Delicious Fruit
Download Game Screenshots
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by Xplayerlol
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by tinkopiza
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by Xplayerlol
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by NightShark115
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by Xplayerlol
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by tinkopiza
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by Xplayerlol
Creator's Comments:
7 Reviews:
Xplayerlol
Rating based on Standard mode and normal difficulty.
Brilliant puzzle game made by...OccultCube? Yeah, that's right, the same person that made one of the fangames I despise the most also made one of the fangames I loved the most. Isn't that ironic? I'm so proud for no reason.
So, this is a really well-made and highly difficult 100-floor puzzle game. Just like the name implies, this game is brimming with variety. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen this much variety ever since I played "I wanna Gaze at the Horizon". And it's no wonder. From the highly detailed game manual (Featuring a VERY complete tutorial for beginners!) to in-game references to the very nature of the game itself, this game seems to be highly influenced by Gaze. And that's one hell of a good influence to have!
The game consists of 20 stages, with 5 screens each, no bosses. Each stage spans a moderate set of (often very unorthodox, sometimes even unique) gimmicks, which is then added to previously introduced gimmicks to form increasingly complex puzzles that, at their peak, cannot be currently compared to any other fangame. Yes, I'm including Necoroneko's games in that list. This game's puzzles can get incredibly complex, particularly in the later half of the game, which can be a turn-off for some people. However, I couldn't be happier to find out that such a game exists. I should mention, of course, that high complexity doesn't directly correlate to high quality in a puzzle game. However, I do believe that OccultCube did a great job in making highly complex puzzles that don't feel overly reliant on brute force, instead rewarding the player for any clever insights they might eventually have...For the most part. I will elaborate on this further when I'm talking about the stages individually. And, in my book, that's how you make quality puzzles of high difficulty. We still don't have many of those in fangames. This complexity is matched by the platforming difficulty, which I would compare to Crimson Needle (Floor 92 not included), Contact with Spikes (Hard mode) or SSR2, with a few saves I would directly compare to each of those games. This combination makes this game a brutal challenge both physically and mentally, one I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I would.
In terms of production value, Variety 100 is good. Pretty good, even. For a game that goes through the trouble of naming its stages, I feel like the ambiance is a little weak. The stages do look distinct from each other, but some of them fail to establish an identity of their own. For example, the Doppelganger Cavern has a cavern background, but the tilesets definitely don't match. Likewise, the mechanics don't always look like they belong in their respective area (See stages 8 and 11, for example). This incongruence is made worse by the fact that these mechanics are used across multiple stages, which means that some objects from previous stages do not blend well with the colors of the current stage. Plus, some stages look a little more bland than others, with a single-color background and overly simplistic tilesets. In later areas, that might have been the maker's solution to avoid the color issues I mentioned earlier. It works for stages 18 and 19, which actually look rather pleasant despite their simplicity. On the other hand, stage 20 honestly just looks kinda ugly. Maybe ugly is a bit of a stretch, but definitely not great. Likewise, the music choices are pleasant, but don't always match the visuals of their stage. The title screen and the clear screen are extra bland (No pretty credits scrolling down either). I mean, I'm not that picky about those two aspects, but come on. Sounds like the opposite of the ambiance section of my Gaze review, come to think of it. Still, the visuals and music choices are pretty good (For the most part, and they never fall below 'nice'). The visual and sound effects associated with certain mechanics, coupled with some small details like the jump refreshers changing their orientation depending on the gravity, definitely tell me that there was effort behind this field as well. Another positive is how easily you can tell the gimmicks apart, despite the massive ammount of gimmicks, many of them involving objects with similar, simple geometric shapes. Likewise, no matter how much the screen is filled, it never looks visually polluted, just a little overwhelming at most. Given the complexity of this game, that's also commendable. So yeah, the production value is good. Not amazing, but good.
Edit: I also forgot to mention, but the game has the original Guy's death sound. For a needle game, that's REALLY gross. Ew. At least the musics don't restart.
The game has three difficulty modes. Out of these, "normal" is the only one that really makes sense in my book, but who knows. Likewise, this game has two modes: "Standard" and "Assisted". The Assisted Mode introduces savestates, which can mitigate the platforming difficulty for those that feel like they can't go on. Personally? I advise not using it. Delete it from your folder as soon as you download the game. It just feels like the trigger for a downwards spiral that might ruin your experience. Playing the platforming is half the fun, and even if you tell yourself "I will just use it for this one screen", chances are you will find the next screen even harder and feel tempted to use savestates again. And suddenly, beating the game doesn't feel as fulfilling anymore, even though you only used an in-game tool. I mean, for this particular downwards spiral, I have no personal experience, I could be wrong. It's just my intuition telling me that using savestates is a really bad idea. This game is absolutely humanly possible from start to finish, and I don't think any save gets too unreasonable in terms of difficulty or length, so the use of savestates is dispensable in my book (Even for practice). With that being said, I appreciate that the option is there. Giving the player an option is hardly ever a negative.
Speaking of options, it seems that some puzzles have multiple solutions. Yet, most of the time, these solutions are all more or less even in terms of execution difficulty. Which is great! Having multiple solutions is a great way to reward the player's creativity! Yeah, I said most of the time. Some floors have solutions that are unbeliavibly simple for the stage they are in, both in terms of puzzle difficulty (How hard it was to come up with that route) and platforming difficulty, which leads me to think that these solutions were not intended to exist. We will call these solutions 'Skips', and I'll mention a few examples in the spoiler section. For now, just know that some floors have 'skips', which kind of means you can just forget that floor's existence. Nobody is going to use the intended solution if there's a much simpler solution available - which is why it's the maker's duty to make sure that skips do not exist. With that in mind, I should also mention that skippable floors are somewhat rare in this game, and in terms of level design crimes they rank rather low in my list, so I wouldn't be too harsh here. Just be aware that this is more of a, say, 95-floor game than a 100-floor game.
Finally, there are some extra details worth mentioning. The first of them is the game manual, which includes a summary of the game, basic fangame instructions as well as one or two advanced fangame instructions that might be useful, description of the stages (Featuring in-game difficulty ratings for puzzle and platforming, which works wonders to elevate the tension upon entering a new stage), credits and some extra notes. It's pretty detailed, and rather pleasing visually. I like it. Makes me wish fangame manuals were more common than they actually are. The in-game mechanics are mentioned in the manual, but only described in detail once you reach their respective stage...Most of the time. We'll get to that in time as well, but be aware that there's one section in the game featuring a relatively strange gimmick that should have been explained beforehand but wasn't. Hard to excuse that one. The gimmicks are introduced through a sign at the beginning of their respective stage, but, if you forget the details of one of them, you can open the "Spoilers" folder and check the image. It's a large PNG with the contents of every in-game sign. Very convenient, since it's so easy to forget something in such a complicated game. Finally, I should mention that backing up your save upon clearing the game is a good idea. Why? Uh...Just trust me, for now.
So, I wanna Variety 100 is a really good and really difficult puzzle platformer with its difficulty distributed evenly between both aspects of its gameplay. The gameplay quality is through the roof, but the aesthetic field is not. Don't expect that much of this game in that department. With that in mind, I wanted to talk about each stage separately. Partly because there are some things I want to say about each specific stage, but also because that's how I planned to make this review at first, back when I didn't expect to finish this game. However, just like Ocean Princess, I also feel like there's a lot of value in not reading this section, so that you can be caught by surprise at every stage by their respective gimmicks. There are some real hidden gems out there. With that disclaimer in mind, I'll mark this portion of my review as a spoiler, so that you can choose the option that best suits you.
