to just seeing what each new room will bring which is hardly something many needle games can brag with.
The style of design is just not comparable to Haystack 1 in many respects other than the general difficulty. For one thing there are very few buffs in this game that are simply added spikes to increase preciseness. This game only leans more towards long saves with medium-difficulty jumps as opposed to short saves that feel more like a luck-grind. I might also add that this game was more carefully tested so there's not as many bad align saves and the difficulty curve is more even.
Naturally this ended up pretty long. I hope the undertone in this "review" managed to convey how immensely frustrating it is to invest a lot of time and effort into something just to have people dismiss it as "bad" or "cancer" on the basis of their preconceived notions about what the series is like or from watching it on stream or whatever. Maybe it also gave a little insight into how I think about making games.
[24] Likes
I'm starting with Haystack 2 which is one of my absolute favorite games among the ones I've made. The game has been sparsely played since release and has been the target of lots of meaningless and empty criticism along with some that was probably more warranted or better supported. This naturally puts me in a position where I wanna defend my game, especially since so much of the criticism comes from people who haven't played it.
The Haystack "series" are buffed versions of Crimson Needle which is the first game I've made. Crimson Needle is already a tough and really long game (100 floors) so it's no wonder people are gonna find the thought of a harder version to be a turn-off. Haystack 2 was preceded by Haystack 1 which was a somewhat lazy rework of the first 24 floors of Crimson Needle. The level design in Haystack 1 consists mostly of fairly unique and clever jumps and I don't find it uncomfortable to play for the most part, but the game still feels like Crimson Needle with more spikes tacked on. It's just not particularly exciting despite having decent design (a problem most needle games suffer from nowadays now that we have "seen it all") and the difficulty balance between rooms is not doing the game nay favors.
There is also a hard version of Haystack 1 which is made as a joke but ended up taking much more effort than it deserved. The hard version also has what I'd consider interesting design but I'll be the first to admit that I prioritized difficulty ahead of other considerations such as "comfort", "smoothness" and "difficulty balance" for a lot of the game.
Seeing how "Haystack 1" and "Haystack 1 hard version" are what they are it might not be so surprising that the series garnered a pretty bad reputation prior to the release of Haystack 2. I will now go into why I think a lot of the criticism directed at the first two Haystack games doesn't really apply to Haystack 2 while simultaneously talk about what I actually set out to do which is to describe the process of making the game.
First off, if you criticized Haystack 1 for its difficulty then it would be entirely consistent to criticize Haystack 2 for the same thing, seeing how it is probably even slightly harder than its predecessor on the whole. This is fucking lame criticism though and it's tiresome to still see this nonsense argument thrown around. If there is such a thing as "quality" that a game can possess then that is surely completely detached from how hard the game is. I was fully aware of how hard these games were when I made them, it's not some gamemaking error and it was not ignorant of me to assume that hard games can be enjoyable. It's niche but what is bad about that? My loss if anything, since less people will play it. Besides the Crimson Needle games, almost none of the stuff I've made is extraordinarily hard, and I've made a lot of fucking games. The Haystack series is an anomaly in my catalogue and the biggest reason I was interested in making games like this in the first place was to do something different and challenge myself in making something that is challenging but in a pleasant way.
Secondly, this game is not half-assed in any sense of the word which is something you might to some extent accuse Haystack 1 of. This was a 2-3 month project, making a 25 floor game where the screens are this dense and varied takes a long time to begin with. This however took an exceptionally long time because I set as a goal to make each screen distinct. I always started with an original screen from CN that I was gonna buff and then I tried to come up with a "quirk" that would drastically change how it's played while still maintaining it as recognizable enough for someone familiar with the old version. The alterations I made would often include changing the room layouts/path and that combined with wanting to use up most of the available space means that the buffs ended up taking much longer to make than it takes to make a new screen from scratch. The gimmicks and their applications would also prove quite hard to come up with at times.
To be honest I think I succeeded very well. The variety in this game is a feat. Of course unique or creative design doesn't in itself amount to enjoyable gameplay but when the wiki is flooded with nearly identical needle games every day it has to count for something when something fresh arrives. It's also interesting to note how much quicker people will be to shit on something like this than on your everyday snooze-needle. Bland games are simply inoffensive, no one really likes them but no one really cares either. I think it would be the nicest if no one trashed anything that has effort behind it but it has become clear to me that this is not a sentiment shared by the majority in our community.
