41 Reviews:
Stitchball
There is really not much to be said about stumble that hasn't already been said, gameplay wise. Visually, though, I feel like this really captures the essence of what makes needle games special.
1. The focus on the player character
The simple dynamic light that illuminates around the player, is a trope many video games famously follow, i.e. Dark Souls and Bloodborne. In Bloodborne, your character has a small little lantern that is never mentioned nor toggle-able, but it's always there, making the eye focus ever so slightly more on the player and their movements. This simple trick is used in many fangames, often to create a visual challenge by traversing darkness and only being able to see a few blocks around your player. However, in stumble, the light serves as an illuminator on what's most important.
2. Simplicity > Complexity
Visually, magnificent stumble is a simple game. Most screens contain at most four different solid colors, which all contrast with each other to make one of the most visually appealing needle games I've ever seen. Games like Winter King are often regarded as more visually appealing, and while I do agree graphically and contextually, the simple four-tone aesthetic of stumble makes the game unique and definitive, despite just being a few colors. This places further emphasis on the jumps themselves, usually involving the only two things that will kill you in this game: spikes and apples. Though simple and commonplace spikes and apples are pushed to their greatest limits in stumble to make each jump feel unique and gives them a sense of flow.
In summary, this is everything that a needle game should be at its most baseline form.
1. The focus on the player character
The simple dynamic light that illuminates around the player, is a trope many video games famously follow, i.e. Dark Souls and Bloodborne. In Bloodborne, your character has a small little lantern that is never mentioned nor toggle-able, but it's always there, making the eye focus ever so slightly more on the player and their movements. This simple trick is used in many fangames, often to create a visual challenge by traversing darkness and only being able to see a few blocks around your player. However, in stumble, the light serves as an illuminator on what's most important.
2. Simplicity > Complexity
Visually, magnificent stumble is a simple game. Most screens contain at most four different solid colors, which all contrast with each other to make one of the most visually appealing needle games I've ever seen. Games like Winter King are often regarded as more visually appealing, and while I do agree graphically and contextually, the simple four-tone aesthetic of stumble makes the game unique and definitive, despite just being a few colors. This places further emphasis on the jumps themselves, usually involving the only two things that will kill you in this game: spikes and apples. Though simple and commonplace spikes and apples are pushed to their greatest limits in stumble to make each jump feel unique and gives them a sense of flow.
In summary, this is everything that a needle game should be at its most baseline form.
Tagged as: Needle
Stumble-Like
[1] Like
Rating: 9.5 95
Difficulty: 85 85
Dec 20, 2023
PlutoTheThing
This review is based on completing both difficulties of the game, Easy and Hard, although it is primarily based on Hard as that is the one I preferred. Easy mode would probably be low 60s in difficulty, I'm not sure.
I'm pretty thoroughly impressed with this game, it's a largely vanilla needle game, there's like the occasional trigger or airvine snuck in there, but all in all it's pretty standard stuff, but there's still a lot of creativity and variety throughout the game. There's lots of weird unconventional spike formations which create this really pretty looking aesthetic for the whole game, as well as often making you think about how to approach something, there's not a lot of jumps or movements here I feel like I've seen already, which is awesome. The left warp on both difficulties is fantastic, so many great saves, great jumps, lots of distinct sections, it's just very good. The right warp I actually think is the part of the game that benefits the most from hard mode, it's a lot more interesting in my opinion with the added challenge and I felt it was a bit more natural with the changes in hard mode, On hard I'd say it's just as good as left warp, on easy I'd say it's marginally worse.
In general this is just a cool game, I like how connected the screens feel, I like how it plays, there's a great sense of flow throughout the whole game, and to me it's just plain fun. Easily a contender for my favorite non-gimmicky needle game, I really love it!
[1] Like
I'm pretty thoroughly impressed with this game, it's a largely vanilla needle game, there's like the occasional trigger or airvine snuck in there, but all in all it's pretty standard stuff, but there's still a lot of creativity and variety throughout the game. There's lots of weird unconventional spike formations which create this really pretty looking aesthetic for the whole game, as well as often making you think about how to approach something, there's not a lot of jumps or movements here I feel like I've seen already, which is awesome. The left warp on both difficulties is fantastic, so many great saves, great jumps, lots of distinct sections, it's just very good. The right warp I actually think is the part of the game that benefits the most from hard mode, it's a lot more interesting in my opinion with the added challenge and I felt it was a bit more natural with the changes in hard mode, On hard I'd say it's just as good as left warp, on easy I'd say it's marginally worse.
In general this is just a cool game, I like how connected the screens feel, I like how it plays, there's a great sense of flow throughout the whole game, and to me it's just plain fun. Easily a contender for my favorite non-gimmicky needle game, I really love it!
Rating: 9.3 93
Difficulty: 77 77
Oct 3, 2023
LastTISisLife
Based on Easy difficulty. Very fun stylish needle with focus on some unusual jumps and interesting layouts, but couple of saves went kinda cringe
Tagged as: Needle
[1] Like
Rating: 8.2 82
Difficulty: 76 76
May 31, 2023