First off, let me explain what lies ahead. The in-game manual divides the stages in five "areas" (They don't have any name, but I will call them areas). For each stage, I will present its name, its core mechanic(s) and my own thoughts on it. Originally, I was going to present the in-game difficulty for each stage as well, but I don't know, that kind of kills the appeal of the manual. So instead, I will exploit the fact that I disagree with half of the game's difficulty ratings and present my own difficulty ratings for each stage. My idea is that, by looking at the in-game difficulty ratings and comparing to the ones I'm presenting, the player can have a better idea of what to expect from each stage. I normally wouldn't do this, but there are some difficulty ratings I drastically disagree with, so I kinda have to.
Area 1
Comprising the first 25 floors of the game, this is the introductory area of the game. If the manual's difficulty ratings are to be trusted, this is supposed to be the easier section of the game, featuring a low level of difficulty in both ends, with trivial platforming and simple puzzles. Do, however, note that this low level of difficulty is relative to the game. In practice, the puzzles ARE rather simplistic, but the platforming already goes well above average in difficulty.
Stage 1: Plains of the Beginning
Mechanic: Toggle Spike
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 2/10
Puzzle: 0/10
The first stage. Don't take it too lightly, it's close to a 40-50 in difficulty. As the puzzle rating implies, there isn't much thinking involved. Oddly enough, this mechanic is never used again in the game. Ever. I guess it's just hard to make it relevant in a puzzle, rather than just an annoyance, when other mechanics are involved. I'm trying to think of a good way to use it, and I can't find any. The platforming is straightforward, but rather fun. There isn't much else to say.
Stage 2: Iridescent Pathway
Mechanic: Single-use Gravity Coin
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 1/10
Puzzle: 1/10
The first puzzle area of the game. Although floor 10 is the only real puzzle floor. It's nothing groundbreaking, but we are just starting after all. A few things the game doesn't mention:
- Gravity flips have the side effect of heavily increasing the Kid's weight, even before you use them. Keep that in mind, it's important. This mechanic makes some sections very annoying, and it will continue to throughout the whole game. Thankfully, it's harmless most of the time.
- The red gravity flip in floor 10 is a gravity de-flipper, which sets your gravity flip count to 0. I wonder if there's an occasion where it is necessary. I don't think there are any skips in this stage.
- Everybody knows gravity arrows, right? I hope so. The game uses a couple of them in this stage, well before introducing it. They are intuitive, but...why? Why are they here? You could easily use more gravity flippers instead.
Stage 3: Subzero Arctic
Mechanics: Ice Physics; Water3
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 3/10
Puzzle: 0/10
Very straightforward area. I hate ice needle, but the ice is relatively bearable in this stage: There's enough water to make us forget that the ice is there for the most part. The water needle is very fun, and we won't see ice ever again after this. The visuals are not as good as in the previous stages (Background does not mesh well with the tiles), but they're still not bad. They remind me of some Dagger games. Fun stage overall.
Stage 4: Stellar Fortress
Mechanic: Jump Stars
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 4/10
Puzzle: 0/10
Rather straightforward area as well. Although the puzzles are still rather simplistic, the platforming is very inventive, which makes this stage a blast. I love this area. Floor 19 is a highlight and would probably work well as the last save of the stage.
Stage 5: Nocturnal Hills
Mechanic: Gravity Arrows
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 4/10
Puzzle: 1/10
More or less as difficult as Stellar Fortress, the platforming is just as well made and just as fun. I REALLY love the addition of the yellow gravity arrows. When every gravity arrow rotates the screen, it's very easy to give the player a headache. On the other hand, when the gravity arrows don't rotate the screen, it becomes extra difficult to execute somewhat complicated jumps. This stage is the perfect balance between these two aspects: The screen rotating flippers are not overused, but they are enough to always allow the player to setup for the more complicated jumps without straining their eyes.
Area 2:
This is where the game starts to pick up in complexity. In-game difficulty ratings start to reach slightly worrisome numbers. Namely, this is where the game begins to show that it is, in fact, a puzzle game.
Stage 6: Abstract Warehouse
Mechanic: Needle-removing explosives
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 0/10
Puzzle: 4/10
Favorite stage #1
The first real puzzle area of the game, one could say (Backed up by the difficulty rating). The mechanic in this stage is very reminiscent of Gaze's keypick area, but much more fluid and with many more potential uses. Indeed, even past this area, this is one of the game's main gimmicks.
This is one of the must fun gimmicks ever. I cannot overstate how much I love it. I. love. this. It's one of the more unique gimmicks in the game, and it spans some seriously interesting puzzles.
In terms of design, it's closer to "I wanna Keypick 100" than to Gaze's stage 7. Although the rainbow explosives do increase the number of candidate solutions exponentially, the routes that do seem to get somewhere are few and easy to spot. For that same reason, Floor 29, despite looking rather overwhelming, is very fair in my book.
Since I bashed on stage 3's visuals a little, I should take a moment to appreciate this stage's visuals too. The tilesets and background are very simple, but they mesh very well with the multicolored spikes and explosives. It's pretty.
Stage 7: Abandoned Waterworks
Mechanic: Water Melons
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 1/10
This is where the saves start to get...Slightly abnormally long. This new mechanic allows some really lengthy segments to take place in just a short screen. The main sources of difficulty in this stage are the lengthy saves and the awkward physics associated with the green-ish water and that one gimmick that really shouldn't be here. This sounds horrible on paper, but in practice it's done pretty well. It's important to note that, although there's a decent amount of backtracking, the nature of the stage's mechanic makes it so that the platforming is always slightly different when you do need to backtrack, so it doesn't really feel repetitive.
This stage also uses a gimmick from the next stage in F34. It's a very unique gimmick and, as such, it can be complicated to figure out what it does without the in-game guide, so using it before introducing it is just cheap. Still, ignoring that fact, this stage is pretty fun too, save for F35, which has this one annoying segment that requires the player to hug the ceiling and needs to be traversed twice.
Stage 8: Precious Metal Mineshaft
Mechanics: Push blocks; Full jump cherry
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 3/10
Puzzle: 3/10
Full jump cherry is that one gimmick that makes you feel like a beginner again, back when you didn't know that releasing shift earlier would make you jump lower. It limits the platforming in interesting ways, resulting in some surprisingly cool puzzles, for a gimmick that sounds like absolute cancer on paper. I'll take a theoretically bad gimmick that turns out to be good over the opposite any time of the day.
Pushable blocks are a puzzle game staple. This stage focuses on their most basic usages and, at their most basic, there's only so much that can be done with pushable blocks. However, this stage also teases the interactions between pushable blocks and other mechanics - namely gravity flippers, and I really like the way it's done. It's not even a required step in the platforming, it's just something that catches your eye in the background. I'm not sure if it was an intentional introduction or not, but it was clever.
The two mechanics in this stage don't have any particularly incredible synnergy. My theory is that the maker thought that a stage consisting of only one of those gimmicks would end up becoming a little bland - which I agree with. Good decision. Combined, these two mechanics make stage 8 a very entertaining one as well.
