26 Reviews:
Nearigami
Dieary is a game where for every 3-4 things it does really well, it does one thing absolutely terribly. Your mileage may vary but for me I found myself enjoying it overall despite what I would consider pretty rough patches. If it seems interesting to you, you should play it!
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Rating: 7.0 70
Difficulty: 65 65
Jan 8, 2024
ElCochran90
*Cleared on 25/05/2023*
Rating and difficulty score include “extra”, but I’d highly debate it is actually extra. Secrets are required to go for the true ending, but there is really no ending for making only the basic stages.
Azure is one of a kind. When it comes to platforming ideas, there is nothing new, and the overabundance of traps will make you chop your head off. However, there is a story behind this fangame that is quite intriguing, as subjective as it might be. It has RPG splashes all over it.
The story opens with an undefeatable boss that is meant to be impossible until everything turns out to be a dream. At this point, your intuition will whisper: “this is obvious foreshadowing for the final boss I’ll have to face when I’m more powerful”. You wake up. Nice to see the Kid finally owning an apartment with a nice view; what this fangame plays with is the notion between what is real and what is not, and this “portal” between the two realms seems to be his bed. One could theorize that the entire game is a dream and the final boss is a projection of his internal fears or loneliness (can’t ever read too much in a fangame), as there doesn’t seem to be an ominous danger for the planet, but inner challenges the Kid must face. There is even a secret in Kid’s bed, which might also indicate everything is happening in a dream.
All is beautiful so far, but it is the stages that make you forget about Azure’s intriguing conception of bringing a fantasy adventure story to life and take you back to generic half-assedness. Some are fun to play (Bomberman, chase of spike walls and roofs with the wooden tilesets), one is cryptic (puzzle) and one of them in particular (red warp which takes you to a purple stage; for some funny reason colors never coincide) is completely mental with the traps. Do not even dare play this in Hard Mode; it’s obvious many are meant to be played in Medium Difficulty for save balancing.
One review stated there is a lot going on in this “surprisingly short game”. Make no mistake, as this is no short fangame at all. For reference, Wolfie’s first playthrough took more than 2 hours, and the WR currently for 100% is 25:42 (17:46 for any %). The game has six main stages, each one with a visual style and platforming of their own; there is a secret in each stage, which location are more than often cryptic, but they are fun to get. At least the game provides variety, and if you’re suffering through a stage, you have the guarantee that the next one will be slightly different at the least. A secret in particular requires dancing at a beat while dodging, and although it is quite mental, the game gives you enough error margin for pulling it off.
Bosses are not that generic, so expect zero cherries, which is an overused old-school trope. One boss in particular (all I will say is it involves a dog) is so sudoku-looking and yet so sentimental that you have no idea what the intention behind the boss is, and once you get the funny-looking segment, there is a second phase that gives you no prior warning of what it was meant to be. There is a troll boss, maybe for the laughs, but it is shown in one of the longest stages, so maybe it is not such a good idea to reward the player looking for adventure bosses with a troll boss after so much effort was invested in a long stage considering their length and difficulty is all over the place and you can take them in any order you wish: it’s a dice’s roll.
The reason I debate extra is because there is not a “Thank You” screen once you jump off the balcony; it just says “The End” in an obvious “This is not the intended end, bro”. Getting the secrets is more than commended, because it will lead to the most special section of them all: the final stage before the boss.
This stage is easy to confuse with an L_game, and for being such an early game, that notion could be challenged. Azure is the author of an infamous fangame called “I Wanna Be the Goner”. In short, it is a freaking J-Tool default tileset with extremely precise cancer-ish jumps, but with a save immediately after each jump. Sounds like L, but it is not, as it mostly restricts the jumps to 16px, but mostly it is 32px. Align knowledge is utmost recommended. The final stage is a Goner-like stage, perhaps the prototype for Goner and Goner-like games, as I don’t know the actual release of Goner. It’s THE Guy-Rock-themed, generic-looking stage of the game, but just like the route to the right in Go the Dotkid!, it is oh-so-fun. For 2011-2012, it was strange to find something like this and, as far as I’m concerned, you cannot softlock (theoretically, you should try really hard to get there). It has only two screens, and believe me, it is enough. Azure was really conscious about the unusual difficulty peak, so there is a counter of your deaths on the top right corner that belong exclusively to this area. I wish this area had another song and visual style, but I swear it was so fun.
The final boss was a first try, which is beyond stupid. It was one of the most anti-climactic feelings I’ve ever had after such a huge build-up.
Recommended; there’s more than meets the eye.
