Delicious FruitYaBoiMarcAntony's Profile
Send a PMJoined on: Apr 26, 2020
Bio:
I used to be here four years ago but I left. I was Guitarsage2k/Parallax5.
These fangames mean a lot to me (attempt at order)
1. I Wanna Kill the Kermit 3
2. I Wanna Walk Out in the Morning Dew
3. I Wanna Be the Volatile Presence: Stagnant Edition
4. Crimson Needle 3
5. I Wanna Kill the Kermit 2
6. I Wanna Figure
7. Phonotransmitter
8. VoVoVo
9. I Wanna Reach the Moon
10. untitled needle game
11. I Wanna Burnmind
12. Domu
13. I Want To Meet Miki
14. I Wanna Go Across the Rainbow
15. Alphazetica
16. I Wanna Stop the Simulation
17. I Wanna Hydrate
18. I Wanna Be the Ocean Princess
19. I Wanna Vibe with the Gods
20. I Wanna Be the Vandal
21. I Wanna Pray to the Platform God
22. I Want
23. I Wanna Pointillism
24. I Wanna Be Far From Home
25. I Wanna Be the RO
I've submitted:
278 Ratings!
239 Reviews!
5 Screenshots!
TwitterReport this user
278 Games
239 Reviews
YaBoiMarcAntony
For: I want
For: I want
"...riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs."
This game is a disappointing mess of...
Wait.
I Want is a fantastic mess of random brilliance and I don't know why so much effort was put into making this, but God do I love it. I never heard that Egg and Pieceofcheese were working on a new game, so I had no interest in what kind of cool ideas their two minds could create. Little did I not know, however, that their idea of fun is a bunch of random stages that feel like they were too good for the Try A Collab games. I don't know what the goal of all this is, but it just feels like they slapped this together in a genius attempt to make some kind of hereditary baldness inspired game. I think that they were trying to make "art" with this game, like there's a statement to be made about it. They would probably say "figure it out yourself" but its pretty obvious the inner workings and meanings of I Want are far too much for mere mortal's understanding, given to us through creativity and ability to make intelligent and bizarre things. Great job, you can use Audacity to distort music and you can use game maker to distort sprites. Brilliant artwork you have there. And it feels like they are taking inspiration from millions of other sources while still coming up with something unique and substantial. hell, there's even a whole stage that is just NANG but awesome. T his game does so many things new. So basically, it succeeds in every category. It's fun, it's lovely to look at, the music is infectious, it is outrageously funny, it is spectacularly interesting and has so much to say, and the "weirdness" is the super sweet cherry on top. And I keep wondering why two people that clearly know better than us all didn't throw this out their with their names on it earlier to the obvious praise it would have received. They even went as far as to write an ironic readme file trying to mimic a delfruit review as if...
Wait.
I Want is an intense look into the twisted minds of two phenomenal creators, Egg and Pieceofcheeese. In putting their wrinkle-heavy brains together, they've concocted one of the finest pieces of art ever before seen. There's so much to unpack, so much to glean from each screen, there's... well there's just so much!
Let's take it from the top.
For one, the top varies from playthrough to playthrough. So far as I know, the order of the game is random up to a certain point, although that's merely an assumption. For all I know, you could play the last stage first, which itself would be fitting too. Whatever first screen you get, however, it'll leave one hell of an impression on you. First, you'll be hit with some wacky visuals, wacky to the point that they're an aspect of the challenge itself. Then, you'll find your ears assaulted by some of the more peculiar music to fill the auditory voids of fangames. Finally, and this is the biggest treat, you'll be forced to sink your teeth into some seriously screwed gameplay. Every screen is a little fucked in its own way, no one gimmick feels like it would belong in a "serious" or "typical" game. In fact, not a single moment of this game was normal or typical, though it was all quite serious to me.
Indeed, there are many strong and notable themes to delve into in I Want, none more so than those to do with culture, both in general and in the fangame community. Nearly every screen is a reference to something, whether it's an inside joke in the fangame community or just a reference to something in the real world. For example, there's a boss in which you fight the Burger King himself. This combined with the total onslaught on all fronts that I Want is, one is reminded of modern life and how it feels on a daily basis to be bombarded with various forms of culture and modernity. There is no peace and quiet, as far as today is concerned. Taking a mere drive to the park leads to your seeing billboards galore for fast food and "fine dining," and if you're listening to the radio, then your ears too are not safe. There's people everywhere, humans with their own lives and beliefs, encroaching on your space and filling your mind with everything that is irrelevant to you. To get away from it all, you'd have to totally isolate yourself, to a larger point than most are willing to go.
This, in essence, is what I Want gets at. It is a sensory overload, filling you to the brim with noise and pictures and feelings and everything it can fit into itself. There is no peace, no respite, nothing at all to allow yourself any sort of freedom from this mass cacophony of life. As time passes, you find yourself going insane because you need that escape, you need that freedom, and when that freedom never arrives, your brain is faced then with two choices: give in to the chaos, or give up. I Want, however, takes even that away from you, forcing you to give in to its pandemonium, and every second in this house of demons is a second closer towards a meaningless and un-noticeable end, one that could never fittingly end this hell-ward ride.
So, as is to be expected, your journey ends with a crash.