In terms of difficulty, this area is surprisingly not bad. The saves are short, the required jumps are not overly intrincate...You do have to think a little outside of the box (heh) once or twice, though.
Stage 9: Central Processing Unit
Mechanic: Math
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 6/10
Puzzle: 4/10
A gigantic difficulty spike in the game, this is where the game starts to get tough. Floor 42, in particular, is kind of terrifying. Hard platforming, thinking outside of the box, several candidate solutions, you name it, this stage has it all. Although, the last save does NOT feel like a last save, by any means. The visuals resemble a calculator, specially with the LED numbers, which is a nice touch. Definitely one of the better-looking areas.
NEVER DIVIDE BY ZERO
Stage 10: Halfway Castle
Mechanic: Balance Platform
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 3/10
Balance platform is a tricky mechanic. It requires a lot of patience and precision to handle, and it often makes saves concerningly long. Originally, I was going to rate its difficulty a tad higher because of Floor 50, but I was looking through Youtube to refresh my memory, and it seems my solution for F50 was heavily overcomplicated, so F50 is WAY easier than I originally thought. I'm stupid. Even then, I would say the platforming difficulty matches Stage 7, just because of the sheer length some saves have. Maybe slightly lower, let's say 4.5/10. Again, creative thinking is required, but by this point of the game that's a given.
Area 3:
Where the second half of the game starts. The numbers start to get absolutely terrifying. It's by this point that the game starts to make callbacks to mechanics from previous stages. Because the puzzles weren't complicated enough. It's also by this point that the puzzle quality explodes, and the mechanics start to get more and more unique.
Stage 11: Doppelganger Cavern
Mechanic: Multiple Kids
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 5/10
Favorite stage #2
Duplicate Kid is a monster of a gimmick. There's just SO MUCH you can do with it, and the game can get incredibly complicated because of it. Besides, even more than Balance Platforms, Duplicate Kids must be handled with the utmost care and, as such, saves in this stage are abnormally long. By this point, the overly lengthy saves already became the norm. If you've gotten this far, the length of the saves won't overpower you. Not yet. These saves are not much longer than, say, F50. They are, however, much more intrincate. In fact, this gimmick is so complicated, there are aspects of some saves that I can't tell if I should attribute to platforming difficulty or to puzzle difficulty. There aren't that many complicated maneuvers required, but it's so unnatural to control multiple Kids at the same time, I cannot give this area a lower platforming difficulty.
Just like explosives, it's a vital gimmick for the rest of the game, so you should take your time and get used to it. Luckily, I would say that Stage 11 already does a good job with preparing the player to use this mechanic for the rest of the game.
I also want to give a special mention to F53 and F55. Those two floors are absolute masterpieces. But F55 introduces ANOTHER gimmick that never gets explained! Why can't I just praise good design in a floor in peace? Why do these things have to keep happening? Anyway, on the other hand, F54 is kind of a freebie. I wouldn't mind if it was a tad harder.
Stage 12: Integrated Circuit Dungeon
Mechanic: Logics
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 6/10
Favorite stage #3
Logic gates are another highly unique mechanic. Like math, it's simple on paper, but in-game it's a spawn of Cthulhu. Unlike the previous stage, both difficulty ratings are rather easy to grasp. The platforming itself is rather simple. The difficulty comes mostly from the length of the saves, with a large amount of slightly tricky jumps. Other mechanics barely make an appearance, F60 being the only one to feature a mechanic from another stage. In terms of puzzle difficulty, digital circuits are kinda insane. There's already some difficulty derived from understanding the circuits, but the main issue is finding the correct route by activating the gates in the correct order. I believe there's only one solution for all puzzles in this stage, but I could be wrong.
I also want to take a moment to appreciate the visuals in this area. I mean, the circuits are rather bizarre and I'm still not sure I understand that spawn of Satan connected to the green block in F56 (Is that a cycle? Wat?). But I really like how the circuits are visually presented in general, specially when they take more elaborate forms - see F57, for example.
Stage 13: Sliding Tiles
Mechanic: Sliding Puzzle
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 7/10
I have to say, the creativity for stage names must have died during this area. I also have to admit, I don't really like this area that much. That's because I really don't understand it. During F61 and F62, I was just absolutely confused from start to finish. With that out of the way, I have to say, this stage is actually kind of well-made. F61 and F62 give the player time to get used to this strange gimmick (Did we really need two needleless floors, though? idk), and then the actually difficult puzzles come from F63 onwards.
Anyway, this is one crazy gimmick. It's like Gaze's stage 6, but on steroids. On heavy steroids. F63 and F65 are difficulty highlights for being crazy long and full of choke-able jumps (For F65, I'm going off my notes, I don't remember it that well), while also being difficult to solve.
Not much to say besides that. It's a highly creative gimmick that results in crazy long saves, same as the previous four. The platforming is kinda fun. And maybe F62 shouldn't exist.
Stage 14: Warped Prelude
Mechanic: Teleport Coin
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 6/10
Puzzle: 6/10
Favorite stage #4?
This is the area where the puzzle complexity is taken up by a notch. That's because we already have a decently large baggage of mechanics to choose from. Stage 11 had already integrated a couple gimmicks from previous areas, but Stage 14 is on a whole new level. This stage also introduces Teleport Coins, a mechanic similar to dash items (which are a lot more common), but with a much wider range of usages. The result is a very well crafted stage with a wide range of really, REALLY interesting puzzles. This is where the game starts to get extra-good in my opinion. Quick shout-out to F68 for big brain puzzles.
On a side note, F70 seems to have a skip but my notes are too vague to tell for sure.
Stage 15: First Horizon
Mechanic: -
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 10/10
Puzzle: 0/10
The closing stage for Area 3. It's visibly inspired by I wanna Gaze at the Horizon's stage 1: It's a Uhuhu-like needle stage, with no gimmicks involved, but using several geometric shapes for spikes, rather than just triangles. Except, it's obviously bajillions of times harder. I went into it with high expectations...and it was kinda disappointing.
So, First Horizon is a pure needle interlude. It acts as a test of sorts, to see if you're ready for the final segment of the game, but man, that test is harder than nearly everything else past this point, like, what? This area strongly reminds me of Crimson Needle (here's the CN1 comparison) - not quite the longer saves like F81, but the short saves consisting of a handful of odd and REALLY complicated jumps, like F78. Looking at the in-game difficulty ratings, we were supposed to have a gradual platforming difficulty increase peaking with this stage. In practice, there was a nearly flat line, and then this stage is a gigantic difficulty spike.
Anyway, besides the difficulty curve, this stage doesn't do anything obviously wrong. The jumps aren't generic, there's no 'hardest jump at the end of the save' bs as far as I remember, it's just that there's a good number of gross jumps along the way. My wrists started hurting like hell after just a few floors. And it's a lot harder to say what makes a jump 'gross' as a general rule. I'm looking at my screenshot of F71 and my wrists already started hurting again. It reminds me of I wanna Contact with Spikes (Hard Mode).
So yeah, this stage is a huge platforming roadblock. Beware. Hopefully you like it more than I did.
Area 4:
The last batch of stages. The majority of the most brutal segments in the game is here. The majority of the most creative segments in the game is also here. Welcome.
