Delicious Fruit
Download Game Creator's Comments:
32 Reviews:
kurath
Overall a top tier gimmick needle game. Production is very slick throughout and the extra touches were nice. The 'secrets' are pretty much mandatory to get anywhere near the full value of the game so expect that, but the game is fairly reasonable about letting you get back to ones you missed.
The post-secret content is probably the highlight of the game platforming wise, though the 2nd secret was also phenomenal. Unfortunately, however, the last two secrets seemed like a notable low point which feels unpleasant to slog through knowing that you need to get past it to keep progressing.
Either way, its pretty challenging but the difficulty curve means that its a game nearly anyone can pick up and play til they have trouble, then come back to later. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a gimmick needle game, but if you are a new player I'd probably stay out of the secrets (for the ones you find) until later in the game as they'll feel like a brutal difficulty spike.
[3] Likes
The post-secret content is probably the highlight of the game platforming wise, though the 2nd secret was also phenomenal. Unfortunately, however, the last two secrets seemed like a notable low point which feels unpleasant to slog through knowing that you need to get past it to keep progressing.
Either way, its pretty challenging but the difficulty curve means that its a game nearly anyone can pick up and play til they have trouble, then come back to later. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a gimmick needle game, but if you are a new player I'd probably stay out of the secrets (for the ones you find) until later in the game as they'll feel like a brutal difficulty spike.
Rating: 9.0
Difficulty: 70
Feb 22, 2018
YaBoiMarcAntony
Destroy the Needleverse has a rather impressive presentation to it, a slickness and overall pleasantly clean look that I really haven't seen all that often, though nonetheless being immediately recognizable as tralexium's style as he's the only one that goes for this look. As clean as it is, though, there's really not much under the hood insofar as these visuals are concerned - character, yes, personality, sure, but it all comes out to be a bit meaningless, mostly because I find it hard to really care about these very decent visuals when the gameplay gets to be as frustrating as it does throughout Destroy the Needleverse.
I think there's a pretty clear cut 50/50 split of quality here, the good stuff being stage's 1-3, particularly 1 and 2 with 2 being the highlight of the first half of the game, then insofar as the guest stages and beyond are concerned they are themselves a bit divided except for Wolfie's which is the highlight of the game up to this point. The secrets themselves are also overall okay with stage 2's being the obvious standout, though 1 is quite good in its own right. Finally, the last save is very, very good, though diminished for me because of a glitch which makes it not really feasible to play in fullscreen.
As for the bad stuff, obviously you can glean from the design of my writing that it's everything else, but I'll get specific on a couple things. For one, stage 4 is not so much reprehensible as it is just very, very, annoying. While I could chalk this up to my distaste for the gimmicks used, I know that this game can use them well as I find they're used well in stage 2 and, to a lesser extent, stage 3. The main problem of the stage stems from the fact that it puts a focus on difficulty without accounting for whether this difficulty is any fun to experience. I've grown to enjoy games that have a clear focus on difficulty, particularly I Wanna Reach Heaven is a relatively recent example of me totally re-evaluating a game that I felt was too concerned with difficulty. In the case of that game, difficulty is used as a tool for gameplay design in the sense of creating this mountain which you climb and inevitably reach the peak of, which is a tried and true method of balance that works wonderfully when it's in the right hands.
Tralexium, then, was not the right hands at this point in their gamemaking career, which I do not fault them for seeing as this was a very early outing for them.
To get back to the main point, I suspect that Destroy the Needleverse would be a much more enjoyable experience in its EZ mode, but I don't really have the patience to try it. All the same, I do not wish to focus much more on this negativity as I think it's not what I'm going to come away from this game thinking about even with the relatively low score. Destroy the Needleverse is at its best when it's feeding you its gimmicks and letting you get a handle on them. Once the game tries to test your skills with said gimmicks, that's when it stumbles. As such, the earlier stages are as a whole better than what goes on in the later part of the game, which tends to be the opposite for most games that use gimmicks in a similar fashion.
