Delicious Fruit
Download Game Screenshots
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by Razzor_iw
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by Razzor_iw
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by Mir
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by Razzor_iw
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by Razzor_iw
Creator's Comments:
Razzor_iw [Creator]
The TGCC Team's debut. Good luck!
Read Cthaere's review as a continuation of this review.
[2] Likes
Read Cthaere's review as a continuation of this review.
Rating: N/A
Difficulty: 82 82
Jul 18, 2022
35 Reviews:
PlutoTheThing
I'm incredibly conflicted on this game for one reason, but I'll get to that. At it's core RNG Dungeon is one of the most unique fangames ever made, with creative ideas at every turn, there's just so much to like about it. There's a sense of humor which is quite charming and also makes it exciting to see what's next, just to see what wacky and zany ideas there are. The platforming is just so different and cool, it's gimmicky but unlike what you'd find in other gimmick based adventure games. The areas are so distinct as well, it's impressive. This is punctuated with great bosses, and the final boss phase 1 especially is a masterpiece in my opinion, absolutely phenomenal work.
This sounds like an easy 10/10, the easiest 10/10, I mean the game is perfect right. Well there's final boss phase 2. As of writing this a review this is my least favorite avoidance. The avoidance has this annoying sensory overload vibe constantly permeating throughout, which is genuinely just uncomfortable to me? The mess of song, noisy visuals, complex attacks with specific visual cues or tons of visual information that needs to be taken in, it's so much that it's just frustrating to play to me, not to mention the eye melting visual mess of one part which genuinely hurts my eyes. Some attacks feel so annoying as well, it's a gimmick avoidance so there's some wacky ideas and weird reading, but some of it just feels like luck or like you need to learn the specific mechanic or gimmick and then it's easy except when you forget something or get hard RNG. It's just not fun to me at all. I don't think it's bad, I respect what it is, but Jesus Christ, you could not make an avoidance I dislike more. It's also the hardest thing by far, and increased my difficulty rating by around 10-15 points. Of my 7 hours of playtime, it took up 3.
When 3/7ths of the experience was a genuine 0/10 I think is well made but just not for me, it's hard to know what to rate when the other 4/7ths was 10/10 perfect content to me. I settled on this. From an objective standpoint I think this is a 10/10, from a personal one I see it as a 5-6, so I'm compromising with myself, but it also hurts a lot. To love a game so much just to have one of the most catastrophically "not for me" endings of all time is a huge blow, and the fact I enjoyed it so much leading up to that hurts so much more. Incredibly sad about this one, but there's still a lot to love. Play it.
[6] Likes
This sounds like an easy 10/10, the easiest 10/10, I mean the game is perfect right. Well there's final boss phase 2. As of writing this a review this is my least favorite avoidance. The avoidance has this annoying sensory overload vibe constantly permeating throughout, which is genuinely just uncomfortable to me? The mess of song, noisy visuals, complex attacks with specific visual cues or tons of visual information that needs to be taken in, it's so much that it's just frustrating to play to me, not to mention the eye melting visual mess of one part which genuinely hurts my eyes. Some attacks feel so annoying as well, it's a gimmick avoidance so there's some wacky ideas and weird reading, but some of it just feels like luck or like you need to learn the specific mechanic or gimmick and then it's easy except when you forget something or get hard RNG. It's just not fun to me at all. I don't think it's bad, I respect what it is, but Jesus Christ, you could not make an avoidance I dislike more. It's also the hardest thing by far, and increased my difficulty rating by around 10-15 points. Of my 7 hours of playtime, it took up 3.
When 3/7ths of the experience was a genuine 0/10 I think is well made but just not for me, it's hard to know what to rate when the other 4/7ths was 10/10 perfect content to me. I settled on this. From an objective standpoint I think this is a 10/10, from a personal one I see it as a 5-6, so I'm compromising with myself, but it also hurts a lot. To love a game so much just to have one of the most catastrophically "not for me" endings of all time is a huge blow, and the fact I enjoyed it so much leading up to that hurts so much more. Incredibly sad about this one, but there's still a lot to love. Play it.
Rating: 7.5 75
Difficulty: 84 84
Apr 16, 2023
Nearigami
Alright. I keep putting off this review but I should actually write something while the game is still relatively fresh on my mind.
I don't know how to talk about RNG Dungeon. I am a filthy needle player. I don't *dislike* adventure/avoidance, in fact I would say I like them, but I know my comfort zone and until recently I mostly stuck to it. I'm definitely not the target audience for this game. Now, normally that isn't really a problem for me, but with this game in particular it feels almost wrong to talk about. RNG Dungeon is so clearly designed for a specific type of person that it almost just tells you to fuck off and die if you don't fit that mold.