Stage 16: Wang's Paradise
Mechanic: Wang Tiles
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 1/10
Puzzle: 10/10
A warm welcome to Area 4. Wang Tiles is an interesting gimmick. It's like a graph coloring problem, but neighboring edges must have the SAME color. Do note that you need to make your screen humanly possible, not just satisfying the puzzle. It's pretty creative, and I really enjoyed it. It looks rather reliant on brute force, but there's a lot of clever insights you can have that will guide you in the direction of a correct solution. Except for Floor 80. No amount of insights for Floor 80 saved me from needing to spend a lot of time using brute force in the end - although I'm certain it would have taken me a lot longer without these insights.
Anyway, I really like this stage (F80 not included). Including the visuals. The screen looks so pretty with all these multicolored tile containing monochrome blocks and spikes.
A few notes:
- I...I really don't understand the in-game platforming rating for this one. I can guarantee that every floor has a solution of difficulty below 40.
- This area introduces another gimmick that never gets an in-game explanation, those 'targets' you need to collect to reach the next screen. It's intuitive but, like...Why?
- When you touch a spike, you teleport to the beginning of the screen, rather than dying. That's because pressing 'R' resets the puzzle. But it's muscle memory for us to press 'R' after dying. Until you get used to this stage, there's a good chance that you will suffer a lot. I recommend taking screenshots once you solve every puzzle.
- F80 not included, the puzzle difficulty would be around 6/10. These puzzles are slightly easier than sliding tiles imo.
Stage 17: Energetic Factory
Mechanic: Jump refreshers
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 8/10
Puzzle: 8/10
Jump refreshers done right. Actually, jump refreshers done best. It's just a really fun stage where you need to collect all jump refreshers (Featuring some rare types of jump refreshers). It's way more complicated than it sounds, and the platforming is really difficult to match (F83 is pretty crazy).
F85 is a complete shift in tone from the rest of the stage, and it's the main reason for the high puzzle difficulty rating (The other floors would be a 5/10 to 6/10). It's pretty creative, and pretty complicated too. It's torture, but I liked it. Fun stage overall.
Stage 18: Ethereal Plane
Mechanic: Transmutable block
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 9/10
Puzzle: 8/10
The beginning of the end. These last 15 floors are the final segment of the game, and also the final stretch of difficulty.
Visually, it's simplistic, but rather nice. It's probably one the stages whose visuals most closely match its name. Nice.
Gameplay-wise, this stage is galaxy brain from the get go. Transmutable block is a mechanic with lots of potential, and this stage draws out a lot of that potential. It's also by this point that you realize that yes, the saves could still grow EVEN LONGER.
A few notes:
- The stage gimmick works as follows: The large circles give you a bullet that can transform transmutable blocks into a specific item that depends on the circle's color. The stage description presents five different colors, but there's a sixth color (Gray) that appears in the very first floor and never gets explained. I'm...really trying my hardest to defend this game here.
- F88 is absolutely skippable. Like, there's no way that 'that' was the intended solution.
- F90 is REALLY difficult. That's our 9/10 platforming (Maybe 8.5/10 is more adequate). And pretty clever too.
- This is the first 8+ difficulty puzzle stage that gathers its difficulty from finding a route through the gimmick segments. The previous stages all had their hardest puzzle segments come from non-platforming elements.
Stage 19: Physics Lab
Mechanic: Physics modifier
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 9/10
Puzzle: 9/10
Favorite stage #5
This stage is sheer madness. It's every bit of stage 18's complexity, but with modified physics to make it even more complex. Duplicate kids + Modified physics + Gravity arrows + Jump stars + Transmutable blocks is one hell of a combination. It's interesting when you think about it. Modified physics are the mechanic closest to common in the entire second half of this game. But when you combine it with every gimmick from the previous stages, there's just SO MANY more possibilities. It's beautiful. This is where the game peaks in puzzle design. The song is also a banger.
A few notes:
- I really, REALLY like F91. It's just the right mix of complex, difficult and creative. In fact, F91 is also probably the hardest floor in the stage.
- Did the game use bullet blockers before F91? I hope so. It would be REALLY cheap to introduce them in F91, where they are such a vital part of the puzzle.
- F92 and F95 are both skippable. The skips are not as trivial as F88 (F95 is kinda creative, even), but still well below the difficulty of the other saves in the area (And only using half of the mechanics on screen).
- F94 makes the player do a quasi-diagonal with enhanced speed, which makes it absolute cancer because good luck trying to do that jump consistently.
Stage 20: Final Frontier
Mechanic: Needle-block polymer
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 10/10
Puzzle: 9/10
I feel my IQ increasing just from reading these gimmick names by this point. Anyway, we are here. This is the last stage. Surprisingly, I would say that this stage is easier than Physics Lab. Every save from the Lab from F91 to F94 took me a day each. Meanwhile, I breezed from F96 to F100 in the same day.
Nevertheless, I think that this stage is just as creative as stage 19. The core mechanic is very interesting, and it features alternative usages of previous stage gimmicks that we hadn't seen yet. It's a fitting final area.
The numbers don't add up, right? Yeah, that's because F100 is very much well suited to be the final challenge of this game. It's very, VERY hard. Partly because of the absurd length, partly because of the several jumps that don't look complicated but actually are really complicated scattered through the save. I would compare it to SSR2's final save (Here's the SSR2 comparison). Actually, it's probably a little more difficult. It's definitely longer. With puzzle elements to boot. F100 is really difficult, and I wouldn't be surprised if it became a roadblock for some people. But by now you should be used to roadblocks. YOU. CAN. DO. IT.
So, now that you've beaten the game, I want to talk about the extra stage before closing the spoiler tab. It doesn't exist. Here's the thing: The readme.pdf file will say that it exists, but the more recent readme.txt confirms that it doesn't. This is why I told you to back up your save after beating the game. Entering the fake 'extra' portal will send you to a certain place that will eventually land you back on F44. If you save in there, you are screwed: You can't go back. Gross.
Long story short, this is a really good puzzle platformer and a really unique experience. I did mention a good number of issues that ate some of rating points, but none of them is even close to gameplay-breaking (Save for stage 15's wrist shenanigans, maybe). As of now, this genre of hard puzzle-oriented fangames only has a few members, and I wanna Variety 100 is an amazing addition to it, despite its shortcomings. Highly recommended. Which is rather awkward when the author himself is condemning his game in the download page. Boo.
[5] Likes
Brilliant puzzle game made by...OccultCube? Yeah, that's right, the same person that made one of the fangames I despise the most also made one of the fangames I loved the most. Isn't that ironic? I'm so proud for no reason.
So, this is a really well-made and highly difficult 100-floor puzzle game. Just like the name implies, this game is brimming with variety. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen this much variety ever since I played "I wanna Gaze at the Horizon". And it's no wonder. From the highly detailed game manual (Featuring a VERY complete tutorial for beginners!) to in-game references to the very nature of the game itself, this game seems to be highly influenced by Gaze. And that's one hell of a good influence to have!
