Delicious FruitGaspacoZanis's Profile
Send a PMJoined on: May 20, 2017
Bio:
I am just a random guy who like to play IWBTG fangames ! If you want, you can read my reviews and ratings for every game, which I have cleared! If you want, you can ask my some questions too, and I will be happy to answer to them! Have a nice day! ^-^
Link to my clear list, wishlist, plans and what I am currently playing: https://sheet.zoho.eu/sheet/published.do?rid=0rgpa2003c0dd491040fea02d5e1879dfb68d
Most of fangames which I have cleared are on delicious-fruit, however, 2 are non delicious-fruit fangames.
Link to my K2 challenge progress: http://k2.fangam.es/progress.php?u=352
Link to my K3 challenge progress: http://k3.fangam.es/progress.php?u=352
P.S. I don't count mod clears to my main game clear list.
I've submitted:
488 Ratings!
488 Reviews!
2631 Screenshots!
488 Games
488 Reviews
GaspacoZanis
For: 砂-Sand-
For: 砂-Sand-
For long time this was the second most mysterious game of Dagger, that was mentioned on his blog (http://web.archive.org/web/20140511041309/https://ch.nicovideo.jp/dagger0127/blomaga/ar373850) along with title screen and this description: "番外編。
Prismの黄色ステージの最後のセーブ区間を長くしたもの。
かるかにくん[http://com.nicovideo.jp/community/co1976184]への記念という名のいやがらせ。"
Yes, this description was a bit less vague than for the 'I wanna Retaliate', which is why it was less mysterious than the latter one. However, this was still quite obscure media for the longest time.
There were people who recalled seeing this, but there is no concrete evidence if any videos ever existed, and even when we talk about who played this game on stream, it is really hard to know for sure.
Heck, even the release date of this game is technically unknown. We know that 'I wanna be the Prism' (which was Dagger's 26th game) was released on 2013/05/25 (https://web.archive.org/web/20200729100037/https://sites.google.com/view/escapism/games/archive?authuser=0) and there is a proof that one of the players have beaten this game on 2014/05/03. Additionally, we know that Dagger's 32nd game 'I wanna sink deeper' was released on 2014/05/08.
We know the game was made for かるかに, and this person has played 'I wanna be the Prism' on the day of its release. And the closest I could find to the match of this game, were these 2 streams from 2013/07/06:
https://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv144102399
https://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv144105331
The reasoning is the repeated usage of the word '砂'. However, I cannot know for sure what was the context. If it truly is when the game was made, then it would mean that this was 26.5th game, since the next game after 'I wanna be the Prism' was 'I wanna be the Orbit' released on 2013/08/30. This would make a lot of sense why Dagger would make a spin-off joke game. However, I would need to find someone who could know exact original .exe date or maybe who would have readmes of the game (which I do not have and which I do not know if ever existed). But it is pretty complicated, considering this game was never released publicly.
Now as for the game itself.
I have beaten this game twice. First time it was all the way back in the August of 2021. And my second clear was recently in 2025. First time this game took me 06:54:55 and 2557 deaths. My second clear took me 02:21:26 and 925 deaths.
You might be wondering, why did it make so much time?
To understand it better, here is brief description of what you can see in this game:
You start with a short 'Lotus project' logo and quite cheap title screen followed by sounds of the sea (you get it - sand as sand in the sea?!). Then you start the game after selecting the Save file, and you are meeting the infamous last save of the Yellow stage from 'I wanna be the Prism'. Except this time you have 3 full screens to survive, which ends up being an experience for like around 1 minutes and 10 seconds. And also you for some reason see the Camera symbol from GameMaker. I am not sure why was that done like that (maybe it is some joke, that as if you were to be in the gamemaker? Not sure). And, yes, gameplay wise this means you need to do diagonal at the start and at the very least at the very end just like in the original. After that you fall down to the screen (it auto-saves) that says 'じゃあなw', which can be translated as 'See ya lol'. Funny.
This whole concept was really intriguing me for years, since I actually did enjoy the original save from 'I wanna be the Prism'. And when I received this game, I did not realize how much harder this is than in 'I wanna be the Prism'. However, I did not know how this game exactly worked. My strategy was as following: waiting 2 turns of spikes (to not rush through the first diagonal which is a bit tricky since the save position requires you to jump before the actual jump, so it is better to wait, in my opinion) ; then I am trying to go along with the music for like 1-2 screens. Then I am trying to count 'one two' to maintain the rhythm. The problem was that I got very consistent with the first screen, but then it got quite hard, since the later part of the song is a bit more calm so it is not easy to maintain tempo. So I had a lot of deaths on Screen 3. Originally my last PB was penultimate spike before the actual diagonal jump. But on my 2nd playthrough, I actually died on last 2 turns and even on the actual diagonal jump (yes, this game is not only about the rhythm, so I am putting this game a Needle tag indeed).
But here is the thing. I have never decompiled this game, and I did it only after my 2nd clear. And I did due to the review by 'DerpyHoovesIWBTG', which mentions the following: 'You are meant to keep a rhythm going except the spikes alternate between moving every 52 and 54 frames respectively, so there is no way to keep a perfect rhythm going.'. I have seen this review before my 2nd clear, so I tried his strategy, which was as following: 'The best way to time yourself to the rhythm is look when the up spike behind you starts moving right.'. Except the problem is when you transition from one part of the screen to the next one, since you cannot see what is behind or right after you. I died because of that quite a lot.