Entropy's measure is something we cannot claim to understand. The purpose and goal behind an intrinsic force of the Universe could never be totally understood. So, when we try to harness that energy, when we decide to take chaos to its limit, we're met with the cold hand of death.
Of course, perhaps there's nothing here. Perhaps there is no meaning, nothing to be learned or taken from I Want. Perhaps it is itself a purpose-less game meant only for a laugh. It is a simple task to create something without meaning, but to create something that cannot have meaning derived from it is not within human's grasp. When faced with utter absurdity, the human mind searches for and attributes meaning to it. When we look in the sky and see a cloud whose existence was by mere chance, we see butterflies and bunnies, patterns where there were no patterns meant. Maybe that's what I Want is about, the human tendency to apply meaning to the meaninglessness.
Whatever it may be about, the journey is one of unintelligible gasps and mutters. The end differentiates itself from the beginning only in that nothing comes after it. The flow is non-existent, the timeline is scattered and irrelevant. No screen has any particular right to come next because they're all next and they all came before. In every way, I Want...
Wait.
I Want is a sudoku fangame which tries its very best to deliver to you an experience unlike any other. And in every way possible, it succeeds. There is no game like I Want, no absurd journey quite as wacky as this one, no sudoku game which reaches the heights of ludicrousness that I Want operates at. Not every screen is great fun, but it almost doesn't matter. Nothing is too hard to hold you back, so I was never caught up on that aspect of the game. Instead, I was just excited to see what came next, what den of madness I would find myself in. Don't let that fool you, however. There's quite a lot of fun to be had here from a gameplay perspective as well. Sure a few screens here and there are infuriatingly obtuse, but that's apart of the fun too.
There's so much you can say about I Want, but words don't do this game justice - at least, not to those who will like the game. If you don't like the game, then here's all the words you need:
"This game is a disappointing mess of
I'm not actually going to do that.
Whether you love it or you hate it, there's no denying that I Want is an experience unlike any other. Personally, I loved it.
"We pass through grass behush the bush to. Whish! A gull. Gulls. Far calls. Coming, far! End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thousendsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the..."
This game is a disappointing mess of...
Wait.
I Want is a fantastic mess of random brilliance and I don't know why so much effort was put into making this, but God do I love it. I never heard that Egg and Pieceofcheese were working on a new game, so I had no interest in what kind of cool ideas their two minds could create. Little did I not know, however, that their idea of fun is a bunch of random stages that feel like they were too good for the Try A Collab games. I don't know what the goal of all this is, but it just feels like they slapped this together in a genius attempt to make some kind of hereditary baldness inspired game. I think that they were trying to make "art" with this game, like there's a statement to be made about it. They would probably say "figure it out yourself" but its pretty obvious the inner workings and meanings of I Want are far too much for mere mortal's understanding, given to us through creativity and ability to make intelligent and bizarre things. Great job, you can use Audacity to distort music and you can use game maker to distort sprites. Brilliant artwork you have there. And it feels like they are taking inspiration from millions of other sources while still coming up with something unique and substantial. hell, there's even a whole stage that is just NANG but awesome. T his game does so many things new. So basically, it succeeds in every category. It's fun, it's lovely to look at, the music is infectious, it is outrageously funny, it is spectacularly interesting and has so much to say, and the "weirdness" is the super sweet cherry on top. And I keep wondering why two people that clearly know better than us all didn't throw this out their with their names on it earlier to the obvious praise it would have received. They even went as far as to write an ironic readme file trying to mimic a delfruit review as if...
Wait.
I Want is an intense look into the twisted minds of two phenomenal creators, Egg and Pieceofcheeese. In putting their wrinkle-heavy brains together, they've concocted one of the finest pieces of art ever before seen. There's so much to unpack, so much to glean from each screen, there's... well there's just so much!
Let's take it from the top.
For one, the top varies from playthrough to playthrough. So far as I know, the order of the game is random up to a certain point, although that's merely an assumption. For all I know, you could play the last stage first, which itself would be fitting too. Whatever first screen you get, however, it'll leave one hell of an impression on you. First, you'll be hit with some wacky visuals, wacky to the point that they're an aspect of the challenge itself. Then, you'll find your ears assaulted by some of the more peculiar music to fill the auditory voids of fangames. Finally, and this is the biggest treat, you'll be forced to sink your teeth into some seriously screwed gameplay. Every screen is a little fucked in its own way, no one gimmick feels like it would belong in a "serious" or "typical" game. In fact, not a single moment of this game was normal or typical, though it was all quite serious to me.
Indeed, there are many strong and notable themes to delve into in I Want, none more so than those to do with culture, both in general and in the fangame community. Nearly every screen is a reference to something, whether it's an inside joke in the fangame community or just a reference to something in the real world. For example, there's a boss in which you fight the Burger King himself. This combined with the total onslaught on all fronts that I Want is, one is reminded of modern life and how it feels on a daily basis to be bombarded with various forms of culture and modernity. There is no peace and quiet, as far as today is concerned. Taking a mere drive to the park leads to your seeing billboards galore for fast food and "fine dining," and if you're listening to the radio, then your ears too are not safe. There's people everywhere, humans with their own lives and beliefs, encroaching on your space and filling your mind with everything that is irrelevant to you. To get away from it all, you'd have to totally isolate yourself, to a larger point than most are willing to go.
