The Avoidance Complex

Creator: Mastermaxify

Average Rating
8.9 / 10
Average Difficulty
90.0 / 100
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Tags:

Adventure (3) Avoidance (6) Special (1) Nasrano-like (1)

Screenshots

  • by maxg26
  • by maxg26
  • by maxg26
  • by GaspacoZanis

Creator's Comments:

maxg26 [Creator]
I made the game, have fun everyone!

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Tagged as: Adventure Avoidance
[4] Likes
Rating: N/A       Difficulty: 90 90
Oct 29, 2023

10 Reviews:

Razzor_iw
while far from being a shining example of immaculate avoidance design or whatever, this game has been through one hell of a development story, and the amount of effort and love put into it out of simply the desire to "make avoidance" is enough for me to declare this my favorite avoidance release this year, without anything coming even close

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Tagged as: Adventure Avoidance Special
[6] Likes
Rating: 10.0 100       Difficulty: 90 90
Oct 29, 2023
Chrisay
Based on Tier 2 progress. No diff rating
A very solid avoidance collection. It's clear that a lot of effort and passion went into the design of the different avoidances and it results in the avoidances being enjoyable and smooth. There's a lot of variety in the attacks and the arena changes often switching out playstyles and making everything feel less repetitive.
Visuals were a bit hit or miss, but I'll always appreciate that the game has it's own style and every avoidance is visually distinct from each other.
I do wish the game had more to it that just the main avoidances. It has a neat little intro section, but once you're presented with the 4 avoidances in tier 1 that's the only thing you'll be doing. There's no practice mode and no optional avoidances. It's a bit of a letdown considering how the complex is set up as this cool thing you could explore.

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Tagged as: Avoidance
[4] Likes
Rating: 9.0 90       Difficulty: N/A
Oct 30, 2023
mushcat
I appreciate the amount of effort put into this game. But distributing ideas into so many avoidances inevitablely makes some of them really unenjoyable, 1-2 for example. There are also good ones of course. 1-3 is very fun.

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[3] Likes
Rating: 7.0 70       Difficulty: N/A
Nov 1, 2023
Cthaere
It is always bittersweet to see an unfinished passion project finally laid to rest after long years in "I might pick it up at some point later" limbo, and this one feels even moreso knowing Max and his journey with fangames and gamemaking as a whole. In a way, I feel quite biased; Even if I hated playing the game, so long as it still showed genuine care, effort, and the tiniest smidgen of polish, I would still look at it fondly. However, while I will say the game has issues (as would be expected from an unfinished release), it is still very worthwhile playing, with most of the content ranking at "fairly enjoyable if a bit flawed" with a few exceptions in both directions.

The game is split into 4 areas: Tiers 1 through 3, each with 4 full length avoidances, and a "minivoidance" room with a few 20-40 second song fragments. Outside of the minivoidance room, which serves as a break more than anything (even if iru hank is still pretty hard), the levels of both quality, polish, and difficulty get a significant jump with each tier. Unfortunately, given that you have to beat all 4 avoidances in a tier to advance to the next one, this makes the game a hard sell for those who would get stuck in T1 for too long, as they would spend all of their time butting heads against the worst content in the game (most of which is still decent, but there is one avoidance I consider genuinely bad in there), only to be rewarded by a tier 2 that is miles more difficult. It is clear that Complex is best played at around the same skill level needed to beat Fish (preferably under 50 hours), and that while being better won't diminish much of it, being worse absolutely will.

As for the avoidances as a whole, the vast majority are mostly-simple barrages with a couple more "gimmicky" attacks thrown in, with a big focus on just pure reading of basic attacks with some spicing up. There are several recurring issues, being long boring intros, attacks that have high level of difficulty variance depending on RNG, attacks that serve as big diffspikes, and several visually inelegant attacks (as in, the way the bullets move feels unnatural and unfitting). However, as Iru has put it, "while far from being a shining example of immaculate avoidance design" the issues are still minor enough that overall the game manages to maintain a good level of enjoyment.

With that out of the way, I would like to take a moment to review all 12 avoidances, as a comprehensive review does not seem to exist.

T1:

Rock my emotions - decently fun barrage. simple visuals but they work pretty well. has a long intro problem (everything pre infjump is too easy and not very fun to play). The squares attack later into the fight is also pretty bruh. Without those issues, it'd probably have been best in tier; It's still a good contender for it.

Reve of mirrors - barrage with apple sprites. Hardest in tier, and easily the worst avoidance in the game. Extremely slow intro and it's infjump so you HAVE to be focused on it the entire time, highest bullshit potential overall, several attacks that are just mindbogglingly boring, difficulty is mostly concentrated in the latter half... In short, while a lot of it would be fun in a vacuum, as a full experience it is miserable especially if you get stuck for longer than you feel like you need to. It is worth clearing if only to get further into the game, and clearing this is a mark that you've been through the worst of it, but I would much rather this was not necessary to beat to advance to the next rank.