[0] Likes
Rating and difficulty score include “extra”, but I’d highly debate it is actually extra. Secrets are required to go for the true ending, but there is really no ending for making only the basic stages.
Azure is one of a kind. When it comes to platforming ideas, there is nothing new, and the overabundance of traps will make you chop your head off. However, there is a story behind this fangame that is quite intriguing, as subjective as it might be. It has RPG splashes all over it.
The story opens with an undefeatable boss that is meant to be impossible until everything turns out to be a dream. At this point, your intuition will whisper: “this is obvious foreshadowing for the final boss I’ll have to face when I’m more powerful”. You wake up. Nice to see the Kid finally owning an apartment with a nice view; what this fangame plays with is the notion between what is real and what is not, and this “portal” between the two realms seems to be his bed. One could theorize that the entire game is a dream and the final boss is a projection of his internal fears or loneliness (can’t ever read too much in a fangame), as there doesn’t seem to be an ominous danger for the planet, but inner challenges the Kid must face. There is even a secret in Kid’s bed, which might also indicate everything is happening in a dream.
All is beautiful so far, but it is the stages that make you forget about Azure’s intriguing conception of bringing a fantasy adventure story to life and take you back to generic half-assedness. Some are fun to play (Bomberman, chase of spike walls and roofs with the wooden tilesets), one is cryptic (puzzle) and one of them in particular (red warp which takes you to a purple stage; for some funny reason colors never coincide) is completely mental with the traps. Do not even dare play this in Hard Mode; it’s obvious many are meant to be played in Medium Difficulty for save balancing.
One review stated there is a lot going on in this “surprisingly short game”. Make no mistake, as this is no short fangame at all. For reference, Wolfie’s first playthrough took more than 2 hours, and the WR currently for 100% is 25:42 (17:46 for any %). The game has six main stages, each one with a visual style and platforming of their own; there is a secret in each stage, which location are more than often cryptic, but they are fun to get. At least the game provides variety, and if you’re suffering through a stage, you have the guarantee that the next one will be slightly different at the least. A secret in particular requires dancing at a beat while dodging, and although it is quite mental, the game gives you enough error margin for pulling it off.
Bosses are not that generic, so expect zero cherries, which is an overused old-school trope. One boss in particular (all I will say is it involves a dog) is so sudoku-looking and yet so sentimental that you have no idea what the intention behind the boss is, and once you get the funny-looking segment, there is a second phase that gives you no prior warning of what it was meant to be. There is a troll boss, maybe for the laughs, but it is shown in one of the longest stages, so maybe it is not such a good idea to reward the player looking for adventure bosses with a troll boss after so much effort was invested in a long stage considering their length and difficulty is all over the place and you can take them in any order you wish: it’s a dice’s roll.
The reason I debate extra is because there is not a “Thank You” screen once you jump off the balcony; it just says “The End” in an obvious “This is not the intended end, bro”. Getting the secrets is more than commended, because it will lead to the most special section of them all: the final stage before the boss.
This stage is easy to confuse with an L_game, and for being such an early game, that notion could be challenged. Azure is the author of an infamous fangame called “I Wanna Be the Goner”. In short, it is a freaking J-Tool default tileset with extremely precise cancer-ish jumps, but with a save immediately after each jump. Sounds like L, but it is not, as it mostly restricts the jumps to 16px, but mostly it is 32px. Align knowledge is utmost recommended. The final stage is a Goner-like stage, perhaps the prototype for Goner and Goner-like games, as I don’t know the actual release of Goner. It’s THE Guy-Rock-themed, generic-looking stage of the game, but just like the route to the right in Go the Dotkid!, it is oh-so-fun. For 2011-2012, it was strange to find something like this and, as far as I’m concerned, you cannot softlock (theoretically, you should try really hard to get there). It has only two screens, and believe me, it is enough. Azure was really conscious about the unusual difficulty peak, so there is a counter of your deaths on the top right corner that belong exclusively to this area. I wish this area had another song and visual style, but I swear it was so fun.
The final boss was a first try, which is beyond stupid. It was one of the most anti-climactic feelings I’ve ever had after such a huge build-up.
Recommended; there’s more than meets the eye.
Rating: 4.6 46
Difficulty: 75 75
Nov 5, 2023
LastTISisLife
Based on 100 % clear. This game... goes really hard sometimes. I would say majority of it is very fun with good placed secrets and unique stages. Green stage with puzzle was cracked in every possible way tho and also extra was pretty dumb
[0] Likes
Rating: 6.0 60
Difficulty: 74 74
Apr 9, 2023
thenewsaika
Because of this game, I suffering secret finding PTSD.
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Rating: 5.1 51
Difficulty: N/A
May 23, 2022