The game consists of 20 stages, with 5 screens each, no bosses. Each stage spans a moderate set of (often very unorthodox, sometimes even unique) gimmicks, which is then added to previously introduced gimmicks to form increasingly complex puzzles that, at their peak, cannot be currently compared to any other fangame. Yes, I'm including Necoroneko's games in that list. This game's puzzles can get incredibly complex, particularly in the later half of the game, which can be a turn-off for some people. However, I couldn't be happier to find out that such a game exists. I should mention, of course, that high complexity doesn't directly correlate to high quality in a puzzle game. However, I do believe that OccultCube did a great job in making highly complex puzzles that don't feel overly reliant on brute force, instead rewarding the player for any clever insights they might eventually have...For the most part. I will elaborate on this further when I'm talking about the stages individually. And, in my book, that's how you make quality puzzles of high difficulty. We still don't have many of those in fangames. This complexity is matched by the platforming difficulty, which I would compare to Crimson Needle (Floor 92 not included), Contact with Spikes (Hard mode) or SSR2, with a few saves I would directly compare to each of those games. This combination makes this game a brutal challenge both physically and mentally, one I enjoyed a lot more than I thought I would.
In terms of production value, Variety 100 is good. Pretty good, even. For a game that goes through the trouble of naming its stages, I feel like the ambiance is a little weak. The stages do look distinct from each other, but some of them fail to establish an identity of their own. For example, the Doppelganger Cavern has a cavern background, but the tilesets definitely don't match. Likewise, the mechanics don't always look like they belong in their respective area (See stages 8 and 11, for example). This incongruence is made worse by the fact that these mechanics are used across multiple stages, which means that some objects from previous stages do not blend well with the colors of the current stage. Plus, some stages look a little more bland than others, with a single-color background and overly simplistic tilesets. In later areas, that might have been the maker's solution to avoid the color issues I mentioned earlier. It works for stages 18 and 19, which actually look rather pleasant despite their simplicity. On the other hand, stage 20 honestly just looks kinda ugly. Maybe ugly is a bit of a stretch, but definitely not great. Likewise, the music choices are pleasant, but don't always match the visuals of their stage. The title screen and the clear screen are extra bland (No pretty credits scrolling down either). I mean, I'm not that picky about those two aspects, but come on. Sounds like the opposite of the ambiance section of my Gaze review, come to think of it. Still, the visuals and music choices are pretty good (For the most part, and they never fall below 'nice'). The visual and sound effects associated with certain mechanics, coupled with some small details like the jump refreshers changing their orientation depending on the gravity, definitely tell me that there was effort behind this field as well. Another positive is how easily you can tell the gimmicks apart, despite the massive ammount of gimmicks, many of them involving objects with similar, simple geometric shapes. Likewise, no matter how much the screen is filled, it never looks visually polluted, just a little overwhelming at most. Given the complexity of this game, that's also commendable. So yeah, the production value is good. Not amazing, but good.
Edit: I also forgot to mention, but the game has the original Guy's death sound. For a needle game, that's REALLY gross. Ew. At least the musics don't restart.
The game has three difficulty modes. Out of these, "normal" is the only one that really makes sense in my book, but who knows. Likewise, this game has two modes: "Standard" and "Assisted". The Assisted Mode introduces savestates, which can mitigate the platforming difficulty for those that feel like they can't go on. Personally? I advise not using it. Delete it from your folder as soon as you download the game. It just feels like the trigger for a downwards spiral that might ruin your experience. Playing the platforming is half the fun, and even if you tell yourself "I will just use it for this one screen", chances are you will find the next screen even harder and feel tempted to use savestates again. And suddenly, beating the game doesn't feel as fulfilling anymore, even though you only used an in-game tool. I mean, for this particular downwards spiral, I have no personal experience, I could be wrong. It's just my intuition telling me that using savestates is a really bad idea. This game is absolutely humanly possible from start to finish, and I don't think any save gets too unreasonable in terms of difficulty or length, so the use of savestates is dispensable in my book (Even for practice). With that being said, I appreciate that the option is there. Giving the player an option is hardly ever a negative.
Speaking of options, it seems that some puzzles have multiple solutions. Yet, most of the time, these solutions are all more or less even in terms of execution difficulty. Which is great! Having multiple solutions is a great way to reward the player's creativity! Yeah, I said most of the time. Some floors have solutions that are unbeliavibly simple for the stage they are in, both in terms of puzzle difficulty (How hard it was to come up with that route) and platforming difficulty, which leads me to think that these solutions were not intended to exist. We will call these solutions 'Skips', and I'll mention a few examples in the spoiler section. For now, just know that some floors have 'skips', which kind of means you can just forget that floor's existence. Nobody is going to use the intended solution if there's a much simpler solution available - which is why it's the maker's duty to make sure that skips do not exist. With that in mind, I should also mention that skippable floors are somewhat rare in this game, and in terms of level design crimes they rank rather low in my list, so I wouldn't be too harsh here. Just be aware that this is more of a, say, 95-floor game than a 100-floor game.
Finally, there are some extra details worth mentioning. The first of them is the game manual, which includes a summary of the game, basic fangame instructions as well as one or two advanced fangame instructions that might be useful, description of the stages (Featuring in-game difficulty ratings for puzzle and platforming, which works wonders to elevate the tension upon entering a new stage), credits and some extra notes. It's pretty detailed, and rather pleasing visually. I like it. Makes me wish fangame manuals were more common than they actually are. The in-game mechanics are mentioned in the manual, but only described in detail once you reach their respective stage...Most of the time. We'll get to that in time as well, but be aware that there's one section in the game featuring a relatively strange gimmick that should have been explained beforehand but wasn't. Hard to excuse that one. The gimmicks are introduced through a sign at the beginning of their respective stage, but, if you forget the details of one of them, you can open the "Spoilers" folder and check the image. It's a large PNG with the contents of every in-game sign. Very convenient, since it's so easy to forget something in such a complicated game. Finally, I should mention that backing up your save upon clearing the game is a good idea. Why? Uh...Just trust me, for now.
So, I wanna Variety 100 is a really good and really difficult puzzle platformer with its difficulty distributed evenly between both aspects of its gameplay. The gameplay quality is through the roof, but the aesthetic field is not. Don't expect that much of this game in that department. With that in mind, I wanted to talk about each stage separately. Partly because there are some things I want to say about each specific stage, but also because that's how I planned to make this review at first, back when I didn't expect to finish this game. However, just like Ocean Princess, I also feel like there's a lot of value in not reading this section, so that you can be caught by surprise at every stage by their respective gimmicks. There are some real hidden gems out there. With that disclaimer in mind, I'll mark this portion of my review as a spoiler, so that you can choose the option that best suits you.
First off, let me explain what lies ahead. The in-game manual divides the stages in five "areas" (They don't have any name, but I will call them areas). For each stage, I will present its name, its core mechanic(s) and my own thoughts on it. Originally, I was going to present the in-game difficulty for each stage as well, but I don't know, that kind of kills the appeal of the manual. So instead, I will exploit the fact that I disagree with half of the game's difficulty ratings and present my own difficulty ratings for each stage. My idea is that, by looking at the in-game difficulty ratings and comparing to the ones I'm presenting, the player can have a better idea of what to expect from each stage. I normally wouldn't do this, but there are some difficulty ratings I drastically disagree with, so I kinda have to.