So after my 2nd clear, I did actually decompile the game myself to see what is up with this whole thing. And here is a thing, I am pretty sure Ian is not 100% right. I have not found any mention of 54 frames, so I am not sure what is up with that. But you do see 2 values '52' and '53'. Now, how does the game actually alternate between these 2? After messing a little bit up with the whole thing, I have found out that there is a pattern here: you have twice 52 frame movement, and then 53 movement. So it basically means that you move twice in the same tempo, and then you wait for additional 1 frame longer for the 3rd one. And then the cycle repeats. And then I have tested for like 15 minutes, and this new strategy do actually work: you have to think about it as 'Move -> move -> wait a bit -> move -> ...'. In my particular case, with me not going immediately to the right, here is how it works. I am waiting 2 turns, and then I jump into the diagonal. Then I walk to the right, and as I do it, I know that it is '3' aka the slow one, and after that I count from 1.
This way I have gotten several times until Screen 3, where I died due to the nerves.
So, yes, you can actually find a rhythm there, but it is not as simple as it may seem.
Now, do I hate it or not? Honestly, I do not think I hate this one.
In fact, I have checked original game of 'I wanna be the Prism', and the code is actually identical!
This game might frustrate you if you die a lot and if you just want to clear it quickly. But if you just play and do not think about the clear, but just about the experience, surprisingly you will get sucked into this whole thing. I did not notice how fast time was passing by the more I played it. And it is so weird. But it also makes sense since you need to survive for more than a minute, which is quite a lot.
The music helps a lot here (it is funny how it is restarting just like in the original game, but it is for the better here since you can time your movements better this way), but it also makes it harder in the same time, as more as you go. And, the camera structure is also quite sneaky. The room is very long, but you as a player will perceive it as 3 different rooms. And it will make it harder for you, since you will think too much about transitions.
And the needle aspect of this game does play huge role. You will think about not failing at the very, and it is very nerve-racking the closer you get to the end.
This game is genius for how simple it is. But it is also quite evil. If you go for it blind without knowing how it works, then it is so much harder, because you will rely on a lot of different things. For example, you will have to wait for the very last moment before moving, but you also might decide to not stand next to the spike on your left, because you will probably just be killed if you do not react on time. But also adjusting your position is very hard since you have very little time to do that, and so in the end you cannot press right for same amount of time. Realistically you have to adjust how hard you press and how you time your movements.
Frustration of dying is there, but in the same time, it is addicting to play.
I have no clues how to rate this game. There is part of me that understands that there are moments where you wanna give the rating as low as possible, but in the same time there is some satisfaction of playing this. And the same problem with the difficulty. I have no clues how hard is this. I will say that doing this blind is much harder than doing with particular strats. And I will leave how I felt in both of my playthroughs. It might be overrating, but whatever.
As for my recommendations, I think that most of people won't like this even if they have access to the game. If you never liked 'I wanna be the Prism' last save of the yellow stage, then probably you will absolutely hate this game. If you found the save to be fun, just like me, then you might try this game out. Knowing how this game works, definitely helps a lot as well.
So yeah, if you have tastes like me, then I would recommend. If you find this kind of thing way too 'masochistic', then just skip and watch my clear on YouTube.
[0] Likes
Prismの黄色ステージの最後のセーブ区間を長くしたもの。
かるかにくん[http://com.nicovideo.jp/community/co1976184]への記念という名のいやがらせ。"
Yes, this description was a bit less vague than for the 'I wanna Retaliate', which is why it was less mysterious than the latter one. However, this was still quite obscure media for the longest time.
There were people who recalled seeing this, but there is no concrete evidence if any videos ever existed, and even when we talk about who played this game on stream, it is really hard to know for sure.
Heck, even the release date of this game is technically unknown. We know that 'I wanna be the Prism' (which was Dagger's 26th game) was released on 2013/05/25 (https://web.archive.org/web/20200729100037/https://sites.google.com/view/escapism/games/archive?authuser=0) and there is a proof that one of the players have beaten this game on 2014/05/03. Additionally, we know that Dagger's 32nd game 'I wanna sink deeper' was released on 2014/05/08.
We know the game was made for かるかに, and this person has played 'I wanna be the Prism' on the day of its release. And the closest I could find to the match of this game, were these 2 streams from 2013/07/06:
https://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv144102399
https://live.nicovideo.jp/watch/lv144105331
The reasoning is the repeated usage of the word '砂'. However, I cannot know for sure what was the context. If it truly is when the game was made, then it would mean that this was 26.5th game, since the next game after 'I wanna be the Prism' was 'I wanna be the Orbit' released on 2013/08/30. This would make a lot of sense why Dagger would make a spin-off joke game. However, I would need to find someone who could know exact original .exe date or maybe who would have readmes of the game (which I do not have and which I do not know if ever existed). But it is pretty complicated, considering this game was never released publicly.
Now as for the game itself.
I have beaten this game twice. First time it was all the way back in the August of 2021. And my second clear was recently in 2025. First time this game took me 06:54:55 and 2557 deaths. My second clear took me 02:21:26 and 925 deaths.
You might be wondering, why did it make so much time?
To understand it better, here is brief description of what you can see in this game:
You start with a short 'Lotus project' logo and quite cheap title screen followed by sounds of the sea (you get it - sand as sand in the sea?!). Then you start the game after selecting the Save file, and you are meeting the infamous last save of the Yellow stage from 'I wanna be the Prism'. Except this time you have 3 full screens to survive, which ends up being an experience for like around 1 minutes and 10 seconds. And also you for some reason see the Camera symbol from GameMaker. I am not sure why was that done like that (maybe it is some joke, that as if you were to be in the gamemaker? Not sure). And, yes, gameplay wise this means you need to do diagonal at the start and at the very least at the very end just like in the original. After that you fall down to the screen (it auto-saves) that says 'じゃあなw', which can be translated as 'See ya lol'. Funny.