This, in essence, is what I Want gets at. It is a sensory overload, filling you to the brim with noise and pictures and feelings and everything it can fit into itself. There is no peace, no respite, nothing at all to allow yourself any sort of freedom from this mass cacophony of life. As time passes, you find yourself going insane because you need that escape, you need that freedom, and when that freedom never arrives, your brain is faced then with two choices: give in to the chaos, or give up. I Want, however, takes even that away from you, forcing you to give in to its pandemonium, and every second in this house of demons is a second closer towards a meaningless and un-noticeable end, one that could never fittingly end this hell-ward ride.
So, as is to be expected, your journey ends with a crash.
Entropy's measure is something we cannot claim to understand. The purpose and goal behind an intrinsic force of the Universe could never be totally understood. So, when we try to harness that energy, when we decide to take chaos to its limit, we're met with the cold hand of death.
Of course, perhaps there's nothing here. Perhaps there is no meaning, nothing to be learned or taken from I Want. Perhaps it is itself a purpose-less game meant only for a laugh. It is a simple task to create something without meaning, but to create something that cannot have meaning derived from it is not within human's grasp. When faced with utter absurdity, the human mind searches for and attributes meaning to it. When we look in the sky and see a cloud whose existence was by mere chance, we see butterflies and bunnies, patterns where there were no patterns meant. Maybe that's what I Want is about, the human tendency to apply meaning to the meaninglessness.
Whatever it may be about, the journey is one of unintelligible gasps and mutters. The end differentiates itself from the beginning only in that nothing comes after it. The flow is non-existent, the timeline is scattered and irrelevant. No screen has any particular right to come next because they're all next and they all came before. In every way, I Want...
Wait.
I Want is a sudoku fangame which tries its very best to deliver to you an experience unlike any other. And in every way possible, it succeeds. There is no game like I Want, no absurd journey quite as wacky as this one, no sudoku game which reaches the heights of ludicrousness that I Want operates at. Not every screen is great fun, but it almost doesn't matter. Nothing is too hard to hold you back, so I was never caught up on that aspect of the game. Instead, I was just excited to see what came next, what den of madness I would find myself in. Don't let that fool you, however. There's quite a lot of fun to be had here from a gameplay perspective as well. Sure a few screens here and there are infuriatingly obtuse, but that's apart of the fun too.
There's so much you can say about I Want, but words don't do this game justice - at least, not to those who will like the game. If you don't like the game, then here's all the words you need:
"This game is a disappointing mess of
I'm not actually going to do that.
Whether you love it or you hate it, there's no denying that I Want is an experience unlike any other. Personally, I loved it.
"We pass through grass behush the bush to. Whish! A gull. Gulls. Far calls. Coming, far! End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thousendsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a long the..."
Tagged as: Special
[9] Likes
Rating: 9.5 95
Difficulty: 60 60
Oct 19, 2020
YaBoiMarcAntony
For: i've promulgated the clandestine needle
For: i've promulgated the clandestine needle
Before I set off on my typical attempt at reaching for the inner meanings of this game, I'll say these words: the gameplay is very good, even great. This is by far the best Dopamine-like (Tethys-like in particular) that I've ever played, bar none. This is thanks both to the gameplay and the "lore" as Egg puts it. That's all, I didn't want to put this at the end and ruin the mood.
Anyways...
I've Promulgated the Clandestine Needle tells a tragic and abstract look into the mind of a depressed and anxious person. It does so succinctly and vaguely, but in a concrete enough fashion to be understandable.
There are three stages, though the final stage is quite short. The first sees the beginning of the day: static. This is the way you're welcomed into this cruel little world, with a twisted and dark song as well as an emotionless, noisy background to drown out anything else you could possibly feel. The saves are buried in the ground and make no noise when used, so there's this loss of triumph with the passing of each save. As such, there's a sickness prevalent with every stage, one in which there is no feeling of progress nor any feelings of success. Every change in scenery is merely that and nothing more. The final cherry on top is the text that greets you on death: "get well soon!"
This phrase, dripping in sarcasm and bile, is the world's jest. On death, all it can muster for me is a throwaway line you could say to anyone. There's no real meaning to it, it is the bare minimum that has long since become an empty set of words parroted by people who don't really care, people that don't know what you're going through or how painful every day feels; they don't feel the weight of every day, every week, every month, every year, every single second of the life you live, and somehow they believe a "get well soon" is just what the doctor ordered.
Nonetheless, there's a sort of guilt associated with that feeling. Perhaps you will get well soon, perhaps you can do something to make that faraway "soon" come closer than it ever has, and so the second stage comes in. The background has changed to that of a church; yet, the picture wobbles and moves to and fro, as if you're a drunkard just wandering into some warm place to hide away from the rain. You're trying to be better, but the picture never becomes clear, you never find yourself feeling as if this is right. You sit in the pews and listen to senseless words that you refuse to attribute meaning to, you try to become better but your mind won't let it happen, you won't change and will never change.
And so, the final stage comes in. It's shrouded in darkness, but you can clearly make out a broken and messy room, like someone tore through it looking for any shred of happiness they could find: the aftermath of a drunk night. This is the great mistake, that ineffable wrong spoken of in the final screen, that thing which you can never make right. You'll never see the full picture because your mind refutes it, trying to hide it away as best you can, but you see it nonetheless. You see your wrong, and in spite of everything, you can not make up for it.
AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT
YOU CAN'T CHANGE THE PAST
STOP TRYING
These words are what await you at the end of your journey, not some false platitude telling you "good job," or "what an incredible journey, look how you've changed and what your life has led to!" No, it is merely what you knew before you set out on this path to begin with.
Anyways...
I've Promulgated the Clandestine Needle tells a tragic and abstract look into the mind of a depressed and anxious person. It does so succinctly and vaguely, but in a concrete enough fashion to be understandable.
There are three stages, though the final stage is quite short. The first sees the beginning of the day: static. This is the way you're welcomed into this cruel little world, with a twisted and dark song as well as an emotionless, noisy background to drown out anything else you could possibly feel. The saves are buried in the ground and make no noise when used, so there's this loss of triumph with the passing of each save. As such, there's a sickness prevalent with every stage, one in which there is no feeling of progress nor any feelings of success. Every change in scenery is merely that and nothing more. The final cherry on top is the text that greets you on death: "get well soon!"
This phrase, dripping in sarcasm and bile, is the world's jest. On death, all it can muster for me is a throwaway line you could say to anyone. There's no real meaning to it, it is the bare minimum that has long since become an empty set of words parroted by people who don't really care, people that don't know what you're going through or how painful every day feels; they don't feel the weight of every day, every week, every month, every year, every single second of the life you live, and somehow they believe a "get well soon" is just what the doctor ordered.
Nonetheless, there's a sort of guilt associated with that feeling. Perhaps you will get well soon, perhaps you can do something to make that faraway "soon" come closer than it ever has, and so the second stage comes in. The background has changed to that of a church; yet, the picture wobbles and moves to and fro, as if you're a drunkard just wandering into some warm place to hide away from the rain. You're trying to be better, but the picture never becomes clear, you never find yourself feeling as if this is right. You sit in the pews and listen to senseless words that you refuse to attribute meaning to, you try to become better but your mind won't let it happen, you won't change and will never change.
And so, the final stage comes in. It's shrouded in darkness, but you can clearly make out a broken and messy room, like someone tore through it looking for any shred of happiness they could find: the aftermath of a drunk night. This is the great mistake, that ineffable wrong spoken of in the final screen, that thing which you can never make right. You'll never see the full picture because your mind refutes it, trying to hide it away as best you can, but you see it nonetheless. You see your wrong, and in spite of everything, you can not make up for it.
AND THERE'S NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT
YOU CAN'T CHANGE THE PAST
STOP TRYING
These words are what await you at the end of your journey, not some false platitude telling you "good job," or "what an incredible journey, look how you've changed and what your life has led to!" No, it is merely what you knew before you set out on this path to begin with.
Tagged as: Needle
[3] Likes
Rating: 8.5 85
Difficulty: 62 62
Oct 18, 2020
YaBoiMarcAntony
For: I Wanna Save My Boy
For: I Wanna Save My Boy
I could spend a very long time gushing about how good this game is, so I'll go ahead and do it in a paragraph here:
I Wanna Save My Boy is a brilliant needle-gimmick-venture game from Arzztt, yet another in a long line of masterpieces. Every screen is a stroke of genius, every save is just a little taste of ambrosia, every single jump is a mere hint of the whole cocaine-covered cake. There's so much content jammed into this one game that your first playthrough could only be finished in one sitting if you're a madman with nothing to do; yet, it never feels tired for one second thanks to the insane amount of gimmicks put into play throughout each stage. Each gimmick is fed to you slowly, introduced one at a time until you'll be playing with several gimmicks in just one save by the end. This is, in my eyes, the completion of an evolution starting all the way back with Chill Needle.
Arzztt started from pure corridor needle, albeit quite good corridor needle. Nonetheless, it was a mere taste of what was to come. A Minimal Adventure releases and Arzztt suddenly reveals his hand, giving just a little peek at what they could do; yet, it was still a simplistic gimmick needle game. All that changed, however, with the release of Not Another VVVVVV Game. This is where Arzztt truly stepped into a class of his own. His usage of the VKid gimmick is second-to-none and by this point his needle was refined to a point that few creators ever reach. Most important of all, however, there was this little touch, this little bit of love put into his game that made it especially phenomenal. Chill Needle 2 drops soon after NAVG, admittedly a small stumble in Arzztt's evolution, but it is nonetheless the next step due to its introduction of other gimmicks. Instead of just being a vkid-trick pony, Arzztt shows that they have a handle on gimmicks in general, exhibiting a clear understanding of what feels good to play with despite not being typical within fangames.
Then, there's VoVoVo.
I gushed about VoVoVo enough in its own review, so I'll keep it short. VoVoVo is a gimmick needle game which is one of the closest things we've ever gotten to an orgasm in the form of a game. In fact, it's so splendiferous that I find it difficult to truly express that quality in appropriate words (which is my way of saying I've been here for five minutes trying to write a sentence and I can't fucking do it). There are several unique gimmicks utilized throughout and they're all used perfectly. One could call VoVoVo the natural conclusion to this evolution Arzztt has undergone.
Then, there's Save My Boy.