It doesn't do that, but it is absolutely in character for the developers, and I would be laughing my ass off at my own expense if they did. Cthaere's own developer thoughts talks about how RNG Dungeon is "a game where the mask is half on, half off." I think this is an incredibly apt description of this game's ethos and design philosophy. The in-jokes and ideas are so off the wall and stupid that I can only imagine the amount of 3am insomnia-ridden nights that led them to put in half the content in this game. I think if it were only the dumb jokes, this game wouldn't have the same value to it. As unhinged as some sections get, there is an amazing design-first element of restraint that separates this from most other weaker meme-fests.
I imagine the thought process for RNG Dungeon was something like this:
1. Is it funny?
2. Can we make it cool as fuck?
If it fulfills at least one of those two categories, with the second one being given a heavier weight, it got put into the game, then polished as much as possible without losing the core of the idea.
With that said, I don't enjoy every idea. I think RNG Dungeon does a lot of really interesting things with its abrasive nature and disregard for people outside of their narrow audience, but there were a couple sections which I found myself having difficulty even appreciating in that context.
The biggest losers for me with this game were the Squid Game fight and small parts of the final boss second phase. Squid Game feels like a bit of a luck fight, which isn't even that big of an indictment on the game. There's another pretty big luck fight in this game with the "Fortnite Cube Kevin" boss (God I sound so deranged out of context.) What kills me with Squid Game is that so much of the hard to learn/somewhat luck based elements are at the very end. You are asked to apply an unfamiliar gimmick at a very high level in a way which the platforming beforehand just doesn't prepare you to do. It's also lowkey one of the hardest bosses. I spent more time on it than the first phase of the final boss. It's legitimately a big sour spot for me and kind of blindsided my early experience with the game.
My problems with the final boss comes down to information overload. It is a much learnier boss than everything else in the game, and I think it puts a heavy amount of time into the spectacle of it all. The song chosen is supposed to make you feel like you're in a fucked up carnival, and given everything you went through in the game up to this point, that is a perfect mood-setter. The fact that it's so learny compared to the rest of the game is a pretty big deterrent for some people, but given that I am not amazing at avoidance compared to needle, this felt par for the course for me. Once I started getting attempts to the easier to understand second half with some amount of frequency, my problems with the boss began to show up. There's a section involving color-switching in particular that just completely overloaded my brain. There's so many things I needed to focus on that I would keep accidentally hitting a bullet my brain had tuned out, and as such the fight became a matter of if this one 5 second attack halfway through the fight would let me through. You can absolutely call this a skill issue, but for me this tests your skills on a level disproportinate with what was expected of me both throughout the game and within the rest of the boss itself.
I didn't really even think I was capable of beating this game. I told myself that my skill level just simply wasn't high enough. I wasn't patient enough, and I would never be able to close things out. Despite that though, I pushed through. I think I was rewarded for that in spades. The platforming in this game is some of the strongest I've experienced. It is challenging without being too much or overshadowing the bosses. Every save has a new idea and it goes just far enough with it that I feel like I got a good experience without being overwhelmed. The bosses, despite myself not being an avoidance player, make me feel like I'm actually pretty good at them. Every boss save for the ones I mentioned feel like a condensed challenge that has the appeal of all the hardest boss fights without feeling entirely insurmountable. I feel the level of polish here.
I am not the target audience. I think sometimes I'm a bit simple. I like needle because it is just viscerally satisfying to play. Avoidance for a long time has been something I've enjoyed, but which I never expected to get decent at, and that's partially because of how engaged you need to be when playing. You can't just turn your brain off when playing avoidance in the same way you can when going through the motions of a needle save. I am not properly equipped to appreciate all of this game's intricacies and special moments. I respect it though, about as much as I think I am capable of doing so at this time.
Please keep going. This is what fangames exist for.
[3] Likes
I don't know how to talk about RNG Dungeon. I am a filthy needle player. I don't *dislike* adventure/avoidance, in fact I would say I like them, but I know my comfort zone and until recently I mostly stuck to it. I'm definitely not the target audience for this game. Now, normally that isn't really a problem for me, but with this game in particular it feels almost wrong to talk about. RNG Dungeon is so clearly designed for a specific type of person that it almost just tells you to fuck off and die if you don't fit that mold.