This whole concept was really intriguing me for years, since I actually did enjoy the original save from 'I wanna be the Prism'. And when I received this game, I did not realize how much harder this is than in 'I wanna be the Prism'. However, I did not know how this game exactly worked. My strategy was as following: waiting 2 turns of spikes (to not rush through the first diagonal which is a bit tricky since the save position requires you to jump before the actual jump, so it is better to wait, in my opinion) ; then I am trying to go along with the music for like 1-2 screens. Then I am trying to count 'one two' to maintain the rhythm. The problem was that I got very consistent with the first screen, but then it got quite hard, since the later part of the song is a bit more calm so it is not easy to maintain tempo. So I had a lot of deaths on Screen 3. Originally my last PB was penultimate spike before the actual diagonal jump. But on my 2nd playthrough, I actually died on last 2 turns and even on the actual diagonal jump (yes, this game is not only about the rhythm, so I am putting this game a Needle tag indeed).
But here is the thing. I have never decompiled this game, and I did it only after my 2nd clear. And I did due to the review by 'DerpyHoovesIWBTG', which mentions the following: 'You are meant to keep a rhythm going except the spikes alternate between moving every 52 and 54 frames respectively, so there is no way to keep a perfect rhythm going.'. I have seen this review before my 2nd clear, so I tried his strategy, which was as following: 'The best way to time yourself to the rhythm is look when the up spike behind you starts moving right.'. Except the problem is when you transition from one part of the screen to the next one, since you cannot see what is behind or right after you. I died because of that quite a lot.
So after my 2nd clear, I did actually decompile the game myself to see what is up with this whole thing. And here is a thing, I am pretty sure Ian is not 100% right. I have not found any mention of 54 frames, so I am not sure what is up with that. But you do see 2 values '52' and '53'. Now, how does the game actually alternate between these 2? After messing a little bit up with the whole thing, I have found out that there is a pattern here: you have twice 52 frame movement, and then 53 movement. So it basically means that you move twice in the same tempo, and then you wait for additional 1 frame longer for the 3rd one. And then the cycle repeats. And then I have tested for like 15 minutes, and this new strategy do actually work: you have to think about it as 'Move -> move -> wait a bit -> move -> ...'. In my particular case, with me not going immediately to the right, here is how it works. I am waiting 2 turns, and then I jump into the diagonal. Then I walk to the right, and as I do it, I know that it is '3' aka the slow one, and after that I count from 1.
This way I have gotten several times until Screen 3, where I died due to the nerves.
So, yes, you can actually find a rhythm there, but it is not as simple as it may seem.
Now, do I hate it or not? Honestly, I do not think I hate this one.
In fact, I have checked original game of 'I wanna be the Prism', and the code is actually identical!
This game might frustrate you if you die a lot and if you just want to clear it quickly. But if you just play and do not think about the clear, but just about the experience, surprisingly you will get sucked into this whole thing. I did not notice how fast time was passing by the more I played it. And it is so weird. But it also makes sense since you need to survive for more than a minute, which is quite a lot.
The music helps a lot here (it is funny how it is restarting just like in the original game, but it is for the better here since you can time your movements better this way), but it also makes it harder in the same time, as more as you go. And, the camera structure is also quite sneaky. The room is very long, but you as a player will perceive it as 3 different rooms. And it will make it harder for you, since you will think too much about transitions.
And the needle aspect of this game does play huge role. You will think about not failing at the very, and it is very nerve-racking the closer you get to the end.
This game is genius for how simple it is. But it is also quite evil. If you go for it blind without knowing how it works, then it is so much harder, because you will rely on a lot of different things. For example, you will have to wait for the very last moment before moving, but you also might decide to not stand next to the spike on your left, because you will probably just be killed if you do not react on time. But also adjusting your position is very hard since you have very little time to do that, and so in the end you cannot press right for same amount of time. Realistically you have to adjust how hard you press and how you time your movements.
Frustration of dying is there, but in the same time, it is addicting to play.
I have no clues how to rate this game. There is part of me that understands that there are moments where you wanna give the rating as low as possible, but in the same time there is some satisfaction of playing this. And the same problem with the difficulty. I have no clues how hard is this. I will say that doing this blind is much harder than doing with particular strats. And I will leave how I felt in both of my playthroughs. It might be overrating, but whatever.
As for my recommendations, I think that most of people won't like this even if they have access to the game. If you never liked 'I wanna be the Prism' last save of the yellow stage, then probably you will absolutely hate this game. If you found the save to be fun, just like me, then you might try this game out. Knowing how this game works, definitely helps a lot as well.
So yeah, if you have tastes like me, then I would recommend. If you find this kind of thing way too 'masochistic', then just skip and watch my clear on YouTube.
Rating: 6.6 66
Difficulty: 76 76
Apr 26, 2025
GaspacoZanis
For: I wanna Retaliate
For: I wanna Retaliate
For long time this was the most mysterious game of Dagger, that was mentioned on his blog along with title screen and this description: "番外編。
復讐の意を込めて作った針ゲ。完全非公開。" (http://web.archive.org/web/20140511041309/https://ch.nicovideo.jp/dagger0127/blomaga/ar373850)
The .exe date of this game is 2013/January/11, and several people did play this game on Niconico back then. There are some theories that this game was made as a reward game for those who have beaten 'I wanna be the Hades', although I am not necessarily sure if it is the case.