Area 1
Comprising the first 25 floors of the game, this is the introductory area of the game. If the manual's difficulty ratings are to be trusted, this is supposed to be the easier section of the game, featuring a low level of difficulty in both ends, with trivial platforming and simple puzzles. Do, however, note that this low level of difficulty is relative to the game. In practice, the puzzles ARE rather simplistic, but the platforming already goes well above average in difficulty.
Stage 1: Plains of the Beginning
Mechanic: Toggle Spike
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 2/10
Puzzle: 0/10
The first stage. Don't take it too lightly, it's close to a 40-50 in difficulty. As the puzzle rating implies, there isn't much thinking involved. Oddly enough, this mechanic is never used again in the game. Ever. I guess it's just hard to make it relevant in a puzzle, rather than just an annoyance, when other mechanics are involved. I'm trying to think of a good way to use it, and I can't find any. The platforming is straightforward, but rather fun. There isn't much else to say.
Stage 2: Iridescent Pathway
Mechanic: Single-use Gravity Coin
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 1/10
Puzzle: 1/10
The first puzzle area of the game. Although floor 10 is the only real puzzle floor. It's nothing groundbreaking, but we are just starting after all. A few things the game doesn't mention:
- Gravity flips have the side effect of heavily increasing the Kid's weight, even before you use them. Keep that in mind, it's important. This mechanic makes some sections very annoying, and it will continue to throughout the whole game. Thankfully, it's harmless most of the time.
- The red gravity flip in floor 10 is a gravity de-flipper, which sets your gravity flip count to 0. I wonder if there's an occasion where it is necessary. I don't think there are any skips in this stage.
- Everybody knows gravity arrows, right? I hope so. The game uses a couple of them in this stage, well before introducing it. They are intuitive, but...why? Why are they here? You could easily use more gravity flippers instead.
Stage 3: Subzero Arctic
Mechanics: Ice Physics; Water3
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 3/10
Puzzle: 0/10
Very straightforward area. I hate ice needle, but the ice is relatively bearable in this stage: There's enough water to make us forget that the ice is there for the most part. The water needle is very fun, and we won't see ice ever again after this. The visuals are not as good as in the previous stages (Background does not mesh well with the tiles), but they're still not bad. They remind me of some Dagger games. Fun stage overall.
Stage 4: Stellar Fortress
Mechanic: Jump Stars
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 4/10
Puzzle: 0/10
Rather straightforward area as well. Although the puzzles are still rather simplistic, the platforming is very inventive, which makes this stage a blast. I love this area. Floor 19 is a highlight and would probably work well as the last save of the stage.
Stage 5: Nocturnal Hills
Mechanic: Gravity Arrows
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 4/10
Puzzle: 1/10
More or less as difficult as Stellar Fortress, the platforming is just as well made and just as fun. I REALLY love the addition of the yellow gravity arrows. When every gravity arrow rotates the screen, it's very easy to give the player a headache. On the other hand, when the gravity arrows don't rotate the screen, it becomes extra difficult to execute somewhat complicated jumps. This stage is the perfect balance between these two aspects: The screen rotating flippers are not overused, but they are enough to always allow the player to setup for the more complicated jumps without straining their eyes.
Area 2:
This is where the game starts to pick up in complexity. In-game difficulty ratings start to reach slightly worrisome numbers. Namely, this is where the game begins to show that it is, in fact, a puzzle game.
Stage 6: Abstract Warehouse
Mechanic: Needle-removing explosives
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 0/10
Puzzle: 4/10
Favorite stage #1
The first real puzzle area of the game, one could say (Backed up by the difficulty rating). The mechanic in this stage is very reminiscent of Gaze's keypick area, but much more fluid and with many more potential uses. Indeed, even past this area, this is one of the game's main gimmicks.
This is one of the must fun gimmicks ever. I cannot overstate how much I love it. I. love. this. It's one of the more unique gimmicks in the game, and it spans some seriously interesting puzzles.
In terms of design, it's closer to "I wanna Keypick 100" than to Gaze's stage 7. Although the rainbow explosives do increase the number of candidate solutions exponentially, the routes that do seem to get somewhere are few and easy to spot. For that same reason, Floor 29, despite looking rather overwhelming, is very fair in my book.
Since I bashed on stage 3's visuals a little, I should take a moment to appreciate this stage's visuals too. The tilesets and background are very simple, but they mesh very well with the multicolored spikes and explosives. It's pretty.
Stage 7: Abandoned Waterworks
Mechanic: Water Melons
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 1/10
This is where the saves start to get...Slightly abnormally long. This new mechanic allows some really lengthy segments to take place in just a short screen. The main sources of difficulty in this stage are the lengthy saves and the awkward physics associated with the green-ish water and that one gimmick that really shouldn't be here. This sounds horrible on paper, but in practice it's done pretty well. It's important to note that, although there's a decent amount of backtracking, the nature of the stage's mechanic makes it so that the platforming is always slightly different when you do need to backtrack, so it doesn't really feel repetitive.
This stage also uses a gimmick from the next stage in F34. It's a very unique gimmick and, as such, it can be complicated to figure out what it does without the in-game guide, so using it before introducing it is just cheap. Still, ignoring that fact, this stage is pretty fun too, save for F35, which has this one annoying segment that requires the player to hug the ceiling and needs to be traversed twice.
Stage 8: Precious Metal Mineshaft
Mechanics: Push blocks; Full jump cherry
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 3/10
Puzzle: 3/10
Full jump cherry is that one gimmick that makes you feel like a beginner again, back when you didn't know that releasing shift earlier would make you jump lower. It limits the platforming in interesting ways, resulting in some surprisingly cool puzzles, for a gimmick that sounds like absolute cancer on paper. I'll take a theoretically bad gimmick that turns out to be good over the opposite any time of the day.
Pushable blocks are a puzzle game staple. This stage focuses on their most basic usages and, at their most basic, there's only so much that can be done with pushable blocks. However, this stage also teases the interactions between pushable blocks and other mechanics - namely gravity flippers, and I really like the way it's done. It's not even a required step in the platforming, it's just something that catches your eye in the background. I'm not sure if it was an intentional introduction or not, but it was clever.
The two mechanics in this stage don't have any particularly incredible synnergy. My theory is that the maker thought that a stage consisting of only one of those gimmicks would end up becoming a little bland - which I agree with. Good decision. Combined, these two mechanics make stage 8 a very entertaining one as well.
In terms of difficulty, this area is surprisingly not bad. The saves are short, the required jumps are not overly intrincate...You do have to think a little outside of the box (heh) once or twice, though.
Stage 9: Central Processing Unit
Mechanic: Math
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 6/10
Puzzle: 4/10
A gigantic difficulty spike in the game, this is where the game starts to get tough. Floor 42, in particular, is kind of terrifying. Hard platforming, thinking outside of the box, several candidate solutions, you name it, this stage has it all. Although, the last save does NOT feel like a last save, by any means. The visuals resemble a calculator, specially with the LED numbers, which is a nice touch. Definitely one of the better-looking areas.
NEVER DIVIDE BY ZERO
Stage 10: Halfway Castle
Mechanic: Balance Platform
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 3/10
Balance platform is a tricky mechanic. It requires a lot of patience and precision to handle, and it often makes saves concerningly long. Originally, I was going to rate its difficulty a tad higher because of Floor 50, but I was looking through Youtube to refresh my memory, and it seems my solution for F50 was heavily overcomplicated, so F50 is WAY easier than I originally thought. I'm stupid. Even then, I would say the platforming difficulty matches Stage 7, just because of the sheer length some saves have. Maybe slightly lower, let's say 4.5/10. Again, creative thinking is required, but by this point of the game that's a given.