When you consider something like Save My Boy, that's a game that introduces so many gimmicks piecemeal, then gradually stacks them up and eventually becomes a real test of your abilities with the gimmicks used. In that case, I maintain that the best part of the game is when this stacking occurs and you're asked to really go to work with those gimmicks, something which can be said to be attempted here in Destroy the Needleverse to a smaller degree, but it is not done with anything close to the amount of tact and skill as arzztt does it.
Of course, it's comparing apples to oranges, or more accurately a seasoned veteran in gamemaking to a total novice with a lot of potential that they would eventually realize completely in NANC 2, which brings me to the main thought: there's really no point in playing this game with the advent of NANC 2 unless you are interested in seeing the growth from the old to the now for Tralexium. Otherwise, I find that I'd just much rather be playing NANC 2 when I'm playing this game, for the most part. That's somewhat of an empty criticism since it's not as if this game was made knowing NANC 2 would come about, nor is it ever really the case that a game can be truly made pointless (yes, I'm sure there are exceptions, both in a literal sense and in a more opinionated sense), which holds true here. Destroy the Needleverse is a fun game, particularly from a historical standpoint as you get to see several creators in their toddler days which is interesting enough to distract me from the annoyances of skulldude and dribix's (the latter stage being the superior of the two, wolfie's stage being better than both by far and the most consistent part of the game, to be clear. And hell, history aside, the game's decent fun all the same.
[2] Likes
I think there's a pretty clear cut 50/50 split of quality here, the good stuff being stage's 1-3, particularly 1 and 2 with 2 being the highlight of the first half of the game, then insofar as the guest stages and beyond are concerned they are themselves a bit divided except for Wolfie's which is the highlight of the game up to this point. The secrets themselves are also overall okay with stage 2's being the obvious standout, though 1 is quite good in its own right. Finally, the last save is very, very good, though diminished for me because of a glitch which makes it not really feasible to play in fullscreen.
As for the bad stuff, obviously you can glean from the design of my writing that it's everything else, but I'll get specific on a couple things. For one, stage 4 is not so much reprehensible as it is just very, very, annoying. While I could chalk this up to my distaste for the gimmicks used, I know that this game can use them well as I find they're used well in stage 2 and, to a lesser extent, stage 3. The main problem of the stage stems from the fact that it puts a focus on difficulty without accounting for whether this difficulty is any fun to experience. I've grown to enjoy games that have a clear focus on difficulty, particularly I Wanna Reach Heaven is a relatively recent example of me totally re-evaluating a game that I felt was too concerned with difficulty. In the case of that game, difficulty is used as a tool for gameplay design in the sense of creating this mountain which you climb and inevitably reach the peak of, which is a tried and true method of balance that works wonderfully when it's in the right hands.
Tralexium, then, was not the right hands at this point in their gamemaking career, which I do not fault them for seeing as this was a very early outing for them.
To get back to the main point, I suspect that Destroy the Needleverse would be a much more enjoyable experience in its EZ mode, but I don't really have the patience to try it. All the same, I do not wish to focus much more on this negativity as I think it's not what I'm going to come away from this game thinking about even with the relatively low score. Destroy the Needleverse is at its best when it's feeding you its gimmicks and letting you get a handle on them. Once the game tries to test your skills with said gimmicks, that's when it stumbles. As such, the earlier stages are as a whole better than what goes on in the later part of the game, which tends to be the opposite for most games that use gimmicks in a similar fashion.
When you consider something like Save My Boy, that's a game that introduces so many gimmicks piecemeal, then gradually stacks them up and eventually becomes a real test of your abilities with the gimmicks used. In that case, I maintain that the best part of the game is when this stacking occurs and you're asked to really go to work with those gimmicks, something which can be said to be attempted here in Destroy the Needleverse to a smaller degree, but it is not done with anything close to the amount of tact and skill as arzztt does it.