The release date of 'I wanna be the Hades' is in itself weird, because while .exe for some reasons says 2012/February/06, the actual release date is 2013/02/06, both judging by this: http://web.archive.org/web/20200729100037/https://sites.google.com/view/escapism/games/archive?authuser=0 and by earliest Niconico live streams that were around this date. Dagger's first games were not made in February 2012, so I wonder how .exe date got wrong.
However, I am pretty sure that 'I wanna Retaliate' existed before 'I wanna be the Hades'. In fact, 18th game on the blog is mentioned 'I wanna be the Ultramarine' with the release date of 2012/12/17 and 19th game is 'I wanna be the Hades' 2013/12/06. So 'I wanna Retaliate' is 18.5th game (although it is not even mentioned in the 2020 website) with this chronology. And my personal guess is that 'I wanna Retaliate' was a prototype for what came to be in 'I wanna be the Hades'.
It is also interesting that everyone who played this game, played it literally when the game come out, so I could assume that Dagger gave out this game privately to few people back in January of 2013. Or at the very least if this game was, in fact, a reward game, then for some reason no one had streamed it after January of 2013. Which if so - odd.
What about the game itself? Does it really feel like a prototype?
I have beaten this game originally in 2022, and now I have re-beaten this game in 2025, although with my keyboard performing 1F jumps significantly worse, I did use JCS for the 5th save's 2nd jump. And, for the 4th save I did in fact jump cancel to make my life easier with the jump. I have also played 'I wanna be the Hades' up until the last save of the 1st screen.
My impression is that 'I wanna Retaliate' makes its difficulty mainly from using 1F jumps and occasionally few tricky jumps.
Save 1 requires you to take left wall align to walk off the first jump. If you can do it, then the save is surprisingly not bad.
Save 2 uses probably the hardest non-1F jump. The very first jump is really awkward. But after that you have choke jumps, that are not easy, but are definitely much easier in comparison with the first jump.
Save 3 is all about doing that weird ledge jump. Look up my video clear for the align that I am taking. Also using diagonal jump as a choke jump, was not as bad.
Save 4 is where I used cancel jump. This is literally like the jump from 'I wanna be the Hades', except you have a plane afterwards. So, I guess this save is harder in comparison. Without cancels this is hell. With them, it is fine. Although it is awkward doing that plane jump.
Save 5 is horrible. I completely forgot about it. You need to get onto the ledge and then do 1F first jump, and then everything else is not hard, but extremely chokable. I have beaten this save in 2022, but now in 2022 I died like 3 times on the last jump. So I got fed up and I used JCS to have consistent 1F, that I cannot do now. As expected, this save's difficulty is literally in 1F jump. Everything else is bearable.
Save 6 has annoying save placement, where you need to go very long time until the first jump. You need to walk off and do 1F with the 2nd jump. And then you need to do another weird jump, but which is not that hard. Did not feel as annoyed, besides that bad save placement.
Save 7 is just ceiling double diamond. Just take the align above the save.
Save 8 kind of reminds of the Save 1, but you need to do small jump (not sure if it is 1F or 2F, have not tested, but it is a small one). And then just a choke jump, which is not as bad as it seems.
After that you fall down, and you see a trap that does not kill you. And that is it.
Overall, this 1st screen did remind me a lot of 'I wanna be the Hades', although I kind of felt like without 1F jumps, this game is not as bad as it seems like. Without jumps it becomes about doing Save 2, and plane jump I guess.
Aesthetics are kind of weird. Random title screen that becomes your background ; red spikes and brick gray blocks. Would not call it cool or anything. Nothing special. Although the song does fit to this kind of thing, not gonna lie.
As for the gameplay, I can see that Dagger was most likely experimenting with what he can do, and gave out to hear more about how people felt about 'I wanna Retaliate', and made fleshed out version of the game in 'I wanna be the Hades'. This is probably why we see some reoccurring jumps like Save 4 or Save 7 (I mean, Hades literally has save with ceiling double diamond).
Also probably he did not want to update the game after he gave it out, so he decided to start from the scratch.
At the very least this is how it looks like to me, and I would like to know from where this whole 'Retaliate was for Hades winners' come from. Because in the end this game feels like a predecessor of 'I wanna be the Hades' or 'I wanna be the Hades' 0.5.
Anyway, I have heard that this map was remade in 'I wanna Maker'. If you do not wanna search for this game, then just play it there if you wanna.
But I do not think it is worth it. Without 1F jumps it is an extremely generic needle game without any personality (maybe very few jumps can feel fun but that might be a stretch), and that barely reminds of Dagger's style. If you really like this kind of gameplay, then just play 'I wanna be the Hades', I guess? It at least does not feel like a prototype game.
I originally wanted to give 4.1, but honestly some of 1F jumps are extremely unfun like on Save 5, so I might be even generous with my current rating.
Would not recommend.
P.S. I have no clues how to rate 1F jumps, so I might be overrating this game difficulty wise.
[2] Likes
復讐の意を込めて作った針ゲ。完全非公開。" (http://web.archive.org/web/20140511041309/https://ch.nicovideo.jp/dagger0127/blomaga/ar373850)
The .exe date of this game is 2013/January/11, and several people did play this game on Niconico back then. There are some theories that this game was made as a reward game for those who have beaten 'I wanna be the Hades', although I am not necessarily sure if it is the case.