Area 3:
Where the second half of the game starts. The numbers start to get absolutely terrifying. It's by this point that the game starts to make callbacks to mechanics from previous stages. Because the puzzles weren't complicated enough. It's also by this point that the puzzle quality explodes, and the mechanics start to get more and more unique.
Stage 11: Doppelganger Cavern
Mechanic: Multiple Kids
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 5/10
Favorite stage #2
Duplicate Kid is a monster of a gimmick. There's just SO MUCH you can do with it, and the game can get incredibly complicated because of it. Besides, even more than Balance Platforms, Duplicate Kids must be handled with the utmost care and, as such, saves in this stage are abnormally long. By this point, the overly lengthy saves already became the norm. If you've gotten this far, the length of the saves won't overpower you. Not yet. These saves are not much longer than, say, F50. They are, however, much more intrincate. In fact, this gimmick is so complicated, there are aspects of some saves that I can't tell if I should attribute to platforming difficulty or to puzzle difficulty. There aren't that many complicated maneuvers required, but it's so unnatural to control multiple Kids at the same time, I cannot give this area a lower platforming difficulty.
Just like explosives, it's a vital gimmick for the rest of the game, so you should take your time and get used to it. Luckily, I would say that Stage 11 already does a good job with preparing the player to use this mechanic for the rest of the game.
I also want to give a special mention to F53 and F55. Those two floors are absolute masterpieces. But F55 introduces ANOTHER gimmick that never gets explained! Why can't I just praise good design in a floor in peace? Why do these things have to keep happening? Anyway, on the other hand, F54 is kind of a freebie. I wouldn't mind if it was a tad harder.
Stage 12: Integrated Circuit Dungeon
Mechanic: Logics
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 6/10
Favorite stage #3
Logic gates are another highly unique mechanic. Like math, it's simple on paper, but in-game it's a spawn of Cthulhu. Unlike the previous stage, both difficulty ratings are rather easy to grasp. The platforming itself is rather simple. The difficulty comes mostly from the length of the saves, with a large amount of slightly tricky jumps. Other mechanics barely make an appearance, F60 being the only one to feature a mechanic from another stage. In terms of puzzle difficulty, digital circuits are kinda insane. There's already some difficulty derived from understanding the circuits, but the main issue is finding the correct route by activating the gates in the correct order. I believe there's only one solution for all puzzles in this stage, but I could be wrong.
I also want to take a moment to appreciate the visuals in this area. I mean, the circuits are rather bizarre and I'm still not sure I understand that spawn of Satan connected to the green block in F56 (Is that a cycle? Wat?). But I really like how the circuits are visually presented in general, specially when they take more elaborate forms - see F57, for example.
Stage 13: Sliding Tiles
Mechanic: Sliding Puzzle
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 5/10
Puzzle: 7/10
I have to say, the creativity for stage names must have died during this area. I also have to admit, I don't really like this area that much. That's because I really don't understand it. During F61 and F62, I was just absolutely confused from start to finish. With that out of the way, I have to say, this stage is actually kind of well-made. F61 and F62 give the player time to get used to this strange gimmick (Did we really need two needleless floors, though? idk), and then the actually difficult puzzles come from F63 onwards.
Anyway, this is one crazy gimmick. It's like Gaze's stage 6, but on steroids. On heavy steroids. F63 and F65 are difficulty highlights for being crazy long and full of choke-able jumps (For F65, I'm going off my notes, I don't remember it that well), while also being difficult to solve.
Not much to say besides that. It's a highly creative gimmick that results in crazy long saves, same as the previous four. The platforming is kinda fun. And maybe F62 shouldn't exist.
Stage 14: Warped Prelude
Mechanic: Teleport Coin
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 6/10
Puzzle: 6/10
Favorite stage #4?
This is the area where the puzzle complexity is taken up by a notch. That's because we already have a decently large baggage of mechanics to choose from. Stage 11 had already integrated a couple gimmicks from previous areas, but Stage 14 is on a whole new level. This stage also introduces Teleport Coins, a mechanic similar to dash items (which are a lot more common), but with a much wider range of usages. The result is a very well crafted stage with a wide range of really, REALLY interesting puzzles. This is where the game starts to get extra-good in my opinion. Quick shout-out to F68 for big brain puzzles.
On a side note, F70 seems to have a skip but my notes are too vague to tell for sure.
Stage 15: First Horizon
Mechanic: -
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 10/10
Puzzle: 0/10
The closing stage for Area 3. It's visibly inspired by I wanna Gaze at the Horizon's stage 1: It's a Uhuhu-like needle stage, with no gimmicks involved, but using several geometric shapes for spikes, rather than just triangles. Except, it's obviously bajillions of times harder. I went into it with high expectations...and it was kinda disappointing.
So, First Horizon is a pure needle interlude. It acts as a test of sorts, to see if you're ready for the final segment of the game, but man, that test is harder than nearly everything else past this point, like, what? This area strongly reminds me of Crimson Needle (here's the CN1 comparison) - not quite the longer saves like F81, but the short saves consisting of a handful of odd and REALLY complicated jumps, like F78. Looking at the in-game difficulty ratings, we were supposed to have a gradual platforming difficulty increase peaking with this stage. In practice, there was a nearly flat line, and then this stage is a gigantic difficulty spike.
Anyway, besides the difficulty curve, this stage doesn't do anything obviously wrong. The jumps aren't generic, there's no 'hardest jump at the end of the save' bs as far as I remember, it's just that there's a good number of gross jumps along the way. My wrists started hurting like hell after just a few floors. And it's a lot harder to say what makes a jump 'gross' as a general rule. I'm looking at my screenshot of F71 and my wrists already started hurting again. It reminds me of I wanna Contact with Spikes (Hard Mode).
So yeah, this stage is a huge platforming roadblock. Beware. Hopefully you like it more than I did.
Area 4:
The last batch of stages. The majority of the most brutal segments in the game is here. The majority of the most creative segments in the game is also here. Welcome.
Stage 16: Wang's Paradise
Mechanic: Wang Tiles
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 1/10
Puzzle: 10/10
A warm welcome to Area 4. Wang Tiles is an interesting gimmick. It's like a graph coloring problem, but neighboring edges must have the SAME color. Do note that you need to make your screen humanly possible, not just satisfying the puzzle. It's pretty creative, and I really enjoyed it. It looks rather reliant on brute force, but there's a lot of clever insights you can have that will guide you in the direction of a correct solution. Except for Floor 80. No amount of insights for Floor 80 saved me from needing to spend a lot of time using brute force in the end - although I'm certain it would have taken me a lot longer without these insights.
Anyway, I really like this stage (F80 not included). Including the visuals. The screen looks so pretty with all these multicolored tile containing monochrome blocks and spikes.
A few notes:
- I...I really don't understand the in-game platforming rating for this one. I can guarantee that every floor has a solution of difficulty below 40.
- This area introduces another gimmick that never gets an in-game explanation, those 'targets' you need to collect to reach the next screen. It's intuitive but, like...Why?