This game's merit is not solely that it has some creative ideas, if that was the case I wouldn't hold it so high. I'm even more happy with how I managed to weave the gimmicks into my usual style of design (usual since circa CN2, a lot of my design is very different from game to game) to make segments that just flow well and almost never feel awkward to play (for me at least). There is also, like mentioned, a lot of variety. There is variety in the room layouts, how big changes I made from the original and in the gameplay the gimmicks bring. If you're going in blind the game will surprise you and I think there is some excitement to just seeing what each new room will bring which is hardly something many needle games can brag with.
The style of design is just not comparable to Haystack 1 in many respects other than the general difficulty. For one thing there are very few buffs in this game that are simply added spikes to increase preciseness. This game only leans more towards long saves with medium-difficulty jumps as opposed to short saves that feel more like a luck-grind. I might also add that this game was more carefully tested so there's not as many bad align saves and the difficulty curve is more even.
Naturally this ended up pretty long. I hope the undertone in this "review" managed to convey how immensely frustrating it is to invest a lot of time and effort into something just to have people dismiss it as "bad" or "cancer" on the basis of their preconceived notions about what the series is like or from watching it on stream or whatever. Maybe it also gave a little insight into how I think about making games.
Rating: N/A
Difficulty: 90 90
Mar 1, 2017
ActualKale
For: I wanna be the first
For: I wanna be the first
Man, this game was a blast!
[3] Likes
Rating: 7.5 75
Difficulty: 30 30
Dec 25, 2016
ActualKale
For: I wanna be the Fodomia
For: I wanna be the Fodomia
Every few months there is a new season coming out for the action rpg Diablo 3. This usually means some new features, some balancing and general quality of life updates.
For a while me and some friends had a tradition of playing every new season pretty intensively in the first few weeks from when it releases. After these weeks have passed we usually get bored with the diminishing returns in effort/reward and the reptetitive (although extremely well polished)gameplay.
We also have a habit of never picking the same class two consecutive seasons, in fact the class is most oftenly decided because of how long it has been since the person picking it last played that particular character rather than how well it can potentially perform which may fluctuate greatly from season to season. Now unfortunately this results in being a bit of a gamble and sometimes someone will end up with a much weaker or less fun class than the others but this is not necessarily something you can avoid either way since the better builds might not be discovered until a fair amount of the season has passed. It also may not be such a big deal since a lot of the time the classes are fairly even until you start pushing the high level min/max-ing part of the game and we rarely get that far before getting worn out.
There is, however, something so terrible, so despicable, so awfully game-ruining and demoralizing in Diablo 3, an item, that everyone makes damn sure to say a silent prayer it will not haunt them and make their class of choice near unplayable. The item I am talking about is one useable by all classes, it is very powerful and for a lot of builds it is irreplaceable. The Taeguk.
The Taeguk is a legendary gem, that means you put it in your jewelry and it gives you a buff. You can also upgrade your gem by passing through various gear checks and luck-based dungeons and in the case of the Taeguk it only makes it more intolerable. See, the Taeguk gives you a small damage and defensive buff every time you use an attack. This buff can stack and the number of times it stacks depends on which level it is. At most I have been able to stack it close to 70 times. Now here is the kicker; if you do not use an attack for 2 or so seconds your stack of Taeguk will immediately vanish in its entirety. In high level dungeons som classes can barely hold on without the defensive buff 70 stacks of Taeguk gives you and because of this you will have to frantically keep hitting attack or you will die.
In the last season we played every single one of us managed to pick classes where the best builds required the Taeguk. 2 or so weeks in every single one of us (me and 3 others) had developed wrist/arm problems so bad we could not play anymore. I lost nearly all strength in my right hand and got really bad random strokes of pain when I moved it the wrong way. One of my friends still has not recovered and can only play for 1 hour sessions and none of us have touched Diablo 3 since (has been over 6 months).
We used to joke that physical therapists over the world probably have framed photos of the Taeguk on their walls, that their entire livelihood depends on fools picking game characters that rely on spamming the same button for hours on end.
Goranclinton's stage in Fodomia is not the fangame equivalent of the Taeguk but there is plenty of unpleasant and sometimes physically painful jumps here. FailJguy's stage on the other hand is nice and his addition to the final stage is pretty fun as well. Would recommend.