The release date of 'I wanna be the Hades' is in itself weird, because while .exe for some reasons says 2012/February/06, the actual release date is 2013/02/06, both judging by this: http://web.archive.org/web/20200729100037/https://sites.google.com/view/escapism/games/archive?authuser=0 and by earliest Niconico live streams that were around this date. Dagger's first games were not made in February 2012, so I wonder how .exe date got wrong.
However, I am pretty sure that 'I wanna Retaliate' existed before 'I wanna be the Hades'. In fact, 18th game on the blog is mentioned 'I wanna be the Ultramarine' with the release date of 2012/12/17 and 19th game is 'I wanna be the Hades' 2013/12/06. So 'I wanna Retaliate' is 18.5th game (although it is not even mentioned in the 2020 website) with this chronology. And my personal guess is that 'I wanna Retaliate' was a prototype for what came to be in 'I wanna be the Hades'.
It is also interesting that everyone who played this game, played it literally when the game come out, so I could assume that Dagger gave out this game privately to few people back in January of 2013. Or at the very least if this game was, in fact, a reward game, then for some reason no one had streamed it after January of 2013. Which if so - odd.
What about the game itself? Does it really feel like a prototype?
I have beaten this game originally in 2022, and now I have re-beaten this game in 2025, although with my keyboard performing 1F jumps significantly worse, I did use JCS for the 5th save's 2nd jump. And, for the 4th save I did in fact jump cancel to make my life easier with the jump. I have also played 'I wanna be the Hades' up until the last save of the 1st screen.
My impression is that 'I wanna Retaliate' makes its difficulty mainly from using 1F jumps and occasionally few tricky jumps.
Save 1 requires you to take left wall align to walk off the first jump. If you can do it, then the save is surprisingly not bad.
Save 2 uses probably the hardest non-1F jump. The very first jump is really awkward. But after that you have choke jumps, that are not easy, but are definitely much easier in comparison with the first jump.
Save 3 is all about doing that weird ledge jump. Look up my video clear for the align that I am taking. Also using diagonal jump as a choke jump, was not as bad.
Save 4 is where I used cancel jump. This is literally like the jump from 'I wanna be the Hades', except you have a plane afterwards. So, I guess this save is harder in comparison. Without cancels this is hell. With them, it is fine. Although it is awkward doing that plane jump.
Save 5 is horrible. I completely forgot about it. You need to get onto the ledge and then do 1F first jump, and then everything else is not hard, but extremely chokable. I have beaten this save in 2022, but now in 2022 I died like 3 times on the last jump. So I got fed up and I used JCS to have consistent 1F, that I cannot do now. As expected, this save's difficulty is literally in 1F jump. Everything else is bearable.
Save 6 has annoying save placement, where you need to go very long time until the first jump. You need to walk off and do 1F with the 2nd jump. And then you need to do another weird jump, but which is not that hard. Did not feel as annoyed, besides that bad save placement.
Save 7 is just ceiling double diamond. Just take the align above the save.
Save 8 kind of reminds of the Save 1, but you need to do small jump (not sure if it is 1F or 2F, have not tested, but it is a small one). And then just a choke jump, which is not as bad as it seems.
After that you fall down, and you see a trap that does not kill you. And that is it.
Overall, this 1st screen did remind me a lot of 'I wanna be the Hades', although I kind of felt like without 1F jumps, this game is not as bad as it seems like. Without jumps it becomes about doing Save 2, and plane jump I guess.
Aesthetics are kind of weird. Random title screen that becomes your background ; red spikes and brick gray blocks. Would not call it cool or anything. Nothing special. Although the song does fit to this kind of thing, not gonna lie.
As for the gameplay, I can see that Dagger was most likely experimenting with what he can do, and gave out to hear more about how people felt about 'I wanna Retaliate', and made fleshed out version of the game in 'I wanna be the Hades'. This is probably why we see some reoccurring jumps like Save 4 or Save 7 (I mean, Hades literally has save with ceiling double diamond).
Also probably he did not want to update the game after he gave it out, so he decided to start from the scratch.
At the very least this is how it looks like to me, and I would like to know from where this whole 'Retaliate was for Hades winners' come from. Because in the end this game feels like a predecessor of 'I wanna be the Hades' or 'I wanna be the Hades' 0.5.
Anyway, I have heard that this map was remade in 'I wanna Maker'. If you do not wanna search for this game, then just play it there if you wanna.
But I do not think it is worth it. Without 1F jumps it is an extremely generic needle game without any personality (maybe very few jumps can feel fun but that might be a stretch), and that barely reminds of Dagger's style. If you really like this kind of gameplay, then just play 'I wanna be the Hades', I guess? It at least does not feel like a prototype game.
I originally wanted to give 4.1, but honestly some of 1F jumps are extremely unfun like on Save 5, so I might be even generous with my current rating.
Would not recommend.
P.S. I have no clues how to rate 1F jumps, so I might be overrating this game difficulty wise.
Rating: 3.5 35
Difficulty: 65 65
Apr 25, 2025
GaspacoZanis
For: BUBBLE RAVER
For: BUBBLE RAVER
This is seemingly original version of the Bubble Raver avoidance from 'I wanna Dance to Death'. I have beaten this back in December of 2023, and re-beaten now in 2025.
While this game does not appear on STAB's Blog, as far as I know, this version of avoidance was public on Baidu for some time. The .exe tells the date of 18/12/2016, which is around 3-4 months before the actual release of 'I wanna Dance to Death'. I am not sure when this game was uploaded on Baidu though.
As for the avoidance itself, here is my clear video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ338bMGPEA
While it does seem very similar to the Dance to Death variant, you will see that this version is a bit different. Here are the differences I have noticed:
- White orb visual effect is not present
- 00:10 aiming works differently
- 00:43 another aiming that works differently
- 00:47 completely different section. Seems easier than in Dance to Death? The big seat in the center is also much smaller here.