Something VoVoVo was careful about was how much went on at one time. There would be a couple, perhaps even a few gimmicks at once, but it was never to the point of being overwhelming. Save My Boy doesn't give a god-damned shit about being overwhelming, to be crude. Instead, Save My Boy wants to take it to the limit, see what can happen if you throw everything you can into one screen. This, if done by an inferior creator, would have been a mess. There would have been no balance, no gimmick would have felt interesting in its own right, and it would have not an ounce of cohesion. Arzztt, however, is not an inferior creator, as he's proven time and time again. As such, Save My Boy is a phenomenally well-put-together game. Despite how much is going on at any given time, I never felt like I was losing the plot or as if there was no order. I Wanna Save My Boy is like a brilliant orchestra. Despite the amount of people, despite the various instruments, despite everything suggesting that they should be able to produce nothing but a cacophonous mess, the Save My Boy orchestra manages to blend together this assortment of sounds in such a way that only a master composer could ever do. And so, they've created a spectacular symphony.
There's a story as well, and I'll never forget it. It's not a Shakespearean tale, but it doesn't try to be. It's a simple story of trying to save your boy spread out over many different twists and turns. The dialogue is funny and acts as a nice breather between stages, as do the bosses themselves despite their simplicity. I found myself laughing out loud quite a lot, if I'm honest. The final boss is both hilarious and a great subversion. Such a grandiose game would have nothing less than a grandiose boss to cap it all off, but instead we're given a joke boss (although I did die once as expected, since I'm a joke too).
There's a lot of talk of memorability, and by a lot of talk I mean Kale talks about it a lot. I agree with him, actually. There's little variety, at the end of the day, and the game plays it safe to the very end. One might think it a bit risky to play with so many different gimmicks at one time, but if you're careful, it really is no problem at all. It's a massively difficult thing to do, of course, but when you have such a handle on design as Arzztt, then it's just a matter of time. These are all things I agree with wholeheartedly, but I also believe they miss the point to begin with. Since Chill Needle, Arzztt has placed a huge importance on one thing and one thing only: fun. There's been little risk, but there's also never been a bad moment throughout any of his games. I'll admit, this makes it difficult for a game to be truly memorable and special, but somehow Arzztt often manages it anyways.
Save My Boy may not have the most varied or interesting gameplay, but it has so much heart that I can't fault it for that anyways. This is thanks also to the lovable story and cast of characters. Sure, I won't recall this game as well as I do Morning Dew or Vandal, but it holds a special place in my heart nonetheless. Save My Boy is, in essence, your homie. He's everyone's homie. Everyone likes and loves him and he makes everyone a better person by being around them. He lifts everyone up and tries his very best to put a smile on everyone's face. Maybe he doesn't create a jaw-droppingly gorgeous piece of art, maybe he doesn't have fascinatingly spicy political takes, maybe, maybe, maybe. What he does have, however, is a good heart.
[0] Likes
I Wanna Save My Boy is a brilliant needle-gimmick-venture game from Arzztt, yet another in a long line of masterpieces. Every screen is a stroke of genius, every save is just a little taste of ambrosia, every single jump is a mere hint of the whole cocaine-covered cake. There's so much content jammed into this one game that your first playthrough could only be finished in one sitting if you're a madman with nothing to do; yet, it never feels tired for one second thanks to the insane amount of gimmicks put into play throughout each stage. Each gimmick is fed to you slowly, introduced one at a time until you'll be playing with several gimmicks in just one save by the end. This is, in my eyes, the completion of an evolution starting all the way back with Chill Needle.
Arzztt started from pure corridor needle, albeit quite good corridor needle. Nonetheless, it was a mere taste of what was to come. A Minimal Adventure releases and Arzztt suddenly reveals his hand, giving just a little peek at what they could do; yet, it was still a simplistic gimmick needle game. All that changed, however, with the release of Not Another VVVVVV Game. This is where Arzztt truly stepped into a class of his own. His usage of the VKid gimmick is second-to-none and by this point his needle was refined to a point that few creators ever reach. Most important of all, however, there was this little touch, this little bit of love put into his game that made it especially phenomenal. Chill Needle 2 drops soon after NAVG, admittedly a small stumble in Arzztt's evolution, but it is nonetheless the next step due to its introduction of other gimmicks. Instead of just being a vkid-trick pony, Arzztt shows that they have a handle on gimmicks in general, exhibiting a clear understanding of what feels good to play with despite not being typical within fangames.
Then, there's VoVoVo.
I gushed about VoVoVo enough in its own review, so I'll keep it short. VoVoVo is a gimmick needle game which is one of the closest things we've ever gotten to an orgasm in the form of a game. In fact, it's so splendiferous that I find it difficult to truly express that quality in appropriate words (which is my way of saying I've been here for five minutes trying to write a sentence and I can't fucking do it). There are several unique gimmicks utilized throughout and they're all used perfectly. One could call VoVoVo the natural conclusion to this evolution Arzztt has undergone.
Then, there's Save My Boy.
Something VoVoVo was careful about was how much went on at one time. There would be a couple, perhaps even a few gimmicks at once, but it was never to the point of being overwhelming. Save My Boy doesn't give a god-damned shit about being overwhelming, to be crude. Instead, Save My Boy wants to take it to the limit, see what can happen if you throw everything you can into one screen. This, if done by an inferior creator, would have been a mess. There would have been no balance, no gimmick would have felt interesting in its own right, and it would have not an ounce of cohesion. Arzztt, however, is not an inferior creator, as he's proven time and time again. As such, Save My Boy is a phenomenally well-put-together game. Despite how much is going on at any given time, I never felt like I was losing the plot or as if there was no order. I Wanna Save My Boy is like a brilliant orchestra. Despite the amount of people, despite the various instruments, despite everything suggesting that they should be able to produce nothing but a cacophonous mess, the Save My Boy orchestra manages to blend together this assortment of sounds in such a way that only a master composer could ever do. And so, they've created a spectacular symphony.