- When you touch a spike, you teleport to the beginning of the screen, rather than dying. That's because pressing 'R' resets the puzzle. But it's muscle memory for us to press 'R' after dying. Until you get used to this stage, there's a good chance that you will suffer a lot. I recommend taking screenshots once you solve every puzzle.
- F80 not included, the puzzle difficulty would be around 6/10. These puzzles are slightly easier than sliding tiles imo.
Stage 17: Energetic Factory
Mechanic: Jump refreshers
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 8/10
Puzzle: 8/10
Jump refreshers done right. Actually, jump refreshers done best. It's just a really fun stage where you need to collect all jump refreshers (Featuring some rare types of jump refreshers). It's way more complicated than it sounds, and the platforming is really difficult to match (F83 is pretty crazy).
F85 is a complete shift in tone from the rest of the stage, and it's the main reason for the high puzzle difficulty rating (The other floors would be a 5/10 to 6/10). It's pretty creative, and pretty complicated too. It's torture, but I liked it. Fun stage overall.
Stage 18: Ethereal Plane
Mechanic: Transmutable block
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 9/10
Puzzle: 8/10
The beginning of the end. These last 15 floors are the final segment of the game, and also the final stretch of difficulty.
Visually, it's simplistic, but rather nice. It's probably one the stages whose visuals most closely match its name. Nice.
Gameplay-wise, this stage is galaxy brain from the get go. Transmutable block is a mechanic with lots of potential, and this stage draws out a lot of that potential. It's also by this point that you realize that yes, the saves could still grow EVEN LONGER.
A few notes:
- The stage gimmick works as follows: The large circles give you a bullet that can transform transmutable blocks into a specific item that depends on the circle's color. The stage description presents five different colors, but there's a sixth color (Gray) that appears in the very first floor and never gets explained. I'm...really trying my hardest to defend this game here.
- F88 is absolutely skippable. Like, there's no way that 'that' was the intended solution.
- F90 is REALLY difficult. That's our 9/10 platforming (Maybe 8.5/10 is more adequate). And pretty clever too.
- This is the first 8+ difficulty puzzle stage that gathers its difficulty from finding a route through the gimmick segments. The previous stages all had their hardest puzzle segments come from non-platforming elements.
Stage 19: Physics Lab
Mechanic: Physics modifier
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 9/10
Puzzle: 9/10
Favorite stage #5
This stage is sheer madness. It's every bit of stage 18's complexity, but with modified physics to make it even more complex. Duplicate kids + Modified physics + Gravity arrows + Jump stars + Transmutable blocks is one hell of a combination. It's interesting when you think about it. Modified physics are the mechanic closest to common in the entire second half of this game. But when you combine it with every gimmick from the previous stages, there's just SO MANY more possibilities. It's beautiful. This is where the game peaks in puzzle design. The song is also a banger.
A few notes:
- I really, REALLY like F91. It's just the right mix of complex, difficult and creative. In fact, F91 is also probably the hardest floor in the stage.
- Did the game use bullet blockers before F91? I hope so. It would be REALLY cheap to introduce them in F91, where they are such a vital part of the puzzle.
- F92 and F95 are both skippable. The skips are not as trivial as F88 (F95 is kinda creative, even), but still well below the difficulty of the other saves in the area (And only using half of the mechanics on screen).
- F94 makes the player do a quasi-diagonal with enhanced speed, which makes it absolute cancer because good luck trying to do that jump consistently.
Stage 20: Final Frontier
Mechanic: Needle-block polymer
Personal difficulty ratings:
Platforming: 10/10
Puzzle: 9/10
I feel my IQ increasing just from reading these gimmick names by this point. Anyway, we are here. This is the last stage. Surprisingly, I would say that this stage is easier than Physics Lab. Every save from the Lab from F91 to F94 took me a day each. Meanwhile, I breezed from F96 to F100 in the same day.
Nevertheless, I think that this stage is just as creative as stage 19. The core mechanic is very interesting, and it features alternative usages of previous stage gimmicks that we hadn't seen yet. It's a fitting final area.
The numbers don't add up, right? Yeah, that's because F100 is very much well suited to be the final challenge of this game. It's very, VERY hard. Partly because of the absurd length, partly because of the several jumps that don't look complicated but actually are really complicated scattered through the save. I would compare it to SSR2's final save (Here's the SSR2 comparison). Actually, it's probably a little more difficult. It's definitely longer. With puzzle elements to boot. F100 is really difficult, and I wouldn't be surprised if it became a roadblock for some people. But by now you should be used to roadblocks. YOU. CAN. DO. IT.
So, now that you've beaten the game, I want to talk about the extra stage before closing the spoiler tab. It doesn't exist. Here's the thing: The readme.pdf file will say that it exists, but the more recent readme.txt confirms that it doesn't. This is why I told you to back up your save after beating the game. Entering the fake 'extra' portal will send you to a certain place that will eventually land you back on F44. If you save in there, you are screwed: You can't go back. Gross.
Long story short, this is a really good puzzle platformer and a really unique experience. I did mention a good number of issues that ate some of rating points, but none of them is even close to gameplay-breaking (Save for stage 15's wrist shenanigans, maybe). As of now, this genre of hard puzzle-oriented fangames only has a few members, and I wanna Variety 100 is an amazing addition to it, despite its shortcomings. Highly recommended. Which is rather awkward when the author himself is condemning his game in the download page. Boo.
Rating: 9.4 94
Difficulty: 86 86
Oct 1, 2021
Nearigami
This is a 100 floor game which primarily focuses on puzzles and puzzle aspects. Honestly the game has a lot of really unique aspects and nice moments, though there are some moments such as duplicate kid puzzles which I disliked. The game gets pretty hard too as well. Basically recommended if you enjoy puzzle needle and don’t mind high difficulty.
[4] Likes
Rating: 8.0 80
Difficulty: 80 80
Aug 3, 2020
Wolsk
This game starts out really cool with a ton of variety (heh) in the platforming and mechanics given, but it rapidly dropped off in enjoyment for me in the 50s where I opted to switch to "assists mode" which really should just be the way to play the game since the platforming gets frustrating, the saves get incredibly long, and the mechanics get a bit too complicated to keep track of. The 60s were when I gave up and decided to follow a guide as the puzzles felt entirely to "guess-and-check" for my tastes, and the 80s and 90s were far too complicated for me to even want to try solving them.
A puzzle game I'd consider to have "good" design would introduce mechanics slowly and teach the player how everything works before ramping up the difficulty, and this game sure does not do that past the halfway point. It even introduces mechanics and forces the player to use them before even explaining what they do, so you have to figure it out for yourself.
I can recommend this game up to the 50s, but after that it's an incredibly hard sell. The game gives what the title promises, but too much variety can be a bad thing.
[2] Likes
A puzzle game I'd consider to have "good" design would introduce mechanics slowly and teach the player how everything works before ramping up the difficulty, and this game sure does not do that past the halfway point. It even introduces mechanics and forces the player to use them before even explaining what they do, so you have to figure it out for yourself.
I can recommend this game up to the 50s, but after that it's an incredibly hard sell. The game gives what the title promises, but too much variety can be a bad thing.
Rating: 7.0 70
Difficulty: 90 90
Aug 25, 2021