The apples don't kill you.
[9] Likes
For a while me and some friends had a tradition of playing every new season pretty intensively in the first few weeks from when it releases. After these weeks have passed we usually get bored with the diminishing returns in effort/reward and the reptetitive (although extremely well polished)gameplay.
We also have a habit of never picking the same class two consecutive seasons, in fact the class is most oftenly decided because of how long it has been since the person picking it last played that particular character rather than how well it can potentially perform which may fluctuate greatly from season to season. Now unfortunately this results in being a bit of a gamble and sometimes someone will end up with a much weaker or less fun class than the others but this is not necessarily something you can avoid either way since the better builds might not be discovered until a fair amount of the season has passed. It also may not be such a big deal since a lot of the time the classes are fairly even until you start pushing the high level min/max-ing part of the game and we rarely get that far before getting worn out.
There is, however, something so terrible, so despicable, so awfully game-ruining and demoralizing in Diablo 3, an item, that everyone makes damn sure to say a silent prayer it will not haunt them and make their class of choice near unplayable. The item I am talking about is one useable by all classes, it is very powerful and for a lot of builds it is irreplaceable. The Taeguk.
The Taeguk is a legendary gem, that means you put it in your jewelry and it gives you a buff. You can also upgrade your gem by passing through various gear checks and luck-based dungeons and in the case of the Taeguk it only makes it more intolerable. See, the Taeguk gives you a small damage and defensive buff every time you use an attack. This buff can stack and the number of times it stacks depends on which level it is. At most I have been able to stack it close to 70 times. Now here is the kicker; if you do not use an attack for 2 or so seconds your stack of Taeguk will immediately vanish in its entirety. In high level dungeons som classes can barely hold on without the defensive buff 70 stacks of Taeguk gives you and because of this you will have to frantically keep hitting attack or you will die.
In the last season we played every single one of us managed to pick classes where the best builds required the Taeguk. 2 or so weeks in every single one of us (me and 3 others) had developed wrist/arm problems so bad we could not play anymore. I lost nearly all strength in my right hand and got really bad random strokes of pain when I moved it the wrong way. One of my friends still has not recovered and can only play for 1 hour sessions and none of us have touched Diablo 3 since (has been over 6 months).
We used to joke that physical therapists over the world probably have framed photos of the Taeguk on their walls, that their entire livelihood depends on fools picking game characters that rely on spamming the same button for hours on end.
Goranclinton's stage in Fodomia is not the fangame equivalent of the Taeguk but there is plenty of unpleasant and sometimes physically painful jumps here. FailJguy's stage on the other hand is nice and his addition to the final stage is pretty fun as well. Would recommend.
The apples don't kill you.
Rating: 6.0 60
Difficulty: 68 68
Jul 29, 2016
ActualKale
For: I wanna be the Green Needle
For: I wanna be the Green Needle
This is what happens when you make room block layouts before you place spikes and those layouts are almost nothing but tight corridors. So much of this game is jumping over spikes of varying sizes with a low ceiling above you. A consequence of the creator giving himself so little space to work with is that minispikes become an essential tool to fill in the empty spaces. 16 pixel gaps also becomes a necessecity to create challenge.
Just about every jump in this 8 room game follows the same "hold direction/jump specific frame so you don't hit the ceiling" formula.
The music and visuals are also the same throughout the entire game and when he eventually tries to mix things up, a little past halfway through the game, he does so by making "apple needle". Still nothing changes about how you execute these jumps so they might as well have been spikes jumps anyways, they are just most annoying now because the player will have a harder time judging how to do them.
Fortunately the creator of this game went on to make actual decent games with jumps that not only look unusual but that actually offers some variety in how they are completed. Therefore I can't feel too bad about being harsh on this.
[2] Likes
Just about every jump in this 8 room game follows the same "hold direction/jump specific frame so you don't hit the ceiling" formula.
The music and visuals are also the same throughout the entire game and when he eventually tries to mix things up, a little past halfway through the game, he does so by making "apple needle". Still nothing changes about how you execute these jumps so they might as well have been spikes jumps anyways, they are just most annoying now because the player will have a harder time judging how to do them.
Fortunately the creator of this game went on to make actual decent games with jumps that not only look unusual but that actually offers some variety in how they are completed. Therefore I can't feel too bad about being harsh on this.