There's a story as well, and I'll never forget it. It's not a Shakespearean tale, but it doesn't try to be. It's a simple story of trying to save your boy spread out over many different twists and turns. The dialogue is funny and acts as a nice breather between stages, as do the bosses themselves despite their simplicity. I found myself laughing out loud quite a lot, if I'm honest. The final boss is both hilarious and a great subversion. Such a grandiose game would have nothing less than a grandiose boss to cap it all off, but instead we're given a joke boss (although I did die once as expected, since I'm a joke too).
There's a lot of talk of memorability, and by a lot of talk I mean Kale talks about it a lot. I agree with him, actually. There's little variety, at the end of the day, and the game plays it safe to the very end. One might think it a bit risky to play with so many different gimmicks at one time, but if you're careful, it really is no problem at all. It's a massively difficult thing to do, of course, but when you have such a handle on design as Arzztt, then it's just a matter of time. These are all things I agree with wholeheartedly, but I also believe they miss the point to begin with. Since Chill Needle, Arzztt has placed a huge importance on one thing and one thing only: fun. There's been little risk, but there's also never been a bad moment throughout any of his games. I'll admit, this makes it difficult for a game to be truly memorable and special, but somehow Arzztt often manages it anyways.
Save My Boy may not have the most varied or interesting gameplay, but it has so much heart that I can't fault it for that anyways. This is thanks also to the lovable story and cast of characters. Sure, I won't recall this game as well as I do Morning Dew or Vandal, but it holds a special place in my heart nonetheless. Save My Boy is, in essence, your homie. He's everyone's homie. Everyone likes and loves him and he makes everyone a better person by being around them. He lifts everyone up and tries his very best to put a smile on everyone's face. Maybe he doesn't create a jaw-droppingly gorgeous piece of art, maybe he doesn't have fascinatingly spicy political takes, maybe, maybe, maybe. What he does have, however, is a good heart.
Rating: 9.0 90
Difficulty: 70 70
Oct 18, 2020
YaBoiMarcAntony
For: You give me butterflies, and I take them away
For: You give me butterflies, and I take them away
(Fair warning, there will be spoilers ahead, but I don't think much of anything I will talk about can be discussed without mentioning aspects of the game, so I'd rather not put spoiler tags all over the place. Therefore, just play the game. It's well worth your time and won't take much of said time.)
I find it a bit difficult to put my thoughts into words regarding this game precisely because of that which makes it so excellent - the personal nature, the meanings behind the game, its very essence makes it a tricky game to tackle in the way of description. I don't want to offend the creator, nor do I want to misconstrue their purposes behind the game. The only way I can tackle this is by sticking to the age-old adage: the player's interpretation is king, insofar as they're concerned. My interpretation is no more correct or incorrect than any other, and the meanings which the creator put into their game are evident and genuine, but I'll only worry about the aspects which resonated with me personally.
First and foremost, the easiest discussion to broach is gameplay: The game is quite short, understandably, and it's all gimmick-based. It opens with a shiny, happy stroll that quickly goes awry in an Eversion-like transition. Once that happens, there are three screens of gameplay and they're all excellent, my favorite being the final platform gimmick. I won't discuss them at length, but they're all executed excellently and never outstay their welcome - in fact, some are too quickly gone for their own good. This is all in relation to how it feels to play these screens, mind you. There's really not much to say in this respect given that it plays second fiddle to the true core of the game.
I cannot speak in concrete terms what this game means because that ruins the essence of it. I can only speak to my personal interpretations. I don't suffer from severe depression, nor any other mental issues that I know of, but I am rather acquainted with sadness and the various emotions Give Me Butterflies deals with, as is our wont as humans. We cannot escape these terrible emotions, merely learn to live with them, and that is what this game feels like to me: the journey towards coming to grip with these emotions.
The first screen doesn't feel terribly depressing or melancholy, but there is a special sort of pain to it. The basis is that you're given seven blocks that spin and some will produce a spike from its top every now and then. It's random which one has a spike, but the top of the screen informs you before the spikes show themselves. The rub here is that you're given an ice-based, momentum driven movement system, meaning it's nigh impossible to keep yourself in one place and changing blocks is a task in and of itself. It was the hardest screen for me, and I did get a little irritated with it. I found myself hoping I'd get lucky and just always be on the safe platform, but it rarely worked out that way. Instead, I would notice my block is dangerous, scramble to find a new one, and then either choose wrong because I didn't notice the block of choice was dangerous, or I'd miss altogether and fall to my death. In that way, this screen was especially malicious, never feeling like it was trying to come to an agreement with you; instead, it wanted nothing to do with you and didn't care whether you lived or died. Nonetheless, I forged on, eventually tackling this screen and feeling good about it.