- 1:16 while the attack is functionally the same, it is made differently in Dance to Death
- Cat sprites sometimes are different? Or at the very least the final image of the cat in the end of the avoidance was different for me than in other playthroughs so I am not sure
Oh and you do get an item for beating this avoidance in 'BUBBLE RAVER', instead of black-out.
I have not played the other version of this avoidance, so it is hard for me to say how much worse 2016 version is. 00:47 section changes do seem important though, since in 'BUBBLE RAVER' it is much slower and kind of awkward in the same time.
However, I would say that the parts that are the same are awkward (unless there were balance changes in Dance to Death). This avoidance does have that average 2010s barrage energy. It is entertaining until you get some weird situation, and until you get to the part, where it is said 'Once again', and you realize you are replaying the beginning of the avoidance without any changes.
Bouncing attacks are annoying ; the beginning section and its repetition can give weird situations (especially in the transition to the aiming) and is not necessarily very intuitive with few of direction changes that are there. 01:20 burst can give either very free room or you get weird situations like in the video. And also if you play blind, then this avoidance does have quite few instagibs.
This avoidance is not very hard, and I remember joking that this feels like your average barrage from original FSR Avoidance Gold rank. But it does not really mean that this is a good example. I originally wanted to give 6.4 rating, but now in 2025 I do feel like I was a bit too generous.
It is not necessarily an outrageous avoidance, and if you just want some mindless experience in barrage, then you can try this one out. Although I kind of have a feeling that the version from 'I wanna Dance to Death' is better overall.
There are cool ideas and concepts, but in the end it is not anything spectacular really. Maybe it worked better almost 10 years ago, but now there are better candidates out there.
Would not recommend, unless you are searching for some random barrage avoidance to play for an hour or two.
While this game does not appear on STAB's Blog, as far as I know, this version of avoidance was public on Baidu for some time. The .exe tells the date of 18/12/2016, which is around 3-4 months before the actual release of 'I wanna Dance to Death'. I am not sure when this game was uploaded on Baidu though.
As for the avoidance itself, here is my clear video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ338bMGPEA
While it does seem very similar to the Dance to Death variant, you will see that this version is a bit different. Here are the differences I have noticed:
- White orb visual effect is not present
- 00:10 aiming works differently
- 00:43 another aiming that works differently
- 00:47 completely different section. Seems easier than in Dance to Death? The big seat in the center is also much smaller here.
- 1:16 while the attack is functionally the same, it is made differently in Dance to Death
- Cat sprites sometimes are different? Or at the very least the final image of the cat in the end of the avoidance was different for me than in other playthroughs so I am not sure
Oh and you do get an item for beating this avoidance in 'BUBBLE RAVER', instead of black-out.
I have not played the other version of this avoidance, so it is hard for me to say how much worse 2016 version is. 00:47 section changes do seem important though, since in 'BUBBLE RAVER' it is much slower and kind of awkward in the same time.
However, I would say that the parts that are the same are awkward (unless there were balance changes in Dance to Death). This avoidance does have that average 2010s barrage energy. It is entertaining until you get some weird situation, and until you get to the part, where it is said 'Once again', and you realize you are replaying the beginning of the avoidance without any changes.
Bouncing attacks are annoying ; the beginning section and its repetition can give weird situations (especially in the transition to the aiming) and is not necessarily very intuitive with few of direction changes that are there. 01:20 burst can give either very free room or you get weird situations like in the video. And also if you play blind, then this avoidance does have quite few instagibs.
This avoidance is not very hard, and I remember joking that this feels like your average barrage from original FSR Avoidance Gold rank. But it does not really mean that this is a good example. I originally wanted to give 6.4 rating, but now in 2025 I do feel like I was a bit too generous.
It is not necessarily an outrageous avoidance, and if you just want some mindless experience in barrage, then you can try this one out. Although I kind of have a feeling that the version from 'I wanna Dance to Death' is better overall.
There are cool ideas and concepts, but in the end it is not anything spectacular really. Maybe it worked better almost 10 years ago, but now there are better candidates out there.
Would not recommend, unless you are searching for some random barrage avoidance to play for an hour or two.
Tagged as: Avoidance
[0] Likes
Rating: 5.7 57
Difficulty: 54 54
Apr 24, 2025
GaspacoZanis
For: I Don't Wanna Be The Gay - The Tower
For: I Don't Wanna Be The Gay - The Tower
When I initially heard about this game, I was thinking that this would just be 'I Don't Wanna Be The Gay ADVANCED', but this ended up being some unknown and never seen before game.
There is no info about if this was some old demo that was released on Domiki's blog, or just straight up unreleased game. Even .exe date is wrong. The only thing that can help on restoring the timeline of events would be audio files that do show their original creation date, and most likely when the game was actually being produced.
sndStage1.ogg - 05/Feb/2015
sndStage1Boss.ogg - 05/Feb/2015
sndTitle.ogg - 06/Feb/2015
sndOnDeath.ogg - 07/Feb/2015
sndClear.ogg - 08/Feb/2015
sndStage2.ogg - 09/Feb/2015
sndScare.ogg - 11/Feb/2015
The game is unfinished, and it does seem like it was a quite a short production in the early February of 2015.
This game tries to be Needle and Boss genre, instead of Traps, although the very few occasions where you can see traps, those are quite funny. But, yeah, this game has fully finished Stage 1 and Stage 2 only has needle part. The hardest thing in this game is the boss fight, and the hardest platforming is definitely Stage 2, but it is in like 50s in comparison with the boss.