Cursed - basic barrage, very effective visuals even if they're a bit simple, was the most enjoyable overall but I fluked pretty big chunks of this and I'm fairly certain if I didn't I'd hate this more, and that also means I don't really have that much to say about it unfortunately.

Power attack - standard barrage (who could have guessed), decent visuals, inter-attack difficulty variance is pretty high. Pretty easy and basic, not much to talk about it.

T2:


Rolling Girl: a pretty barragey miku, but still the most patterny boss in the game. Basic visuals that mostly work really well, but definitely feels like it's missing more work. Long boring intro problem. Can bullshit you especially with the black spiral. Decently fun but generally just a fairly mediocre fight. Didn't mind it all that much though.

Octane: standard barrage, decent visuals, pretty long, intro problems. Has a few really bruh attacks, such as the arrows coming towards the center on the 1st attack on the big center platform, platform snapping inconsistency in the segment with moving platforms, and several attacks that can give really bad RNG on the bottom middle platform, in addition to the circle pattern on it being kinda weird and very late into the fight. Probably enjoyable if it takes you less than 3 hours, but it didn't for me and as a result it transformed from "decently enjoyable" to "mildly irritating". Also hardest in tier, which is a shame since it's probably the least enjoyable by a tiny margin under rolling girl.

Vicious Heroism: Standard barrage, very simple visuals but they work extremely well, by far the best standard barrage thus far with good pacing, fun attacks, decent mapping, and just overall very well executed. Good job.

Hotline miami: one of the more interesting fights overall, especially for a T2 avoidance. Apparently was originally T3 but was then swapped with another T2 avoidance. Great visuals and ideas, but middling execution: Out of the 3 intro segments (circles, circles + tp, waterfall + tp) the 1st is boring, the 2nd is great if sometimes feels bs, and the 3rd is both boring and garbage on your hands. These issues hold back the avoidance to a painful degree, as it has by far the best visuals, mapping, and overall ideas in the tier. Thankfully, it gets very consistent, and everything else is fun, but it's still a massive shame that greatly holds it back. Unfortunately, it's also the easiest.


T3:


Peer Gynt: Standard barrage. My favorite of the bunch, even over Moon. Visuals work extremely well, bullet movement is very clean, intro that gets very consistent and is still fun to play once mastered so you don't really care about the fact that the difficulty is all backloaded, amazing overall feel. To be honest, I was skeptical the game would be able to reach this level of quality, and I was very pleasantly surprised.

A fool moon night: Standard barrage. Long, hard, well made, good attacks, visuals, song, everything. Simplicity (with a good share of spiced up attacks and ideas) executed at a high level, similar to vicious heroism, except even better. The only avoidance I haven't beaten yet, on account of being the hardest, however I've gotten relatively far into it, put a good amount of time, and watched the rest to gauge that my opinion would likely change mostly in regards to the overall grind process and pacing, rather than the general level of quality.

Tempestissimo: Probably the worst out of the bunch, and I have had an extremely negative experience with it on top. Attacks are the hardest individually outside of virtual stigmata, and feel inconsistent and frustrating to die to. The indicator game adds very little to the avoidance. Visual design is worst in tier and one of the worse ones overall. This alongside Reve nearly docked the rating down from 9, however playing Peer Gynt (and to a lesser extent Moon) afterwards restored it. Do not take it to mean that this is all that bad, however; It's still a decent barrage, just one that I have had a really bad experience with, and would likely be much worse to play if you are not at a sufficient level of avoidance skill (which I am evidently not).

Virtual Stigmata: Short standard barrage. Slow intro problem. Hardest individual attacks, highest RNG difficulty variance within attacks, highest attack difficulty variance in relation to each other. A collection of 4 seconds attacks that either overwhelm you or disappear before they reach you, with very little inbetween. There is a good amount of room for skill, but it always feels like it's a matter of whether the avoidance wants you to pass or not. However, the final 30 seconds change everything, and are without a doubt the single best segment in the game. Simple but great concept executed beautifully. Bravo.


Overall, it was a very fun experience and a pleasant surprise given my lower initial expectations of what I would find in here compared to what I got. I would only recommend the game to those who have beaten several 70+ diff barrages, and I would say that even then you could choose to delay playing it until you have beaten a just-below-HoF barrage (fish, count 0, bye the entrance, etc.) or harder. However, once you have gotten to a certain level in your avoidance journey, this is a game you would regret not checking out.

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Tagged as: Avoidance
[2] Likes
Rating: 9.0 90       Difficulty: 90 90
Dec 23, 2023
Murzikk
Easily the best avoidance game of this year.
I enjoyed every single avoidance in this game and would love to replay the game whenever i feel like remembering this game and just playing if I'm ever bored

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Tagged as: Adventure Avoidance
[2] Likes
Rating: 10.0 100       Difficulty: 90 90
Oct 30, 2023