The next screen was the easiest, being an avoidance with a gimmick similar to that of the rocket carnival screen from Morning Dew (an obvious inspiration, so obvious I won't discuss further). You have an aura around you that you want to touch the oncoming fruit with, and touching said fruit will give you points that build up the more you touch without getting hit yourself. You can also change the size of your aura from large to small if you want to get an absurd amount of points, but it's of course harder. Here, the pain changes a little. Instead of coming to terms with the danger and pain around you, you're in a place where you have to get close to that, risk yourself just so you can get through. The riskier you play, the better your points, but there's always the danger of fumbling and seeing all of your progress going away. No matter, though, I found this to be the easiest screen in the game (and I hope that doesn't say anything about me).
The final screen is, naturally, the most striking. There are 36 razors that act as sideways platforms and you are expected to use them all at least once. There are fruit which come out from the side and using a razor makes some fruit shoot from the middle as well. As an added bonus, you have ghosts following you that solidify and will kill you should you be there when they're solid, though they soon go away after said solidification. Here, I think interpretation is easiest: pain as a way to get ahead. You're given no choice but to hurt yourself just to move forward, just so you can get ahead; yet, once you beat the screen, you'll find it was all for naught.
The game ends with a simple poem and then closes itself abruptly. I won't describe the poem as I don't think it necessary, but it's clear what meaning it serves.
So, what do each of these screens come together to actually mean? I said it was a journey towards coming to terms with sadness and pain, but that's not really true. Those are aspects, yes, but it's not a journey with a pleasant end. In a sense, it depicts the meaninglessness of striving towards even just getting up in the morning. What's the point in doing anything to make yourself feel okay or to get through the day when it all ends up the same? The butterflies die all the same, no matter how much you cry and try to save them, so why waste your energy doing so?
I am at a point in my life where I just don't care to better myself. I don't have the energy to become a better person or to do all the things I want so as to improve my life. There are so many ways I can be happy, but I just don't care to go about putting those ways into play. I simply don't care enough about myself to do it. I live only for other people, but I can almost never really believe those other people well and truly care about me because if I don't care for myself, why would they? I've never hurt myself, and I've never seriously thought about suicide, but they're common topics in my head at times. In that respect, this game resonates with me deeply.
Yet, I move on nonetheless. Maybe I won't feel better tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or even in the next ten years, but I move on nonetheless because I don't really believe there's any other way for me to go. I feel there's no point, but I do it anyways because others see the point, and I trust them more than I do myself. And you know what? I want to do it. Something being pointless doesn't stop me from wanting it, that's the most human thing you can do. We fill our lives with pointless nonsense merely because we don't personally see it as pointless or not worth our time. Sometimes, we even do recognize it has no worth, but we go for it anyways. Now, though, I fear I'm getting away from the point.
Thus, Give Me Butterflies seems to me like it's asking you this question: why do you persist? What makes you go forward? When you knew there was no happy ending to your suffering, why suffer to begin with? I have my answer, and I'm sure the creator has their answer as well, but that's not important to the game. The question is the thing, and what a perfect way to ask.
[4] Likes
I find it a bit difficult to put my thoughts into words regarding this game precisely because of that which makes it so excellent - the personal nature, the meanings behind the game, its very essence makes it a tricky game to tackle in the way of description. I don't want to offend the creator, nor do I want to misconstrue their purposes behind the game. The only way I can tackle this is by sticking to the age-old adage: the player's interpretation is king, insofar as they're concerned. My interpretation is no more correct or incorrect than any other, and the meanings which the creator put into their game are evident and genuine, but I'll only worry about the aspects which resonated with me personally.
First and foremost, the easiest discussion to broach is gameplay: The game is quite short, understandably, and it's all gimmick-based. It opens with a shiny, happy stroll that quickly goes awry in an Eversion-like transition. Once that happens, there are three screens of gameplay and they're all excellent, my favorite being the final platform gimmick. I won't discuss them at length, but they're all executed excellently and never outstay their welcome - in fact, some are too quickly gone for their own good. This is all in relation to how it feels to play these screens, mind you. There's really not much to say in this respect given that it plays second fiddle to the true core of the game.
I cannot speak in concrete terms what this game means because that ruins the essence of it. I can only speak to my personal interpretations. I don't suffer from severe depression, nor any other mental issues that I know of, but I am rather acquainted with sadness and the various emotions Give Me Butterflies deals with, as is our wont as humans. We cannot escape these terrible emotions, merely learn to live with them, and that is what this game feels like to me: the journey towards coming to grip with these emotions.
The first screen doesn't feel terribly depressing or melancholy, but there is a special sort of pain to it. The basis is that you're given seven blocks that spin and some will produce a spike from its top every now and then. It's random which one has a spike, but the top of the screen informs you before the spikes show themselves. The rub here is that you're given an ice-based, momentum driven movement system, meaning it's nigh impossible to keep yourself in one place and changing blocks is a task in and of itself. It was the hardest screen for me, and I did get a little irritated with it. I found myself hoping I'd get lucky and just always be on the safe platform, but it rarely worked out that way. Instead, I would notice my block is dangerous, scramble to find a new one, and then either choose wrong because I didn't notice the block of choice was dangerous, or I'd miss altogether and fall to my death. In that way, this screen was especially malicious, never feeling like it was trying to come to an agreement with you; instead, it wanted nothing to do with you and didn't care whether you lived or died. Nonetheless, I forged on, eventually tackling this screen and feeling good about it.