You start the game for the very short Stage 1, which stylistically reminds of the area after VVVVVV stage in the original game, except this time you see raining. The section is not very hard, and you cannot even hear the music, just the raining.
After you finish the section, you get until the boss, and this is where the difficulty peaks. This boss is Billy Harrington, but it features a lot of things from the bosses from the original game, to the point that it feels like a medley. Some of the patterns are definitely tighter than you would like to. Especially the Korean lady section. And RNG is also not necessarily forgiving, which does not help being right after the tight patterns.
I liked the concept of the boss here, but I definitely did not feel like the boss was polished enough to say that it was good. It reminds me of the balance in the old versions of the original game, where author was experimenting and later on balancing everything out.
The boss is really tedious, and not necessarily intuitive. And honestly I was surprised to seeing the boss harder than the final boss in the base game. Maybe it is also because of the structure. Having the first part of pure long (poorly balanced) avoidance, and second shooting phase did not help either. Any late death will make you angry.
In the very end you do have a small trolling, but I am not sure if you can die after you kill the boss. But anyway, you do see Stage 1 clear sign, as if you were in some medley game.
Stage 2 is trigger needle, and it was fine. There was one moment where I skipped half of the save due to some poor testing of the water physics. You really wish to skip more, since the only interesting part of the needle are the triggers and movements. It is interesting seeing very different look to the game. But I am not sure if it was really necessary.
The one troll with the chest was actually hilarious, but replaying the whole long needle save for it is kind of meh.
But, hey, I did like the visuals and music. It did fit to the vibe.
In the very end there is an empty boss room, which by the form reminds of the Guy fight room from the original 'I wanna be the Guy'. I wonder if this was supposed to be that.
And, yes, there is nothing more to the game, since the game is unfinished.
This is an interesting demo, especially, considering that this was made by Domiki himself. You would not expect such thing to exist. And, yet, it does.
But, honestly, I would probably recommend just watching my YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlI9DnZ7-Co) video instead of playing this game.
The game has interesting concepts, but it is just not very fun to play in the current state. It has great visuals and the concept is interesting. But you can see that Domiki is not very experienced in a pure needle style and making harder bosses does require better balancing. I wish this game would have some update or something. That would be great. And yet I doubt that will ever happen.
As it stands, just play the original game. It is way more polished.
Would not recommend.
[1] Like
There is no info about if this was some old demo that was released on Domiki's blog, or just straight up unreleased game. Even .exe date is wrong. The only thing that can help on restoring the timeline of events would be audio files that do show their original creation date, and most likely when the game was actually being produced.
sndStage1.ogg - 05/Feb/2015
sndStage1Boss.ogg - 05/Feb/2015
sndTitle.ogg - 06/Feb/2015
sndOnDeath.ogg - 07/Feb/2015
sndClear.ogg - 08/Feb/2015
sndStage2.ogg - 09/Feb/2015
sndScare.ogg - 11/Feb/2015
The game is unfinished, and it does seem like it was a quite a short production in the early February of 2015.
This game tries to be Needle and Boss genre, instead of Traps, although the very few occasions where you can see traps, those are quite funny. But, yeah, this game has fully finished Stage 1 and Stage 2 only has needle part. The hardest thing in this game is the boss fight, and the hardest platforming is definitely Stage 2, but it is in like 50s in comparison with the boss.
You start the game for the very short Stage 1, which stylistically reminds of the area after VVVVVV stage in the original game, except this time you see raining. The section is not very hard, and you cannot even hear the music, just the raining.
After you finish the section, you get until the boss, and this is where the difficulty peaks. This boss is Billy Harrington, but it features a lot of things from the bosses from the original game, to the point that it feels like a medley. Some of the patterns are definitely tighter than you would like to. Especially the Korean lady section. And RNG is also not necessarily forgiving, which does not help being right after the tight patterns.
I liked the concept of the boss here, but I definitely did not feel like the boss was polished enough to say that it was good. It reminds me of the balance in the old versions of the original game, where author was experimenting and later on balancing everything out.
The boss is really tedious, and not necessarily intuitive. And honestly I was surprised to seeing the boss harder than the final boss in the base game. Maybe it is also because of the structure. Having the first part of pure long (poorly balanced) avoidance, and second shooting phase did not help either. Any late death will make you angry.
In the very end you do have a small trolling, but I am not sure if you can die after you kill the boss. But anyway, you do see Stage 1 clear sign, as if you were in some medley game.
Stage 2 is trigger needle, and it was fine. There was one moment where I skipped half of the save due to some poor testing of the water physics. You really wish to skip more, since the only interesting part of the needle are the triggers and movements. It is interesting seeing very different look to the game. But I am not sure if it was really necessary.
The one troll with the chest was actually hilarious, but replaying the whole long needle save for it is kind of meh.
But, hey, I did like the visuals and music. It did fit to the vibe.
In the very end there is an empty boss room, which by the form reminds of the Guy fight room from the original 'I wanna be the Guy'. I wonder if this was supposed to be that.
And, yes, there is nothing more to the game, since the game is unfinished.
This is an interesting demo, especially, considering that this was made by Domiki himself. You would not expect such thing to exist. And, yet, it does.
But, honestly, I would probably recommend just watching my YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlI9DnZ7-Co) video instead of playing this game.