Rating: 2.8 28
Difficulty: 62 62
Jul 26, 2016
ActualKale
For: I Wanna be the Needle Satan
For: I Wanna be the Needle Satan
Needle Satan is a fairly difficult needle game . It has made quite the name for itself in the western fangame community but that undoubtedly has more to do with having a screen featured in in Kamilia 3 than the actual content of the game. Overall I would say Needle Satan is a pretty unremarkable needle game, there is probably not a single thing in here that you can't find elsewhere, but not unenjoyable.
Needle Satan is a short game, 2 stages that are both less than 5 screens long. As far as visuals go it's pretty impressive how the creator managed to chose what is probably the two colors that are the most likely to cause problem for people. One stage has a really harsh red background with black blocks and the other one is dressed in a really bright shade of green with partly transparent spikes that blends in with the background. Pick your poision.
Both stages share the same style of platforming but only one of them appears to be made with the intention of being enjoyable. That might sound a little mean but I just don't see a better explanation for some of the design decisions in the red stage. Awful first jumps, a save you can only barely reach by shooting it, a save that hovers over a double-diagonal drop, a save that's almost all ledge jumps, a save that starts with a required 1-frame and just jumps that are uncomfortable to do in general.
Fortunately there is the green stage which, in my opinion, makes this game at least somewhat worthwhile. Like I mentioned they're both based on generic jumps but the ones in this stage are definitely ones seen less often. There's also less issues with save positioning and awkwardness here. In fact I think a lot of these saves are quite pleasant to grind and the difficulty balance is done in a satisfying way.
I'll go ahead and spoil that nothing really happens after you beat both stages. The game also has no music or any other feature that would aim towards making this anything more than another very simple (in terms of design) needle game which is mostly fun because it tests your skill and ocassionaly hits that sweet balance where it's just hard enough to make you feel good about yourself but without the stress of possibly getting stuck.
[3] Likes
Needle Satan is a short game, 2 stages that are both less than 5 screens long. As far as visuals go it's pretty impressive how the creator managed to chose what is probably the two colors that are the most likely to cause problem for people. One stage has a really harsh red background with black blocks and the other one is dressed in a really bright shade of green with partly transparent spikes that blends in with the background. Pick your poision.
Both stages share the same style of platforming but only one of them appears to be made with the intention of being enjoyable. That might sound a little mean but I just don't see a better explanation for some of the design decisions in the red stage. Awful first jumps, a save you can only barely reach by shooting it, a save that hovers over a double-diagonal drop, a save that's almost all ledge jumps, a save that starts with a required 1-frame and just jumps that are uncomfortable to do in general.
Fortunately there is the green stage which, in my opinion, makes this game at least somewhat worthwhile. Like I mentioned they're both based on generic jumps but the ones in this stage are definitely ones seen less often. There's also less issues with save positioning and awkwardness here. In fact I think a lot of these saves are quite pleasant to grind and the difficulty balance is done in a satisfying way.
I'll go ahead and spoil that nothing really happens after you beat both stages. The game also has no music or any other feature that would aim towards making this anything more than another very simple (in terms of design) needle game which is mostly fun because it tests your skill and ocassionaly hits that sweet balance where it's just hard enough to make you feel good about yourself but without the stress of possibly getting stuck.
Rating: 5.9 59
Difficulty: 65 65
Jul 25, 2016
10 Games
| Game | Difficulty | Average Rating | # of Ratings |
|---|---|---|---|
| I wanna be the Crimson Needle | 84.7 | 6.7 | 86 |
| Crimson Needle 2 | 87.4 | 8.2 | 83 |
| Crimson Needle 3 | 89.1 | 9.2 | 101 |
| I wanna find a Needle in a Haystack | 80.8 | 6.2 | 16 |
| I wanna find a Needle in a Haystack 2 | 84.5 | 6.0 | 22 |
| I wanna find a Needle In A Haystack Hard Version | 85.2 | 5.6 | 12 |
| I wanna be the Friendly Needle | 53.9 | 6.6 | 18 |
| I wanna Lazy Needle | 65.3 | 6.2 | 11 |
| I wanna Lazy Needle 2 | 66.2 | 7.8 | 20 |
| I wanna Thank You Thenewgeezer | 62.1 | 8.0 | 44 |
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