The next screen was the easiest, being an avoidance with a gimmick similar to that of the rocket carnival screen from Morning Dew (an obvious inspiration, so obvious I won't discuss further). You have an aura around you that you want to touch the oncoming fruit with, and touching said fruit will give you points that build up the more you touch without getting hit yourself. You can also change the size of your aura from large to small if you want to get an absurd amount of points, but it's of course harder. Here, the pain changes a little. Instead of coming to terms with the danger and pain around you, you're in a place where you have to get close to that, risk yourself just so you can get through. The riskier you play, the better your points, but there's always the danger of fumbling and seeing all of your progress going away. No matter, though, I found this to be the easiest screen in the game (and I hope that doesn't say anything about me).
The final screen is, naturally, the most striking. There are 36 razors that act as sideways platforms and you are expected to use them all at least once. There are fruit which come out from the side and using a razor makes some fruit shoot from the middle as well. As an added bonus, you have ghosts following you that solidify and will kill you should you be there when they're solid, though they soon go away after said solidification. Here, I think interpretation is easiest: pain as a way to get ahead. You're given no choice but to hurt yourself just to move forward, just so you can get ahead; yet, once you beat the screen, you'll find it was all for naught.
The game ends with a simple poem and then closes itself abruptly. I won't describe the poem as I don't think it necessary, but it's clear what meaning it serves.
So, what do each of these screens come together to actually mean? I said it was a journey towards coming to terms with sadness and pain, but that's not really true. Those are aspects, yes, but it's not a journey with a pleasant end. In a sense, it depicts the meaninglessness of striving towards even just getting up in the morning. What's the point in doing anything to make yourself feel okay or to get through the day when it all ends up the same? The butterflies die all the same, no matter how much you cry and try to save them, so why waste your energy doing so?
I am at a point in my life where I just don't care to better myself. I don't have the energy to become a better person or to do all the things I want so as to improve my life. There are so many ways I can be happy, but I just don't care to go about putting those ways into play. I simply don't care enough about myself to do it. I live only for other people, but I can almost never really believe those other people well and truly care about me because if I don't care for myself, why would they? I've never hurt myself, and I've never seriously thought about suicide, but they're common topics in my head at times. In that respect, this game resonates with me deeply.
Yet, I move on nonetheless. Maybe I won't feel better tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or even in the next ten years, but I move on nonetheless because I don't really believe there's any other way for me to go. I feel there's no point, but I do it anyways because others see the point, and I trust them more than I do myself. And you know what? I want to do it. Something being pointless doesn't stop me from wanting it, that's the most human thing you can do. We fill our lives with pointless nonsense merely because we don't personally see it as pointless or not worth our time. Sometimes, we even do recognize it has no worth, but we go for it anyways. Now, though, I fear I'm getting away from the point.
Thus, Give Me Butterflies seems to me like it's asking you this question: why do you persist? What makes you go forward? When you knew there was no happy ending to your suffering, why suffer to begin with? I have my answer, and I'm sure the creator has their answer as well, but that's not important to the game. The question is the thing, and what a perfect way to ask.
Rating: 9.0 90
Difficulty: 55 55
Oct 16, 2020
YaBoiMarcAntony
For: I wanna Fall into Depression and never be Happy Again
For: I wanna Fall into Depression and never be Happy Again
This really is quite a good game, so good that it seems like it had the opportunity to be something truly excellent. It honestly still is excellent, so what am I saying? Opportunity wasted? Who cares! This is still a great game whether or not it could have been better.
The game is broken up into three stages: the warm-up stage, and then two warps. The right warp is, as it says in-game, the hardest of the bunch, but only in the last two saves. Otherwise, everything is pretty well balanced and consistently challenging. There's no hugely innovative or unique screens, but it's all such fun and well-made that I can't help but love it anyways. The visuals are superb, the music choices splendiferous, and the gameplay is, as you can gather, supremely good.
It's a short game and not one that will change the face of fangaming forever, but it's still a damn good game that is well worth your time. Give this a go, damn you!
[0] Likes
The game is broken up into three stages: the warm-up stage, and then two warps. The right warp is, as it says in-game, the hardest of the bunch, but only in the last two saves. Otherwise, everything is pretty well balanced and consistently challenging. There's no hugely innovative or unique screens, but it's all such fun and well-made that I can't help but love it anyways. The visuals are superb, the music choices splendiferous, and the gameplay is, as you can gather, supremely good.
It's a short game and not one that will change the face of fangaming forever, but it's still a damn good game that is well worth your time. Give this a go, damn you!
Rating: 8.0 80
Difficulty: 67 67
Oct 16, 2020
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| A Sky Blue Denouement | 88.8 | 8.5 | 9 |
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| I Wanna Flying Disc | 91.7 | 9.1 | 5 |
| Frankie Teardrop | 2.2 | 6.0 | 11 |
| I Don't Wanna Dwell | 69.1 | 7.4 | 13 |
| Nebulous Thoughts | 80.1 | 9.1 | 33 |
| Strewn Detritus | 69.0 | 7.3 | 14 |
| The Sunken Cathedral | 69.5 | 8.3 | 34 |
| I Wanna be the Ziggomatic Drukqs | 70.5 | 7.3 | 9 |
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