The game has interesting concepts, but it is just not very fun to play in the current state. It has great visuals and the concept is interesting. But you can see that Domiki is not very experienced in a pure needle style and making harder bosses does require better balancing. I wish this game would have some update or something. That would be great. And yet I doubt that will ever happen.
As it stands, just play the original game. It is way more polished.
Would not recommend.
Rating: 4.3 43
Difficulty: 61 61
Apr 23, 2025
GaspacoZanis
For: I Don't Wanna Be The Gay
For: I Don't Wanna Be The Gay
.Beaten this game in the end of 2023, both on Easy and Normal mode of the latest version, and later on v0.55 as well. The difficulty rating is approximately how hard the final boss is on Normal mode, the quality rating is my perception of this game as a whole.
This is one of those cases where I can say that the game did surprise me a lot, when I started playing it. You have a very well-crafted Adventure game, that got finished in early 2013, and started its production all the way in 2012. The game is obviously inspired by Boshy, but in the same time you can see this distinct style of Domiki. The game leans into Korean meme area, with a lot of references to the Korean media. And in that regard, this is probably one of the influential fangames in the Korean community at the time.
The game has a lot of content, including secret items and secret bosses. The game is mainly trap-oriented, but it does not necessarily get annoying. The final boss is the main difficulty spike, and this is the reason why I would recommend to start playing the game on Easy mode at first. It will give you enough experience to try this game later on on Normal mode. I am not sure how hard the final boss is on easy mode, but I guess I would rate in the lower 50s.
The secrets are not changed on any difficulty though. And if I recall correctly, secrets do get saved between saves.
This game also has a lot of mid-avoidances, that are surprisingly free.
As for the balance, one of the things that made me appreciate this game a lot was trying this game on v0.55. The game was in a much more rough situation, having more precise traps, worse physics (the auto-vine section is broken in v0.55, so it is extremely annoying) and some balance in bosses could have been better. However, it is interesting seeing how many changes this game faced. And like the fact that author really tried to make the game better and better. You really do feel that.
Some things got scraped, like the old Stage 3 avoidance or Challenge mode (which does seem a bit unreasonable in v0.55, although also a bit different in v0.7 as well).
I had tons of fun playing and re-playing this game, which is really surprising. This game truly has those early 2010s vibes. I know that there are some problematic parts, which is why certain things got changed for the Fangame Marathon (non-public version though). But at the very least the title is not as offensive as it might seem in the very beginning when you see this kind of title of the game.
I know that the final boss is a bit of a jump in the difficulty aspect, and that the final boss is very long in itself. But I personally did not mind it a lot. Traps sometimes did tend to be generic, but I found the charm in that. And also some of the secret content did make me laugh indeed.
There is also some kind of story, but I am not sure where the author was trying to go with that. But the kid's voice actor is hilarious in this game.
There is a lot to say, and in the same time, I think it is worth trying out the game yourself. If you are not a big fan of memes, then probably you won't like this game a lot. But if you do, then I think you might have a good time. This game surely offers content to play, and is visually appealing. But be ready for the chaos.
If you are too afraid from the final boss, then you can also get until the final boss and stop there. The game is around 40s without the final boss.
Would recommend.
[1] Like
This is one of those cases where I can say that the game did surprise me a lot, when I started playing it. You have a very well-crafted Adventure game, that got finished in early 2013, and started its production all the way in 2012. The game is obviously inspired by Boshy, but in the same time you can see this distinct style of Domiki. The game leans into Korean meme area, with a lot of references to the Korean media. And in that regard, this is probably one of the influential fangames in the Korean community at the time.
The game has a lot of content, including secret items and secret bosses. The game is mainly trap-oriented, but it does not necessarily get annoying. The final boss is the main difficulty spike, and this is the reason why I would recommend to start playing the game on Easy mode at first. It will give you enough experience to try this game later on on Normal mode. I am not sure how hard the final boss is on easy mode, but I guess I would rate in the lower 50s.
The secrets are not changed on any difficulty though. And if I recall correctly, secrets do get saved between saves.
This game also has a lot of mid-avoidances, that are surprisingly free.
As for the balance, one of the things that made me appreciate this game a lot was trying this game on v0.55. The game was in a much more rough situation, having more precise traps, worse physics (the auto-vine section is broken in v0.55, so it is extremely annoying) and some balance in bosses could have been better. However, it is interesting seeing how many changes this game faced. And like the fact that author really tried to make the game better and better. You really do feel that.
Some things got scraped, like the old Stage 3 avoidance or Challenge mode (which does seem a bit unreasonable in v0.55, although also a bit different in v0.7 as well).
I had tons of fun playing and re-playing this game, which is really surprising. This game truly has those early 2010s vibes. I know that there are some problematic parts, which is why certain things got changed for the Fangame Marathon (non-public version though). But at the very least the title is not as offensive as it might seem in the very beginning when you see this kind of title of the game.
I know that the final boss is a bit of a jump in the difficulty aspect, and that the final boss is very long in itself. But I personally did not mind it a lot. Traps sometimes did tend to be generic, but I found the charm in that. And also some of the secret content did make me laugh indeed.
There is also some kind of story, but I am not sure where the author was trying to go with that. But the kid's voice actor is hilarious in this game.
There is a lot to say, and in the same time, I think it is worth trying out the game yourself. If you are not a big fan of memes, then probably you won't like this game a lot. But if you do, then I think you might have a good time. This game surely offers content to play, and is visually appealing. But be ready for the chaos.
If you are too afraid from the final boss, then you can also get until the final boss and stop there. The game is around 40s without the final boss.
Would recommend.
Rating: 6.9 69
Difficulty: 57 57
Apr 22, 2025
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