Of course, it's comparing apples to oranges, or more accurately a seasoned veteran in gamemaking to a total novice with a lot of potential that they would eventually realize completely in NANC 2, which brings me to the main thought: there's really no point in playing this game with the advent of NANC 2 unless you are interested in seeing the growth from the old to the now for Tralexium. Otherwise, I find that I'd just much rather be playing NANC 2 when I'm playing this game, for the most part. That's somewhat of an empty criticism since it's not as if this game was made knowing NANC 2 would come about, nor is it ever really the case that a game can be truly made pointless (yes, I'm sure there are exceptions, both in a literal sense and in a more opinionated sense), which holds true here. Destroy the Needleverse is a fun game, particularly from a historical standpoint as you get to see several creators in their toddler days which is interesting enough to distract me from the annoyances of skulldude and dribix's (the latter stage being the superior of the two, wolfie's stage being better than both by far and the most consistent part of the game, to be clear. And hell, history aside, the game's decent fun all the same.
Rating: 5.5
Difficulty: 74
Sep 2, 2022
Wahfuu
Honestly, I really disliked every secret except for the NANG-like one, and pretty much every single time reverse controls showed up I wanted to drop the game, but the second half of the game is pretty great so I can't be too harsh.
[2] Likes
Rating: 7.0
Difficulty: 65
Feb 26, 2018
Cubpletionist
Honestly super good game with great music and visuals. Absolutely pissed me off to no end though with some really unbalanced, really *long* saves.
[1] Like
Rating: 7.5
Difficulty: 70
Jan 29, 2024
Gaborro
Lots of smart and fun design everywhere in this game, especially in some of the secrets. Only got annoyed by one screen (the one right before shooting the core)
[1] Like
Rating: 8.5
Difficulty: 70
Nov 14, 2022
Skulldude
Without a doubt, one of the best fangames to come out this year and one of the best needle games I've played in a long time. Outstanding aesthetics and visual effects, incredible soundtrack, and very well thought-out and creative needle design with the use of many gimmicks that come with every stage. The main game consists of 4 stages, each with a secret, after obtaining them you gain access to extra stages made by 3 other needle makers who bring a lot of variety and more challenges throughout their screens, and finally finishing off with a last stage by the main maker himself. Only major complaint I have with the game is the 4th stage made use of a gimmick I'm personally not too fond of (inverted controls) but thankfully it wasn't too drawn out or very poorly used. There's a bit of everything for people to enjoy in this game and I would most definetly recommend it to people who want to get more into needle, seeing as the game starts off quite easy, and for already experienced players as well, specially doing it 100%.
[1] Like
Rating: 9.2
Difficulty: 76
Feb 20, 2018
PlutoTheThing
This review is based on getting the true ending.
The bulk of this game is needle with some gimmicks that change your physics, the vast majority of which was very unremarkable. Immediately after clearing the game I've basically forgotten every room in the any% clear, almost none of them stand out and the usage of gimmicks feels very uninspired, it's quite surface level. The secrets are a bit better but still not great, especially the Butterfly one feels like it misses the mark and doesn't have any of the appeal the screen it's based on had. The extra content is the one thing I would say was quite good, particularly Dribix and Wolfie made stages I liked. The final stage is fine, although the cube aesthetic feels like it's more for show than actually contributing to any gameplay, which honestly is how most of the game feels, although admittedly I'm not huge on the aesthetics. They kinda just lack any real personality or identity, so even if on paper they look nice, they don't do anything for me. This game is far from bad but I really don't think it has much substance to back it up, leading to an experience I found to be lacking.
[0] Likes
The bulk of this game is needle with some gimmicks that change your physics, the vast majority of which was very unremarkable. Immediately after clearing the game I've basically forgotten every room in the any% clear, almost none of them stand out and the usage of gimmicks feels very uninspired, it's quite surface level. The secrets are a bit better but still not great, especially the Butterfly one feels like it misses the mark and doesn't have any of the appeal the screen it's based on had. The extra content is the one thing I would say was quite good, particularly Dribix and Wolfie made stages I liked. The final stage is fine, although the cube aesthetic feels like it's more for show than actually contributing to any gameplay, which honestly is how most of the game feels, although admittedly I'm not huge on the aesthetics. They kinda just lack any real personality or identity, so even if on paper they look nice, they don't do anything for me. This game is far from bad but I really don't think it has much substance to back it up, leading to an experience I found to be lacking.
Rating: 6.7
Difficulty: 57
Jul 19, 2024