It doesn't do that, but it is absolutely in character for the developers, and I would be laughing my ass off at my own expense if they did. Cthaere's own developer thoughts talks about how RNG Dungeon is "a game where the mask is half on, half off." I think this is an incredibly apt description of this game's ethos and design philosophy. The in-jokes and ideas are so off the wall and stupid that I can only imagine the amount of 3am insomnia-ridden nights that led them to put in half the content in this game. I think if it were only the dumb jokes, this game wouldn't have the same value to it. As unhinged as some sections get, there is an amazing design-first element of restraint that separates this from most other weaker meme-fests.
I imagine the thought process for RNG Dungeon was something like this:
1. Is it funny?
2. Can we make it cool as fuck?
If it fulfills at least one of those two categories, with the second one being given a heavier weight, it got put into the game, then polished as much as possible without losing the core of the idea.
With that said, I don't enjoy every idea. I think RNG Dungeon does a lot of really interesting things with its abrasive nature and disregard for people outside of their narrow audience, but there were a couple sections which I found myself having difficulty even appreciating in that context.
The biggest losers for me with this game were the Squid Game fight and small parts of the final boss second phase. Squid Game feels like a bit of a luck fight, which isn't even that big of an indictment on the game. There's another pretty big luck fight in this game with the "Fortnite Cube Kevin" boss (God I sound so deranged out of context.) What kills me with Squid Game is that so much of the hard to learn/somewhat luck based elements are at the very end. You are asked to apply an unfamiliar gimmick at a very high level in a way which the platforming beforehand just doesn't prepare you to do. It's also lowkey one of the hardest bosses. I spent more time on it than the first phase of the final boss. It's legitimately a big sour spot for me and kind of blindsided my early experience with the game.
My problems with the final boss comes down to information overload. It is a much learnier boss than everything else in the game, and I think it puts a heavy amount of time into the spectacle of it all. The song chosen is supposed to make you feel like you're in a fucked up carnival, and given everything you went through in the game up to this point, that is a perfect mood-setter. The fact that it's so learny compared to the rest of the game is a pretty big deterrent for some people, but given that I am not amazing at avoidance compared to needle, this felt par for the course for me. Once I started getting attempts to the easier to understand second half with some amount of frequency, my problems with the boss began to show up. There's a section involving color-switching in particular that just completely overloaded my brain. There's so many things I needed to focus on that I would keep accidentally hitting a bullet my brain had tuned out, and as such the fight became a matter of if this one 5 second attack halfway through the fight would let me through. You can absolutely call this a skill issue, but for me this tests your skills on a level disproportinate with what was expected of me both throughout the game and within the rest of the boss itself.
I didn't really even think I was capable of beating this game. I told myself that my skill level just simply wasn't high enough. I wasn't patient enough, and I would never be able to close things out. Despite that though, I pushed through. I think I was rewarded for that in spades. The platforming in this game is some of the strongest I've experienced. It is challenging without being too much or overshadowing the bosses. Every save has a new idea and it goes just far enough with it that I feel like I got a good experience without being overwhelmed. The bosses, despite myself not being an avoidance player, make me feel like I'm actually pretty good at them. Every boss save for the ones I mentioned feel like a condensed challenge that has the appeal of all the hardest boss fights without feeling entirely insurmountable. I feel the level of polish here.
I am not the target audience. I think sometimes I'm a bit simple. I like needle because it is just viscerally satisfying to play. Avoidance for a long time has been something I've enjoyed, but which I never expected to get decent at, and that's partially because of how engaged you need to be when playing. You can't just turn your brain off when playing avoidance in the same way you can when going through the motions of a needle save. I am not properly equipped to appreciate all of this game's intricacies and special moments. I respect it though, about as much as I think I am capable of doing so at this time.
Please keep going. This is what fangames exist for.
Rating: 8.5 85
Difficulty: 83 83
Jan 19, 2024
Ywave
The idea of the work is very unique. Thank you for the masterpiece produced by TGCC Team.
The game has eight branches, integrating some classic scenes and interesting points of Fangame, such as FTFA Deathless, Soulless, etc. Rich RNG elements and cool special effects.
But the game is not friendly to beginners, or the difficulty is a little unexpected. As suggested, if you are not a fan of Gimmick and Avoidance, you are not recommended to play. The final Avoidance is brilliant and worth playing.
Looking forward to the next work.
[3] Likes
The game has eight branches, integrating some classic scenes and interesting points of Fangame, such as FTFA Deathless, Soulless, etc. Rich RNG elements and cool special effects.
But the game is not friendly to beginners, or the difficulty is a little unexpected. As suggested, if you are not a fan of Gimmick and Avoidance, you are not recommended to play. The final Avoidance is brilliant and worth playing.
Looking forward to the next work.
Rating: 8.5 85
Difficulty: 78 78
Nov 20, 2022
Shinobu
Reposting from the advice.txt in the zip file.
If you're not a fan of:
- Avoidance,
- Gimmicks,
- Bullshit,
- Bullshit Gimmick Avoidance,
we would not recommend playing this.
Also, if you are colorblind, you will probably run into some issues. We apologise.
[3] Likes
If you're not a fan of:
- Avoidance,
- Gimmicks,
- Bullshit,
- Bullshit Gimmick Avoidance,
we would not recommend playing this.
Also, if you are colorblind, you will probably run into some issues. We apologise.
Rating: N/A
Difficulty: N/A
Jul 18, 2022
sonicdv
First thing is first, I'm absolutely NOT the traditional audience for this game. Feel free to discount this long winded review if you want to just from that information. Despite this, I still feel like I really enjoyed this game, a few rough segments notwithstanding and I felt like trying to explore the things that personally worked for me and the things that did not. Take this review as the ramblings of a shitty, salty player that sucks at avoidance, but still managed to complete the game regardless.
If you want a short summary, I totally recommend people try this game even if they might not fit fully into the audience. The game is a lot easier than the difficulty rating implies except for a few choice bosses and the final boss. I'd say it's around a 60-70 difficulty game if you ignore the final boss, and you can have a great time playing 90% of the game up to the final boss and calling it quits, even if some of the content doesn't fully agree with you.
Firstly, I loved pretty much all the platforming in this game. I always thought I didn't like gimmicky modern fangames, but I think I was wrong if this is anything to go by. One of my favorite elements of this game is how a lot of the platforming itself isn't super hard by fangame standards, and especially by the game's difficulty. I believe that gimmick platforming kind of disguises how difficult it is, most of the challenge is in learning how the gimmick works, but once you have that down, you can pull off the actual platforming somewhat easily. This feels really great as you go through mastery where you feel like you're continually getting better and better at the game, instead of having one random jump in the middle that is way too hard which feels like luck to get past. The gimmicks themselves were really funny and varied, and every single room felt unique. Nothing felt like filler.
I also believe that the bosses at the end of stages have a great balance of being somewhat challenging, but also short so that you don't feel like they're huge difficulty walls. The bosses in this game have some of the most intense rng reading I've ever done as a very shitty avoidance player, but I never felt inclined to give up even when a boss completely outclasses me, because the fights are rarely longer than 50 seconds maximum. This kept the avoidances interesting throughout and stopped me from feeling discouraged even when I got screwed over by rng
The cracks in the games foundation are mostly in some of the attack balancing. I know the game is called "RNG Dungeon" but I don't think the game intended to have such variance between attacks in a lot of cases. The MHC inspired boss was pretty awful, both because the "song" sucked and wasn't pleasant to listen to, and it took the hardest segment from a 90 difficulty avoidance and had you play it over and over while learning a second learny avoidance right afterwards. I do not believe this fight fit with the rest of the bosses. Additionally, I hate carnival's most famous bosses, and they show their ugly faces around in this game as well as minibosses. They're not all that funny, kind of grindy and annoying, and are just time waster bosses that prey on your boredom, same as the original versions. Both carnival bosses took me astronomically longer than the proper bosses they guarded, which to me suggests they needed to be nerfed or replaced with fun gimmick platforming, maybe inspired by each carnival boss instead.
I also think the final bosses are somewhat poorly balanced. I found the needle wall hard to dodge, but will admit that I misunderstood how that attack was meant to be dodged, so therefore I will not hold that attack against the first phase. Some other attacks, such as the star attack with curving bullets while you stand on a 3 block ledge, the 360 spike attack while the cherries chase you across the screen, and the 360 spike barrage, felt like they were up to complete chance whether I finished them or not, and since the boss is 6 minutes long, it does a disservice to the fight's attempts to challenge your consistency. Preferably, all attacks would be balanced around being able to be dodged consistently, but I found that a good 25% of my deaths were caused by rng out of my hands, discounting the spike wall attack which killed me a lot more. The second phase of the fight, while interesting, is exhausting to play for long periods because of eye strain and visual effects, and is incredibly learny, mixed with a few attacks that either require 99 difficulty reading or outright luck to get past.
The final boss didn't entirely click with me, but I easily loved most of the game, and I believe this is a great foundational game. I'd love to see more from the developers that made this game. I might suggest adding in either an optional health mode or an easier difficulty in future releases though. I think the biggest issue with hard meme games is that the jokes they're based on do not hold up after you grind for over an hour. At some point you get tired of seeing the same joke and get incredibly mad at the fight for not letting you see the next cool bit of content. Having the ability to make the fights easier, or even to just warp back to the hub and try a different section, would have been a great addition to the game for players who will not finish the entire game. As it is, the game is awesome and is surprisingly underplayed, probably because of fears that the game will be too hard. I'd encourage people playing this who don't mind some struggle to try the game out for themselves, and make up their minds on it, as I believe they will be able to enjoy most of the content.
[2] Likes
If you want a short summary, I totally recommend people try this game even if they might not fit fully into the audience. The game is a lot easier than the difficulty rating implies except for a few choice bosses and the final boss. I'd say it's around a 60-70 difficulty game if you ignore the final boss, and you can have a great time playing 90% of the game up to the final boss and calling it quits, even if some of the content doesn't fully agree with you.
Firstly, I loved pretty much all the platforming in this game. I always thought I didn't like gimmicky modern fangames, but I think I was wrong if this is anything to go by. One of my favorite elements of this game is how a lot of the platforming itself isn't super hard by fangame standards, and especially by the game's difficulty. I believe that gimmick platforming kind of disguises how difficult it is, most of the challenge is in learning how the gimmick works, but once you have that down, you can pull off the actual platforming somewhat easily. This feels really great as you go through mastery where you feel like you're continually getting better and better at the game, instead of having one random jump in the middle that is way too hard which feels like luck to get past. The gimmicks themselves were really funny and varied, and every single room felt unique. Nothing felt like filler.
I also believe that the bosses at the end of stages have a great balance of being somewhat challenging, but also short so that you don't feel like they're huge difficulty walls. The bosses in this game have some of the most intense rng reading I've ever done as a very shitty avoidance player, but I never felt inclined to give up even when a boss completely outclasses me, because the fights are rarely longer than 50 seconds maximum. This kept the avoidances interesting throughout and stopped me from feeling discouraged even when I got screwed over by rng
The cracks in the games foundation are mostly in some of the attack balancing. I know the game is called "RNG Dungeon" but I don't think the game intended to have such variance between attacks in a lot of cases. The MHC inspired boss was pretty awful, both because the "song" sucked and wasn't pleasant to listen to, and it took the hardest segment from a 90 difficulty avoidance and had you play it over and over while learning a second learny avoidance right afterwards. I do not believe this fight fit with the rest of the bosses. Additionally, I hate carnival's most famous bosses, and they show their ugly faces around in this game as well as minibosses. They're not all that funny, kind of grindy and annoying, and are just time waster bosses that prey on your boredom, same as the original versions. Both carnival bosses took me astronomically longer than the proper bosses they guarded, which to me suggests they needed to be nerfed or replaced with fun gimmick platforming, maybe inspired by each carnival boss instead.
I also think the final bosses are somewhat poorly balanced. I found the needle wall hard to dodge, but will admit that I misunderstood how that attack was meant to be dodged, so therefore I will not hold that attack against the first phase. Some other attacks, such as the star attack with curving bullets while you stand on a 3 block ledge, the 360 spike attack while the cherries chase you across the screen, and the 360 spike barrage, felt like they were up to complete chance whether I finished them or not, and since the boss is 6 minutes long, it does a disservice to the fight's attempts to challenge your consistency. Preferably, all attacks would be balanced around being able to be dodged consistently, but I found that a good 25% of my deaths were caused by rng out of my hands, discounting the spike wall attack which killed me a lot more. The second phase of the fight, while interesting, is exhausting to play for long periods because of eye strain and visual effects, and is incredibly learny, mixed with a few attacks that either require 99 difficulty reading or outright luck to get past.
The final boss didn't entirely click with me, but I easily loved most of the game, and I believe this is a great foundational game. I'd love to see more from the developers that made this game. I might suggest adding in either an optional health mode or an easier difficulty in future releases though. I think the biggest issue with hard meme games is that the jokes they're based on do not hold up after you grind for over an hour. At some point you get tired of seeing the same joke and get incredibly mad at the fight for not letting you see the next cool bit of content. Having the ability to make the fights easier, or even to just warp back to the hub and try a different section, would have been a great addition to the game for players who will not finish the entire game. As it is, the game is awesome and is surprisingly underplayed, probably because of fears that the game will be too hard. I'd encourage people playing this who don't mind some struggle to try the game out for themselves, and make up their minds on it, as I believe they will be able to enjoy most of the content.
Rating: 8.0 80
Difficulty: 85 85
Jun 14, 2024