Delicious FruitElCochran90's Profile
Send a PMJoined on: Aug 25, 2018
Bio:
About time I updated this bio.
Name: Edgar Cochran
Country: Mexico
Currently living in: Mexico City
-God's servant and one of his blessed sons (John 1:12; John 3:16).
-Lover of the entire animal and plant creation.
-Film lover and reviewer for Letterboxd.com (https://letterboxd.com/elcochran90).
-Adjunct professor and personal tutor of Statistical Inference, Business Forecasting, Marketing Research and Portfolio Theory.
Fangaming experience began in August 2018, so only modest achievements here. However, I'll describe some relevant FAQs here made to me during my stay here since 2018:
Q: Are videogames art?
A: Yes
Q: Are fangames videogames?
A: Yes
Q: Why are your reviews long and unconventional?
A: I am a film reviewer; in a way, I sort of unconsciously dragged my style of film reviewing to the world of fangames. I often involve personal experiences in my writing. Expect that structure; I'm not planning to change it.
Q: How are you rating games? Do you compare fangames as normal games that your ratings are lower than all other people ratings or are you just a critical person?
A: My ratings are not lower than people's ratings all of the time regarding fangames, but they are most of the time. However, this is not my intention. I am rating them as normal games, as in, I don't have a different spectrum for rating "normal", "official" games than fangames. They are in the same scale, because they are all videogames. I don't like to think myself as a critical person; ratings are just subjective numbers. However, I have realized that I rate games more harshly than I rate films/short films, which I do more often.
Q: What are your favorite fangames?
A: I have not played enough fangames to make a comprehensive and representative list, but this can be answered by going to my Favorites list. Anything getting 6.7 or higher will be considered immediately as a favorite.
I've submitted:
381 Ratings!
381 Reviews!
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381 Games
381 Reviews
ElCochran90
For: I wanna be the 128
For: I wanna be the 128
*Cleared on 01/06/2023*
“Guess which random space to go to by dying many times: the game.”
128-Up applies his username to a fangame, the dream of all auteur(?). This is the first real attempt to create a Rukito-like game. Despite the variety and playtime this game aims at giving, I dislike this one very much.
The core problem is that it never decides between being a trigger game or a trap game (I don’t know why the trap tag hasn’t been applied as it is quite shameful in this department unlike the sequels: fake blocks, alternate paths, etc.). Traps can be memorized and that’s fine-ish, but the triggers are horrendous. The most intuitive way to handle a trigger game, which must not necessarily be a trap game, is to open a new path or activate a mechanism that transforms the screen at least marginally, or in the best of cases, reshapes it to a way that is not even considered as backtracking anymore. The game fails miserably at this.
It starts looking really bad from the first stage (perhaps it’s forced tradition, like all forced Stan Lee cameos in every Marvel film, may he rest in peace), and this is where the trigger problem begins, but I’ll get back to it later. The second stage looks really cool and this is where you realize the emulation of Rukito is real, but with a distinguishable stamp. Then the third stage, which is vine-heavy, comes back to an annoying Microsoft Pain green with a dark blue background. Visual style is not consistent and that original in its attempts to create soothing brand new appealing stages.
You can get over this: fangames that are deficient visually can more than compensate this with the platforming, and this was something very real in the early 2010s. However, the trigger implementation is, to put it mildly, stupid. As mentioned, triggers should be intuitive, but the problem begins even in Stage 1 where several spots could be tried after a long save to see if anything freaking moves. Take the second save of the first screen (no lie) as the first example. The first jump is quite tight. You might be trying to activate something in the ground, but nope, you have to go to the middle block. Fine, you see something moves. It worked: it required a very weird jump in the very first screen (no difficulty curve in this game; even Rukito had them). Now let’s go to beneath the two spikes with their tips colliding; there’s a small space beneath. Go. Yes, it works. A spike moved. Let’s go there. Cool, worked also; something opened on the right. The following moment is dumb: a spike opens to take you to a place that leads nowhere. It’s a 16px gap with nothing above. Should I try left? Should I try right? I did try right since there was no roof. Nope. It was left, but I died. It’s not obvious; sometimes it’s a guessing game.
There are two main ways to solve this:
-Close all alternate possibilities and have a single clear one
-Indicate with a marker what wall you should randomly touch or what 32X32 space you should go to
This bad trigger problem is ALL OVER the game, creating unnecessary difficulty. However, I’ll mention the three most infamous examples that scarred me:
-Screen 3 of Stage 5 (yellow pyramid-like stage): it’s an underwater race against the clock (which you of course activate by “almost doing” a random gate that exists because it exists. The road is obviously closed by spikes, so good luck finding the triggers, to keep opening the road. Some of them are even 16px wide. It’s nonsensical.
-Save 2 of Stage 6 (red stage): this is the worst example of them all. I had no idea what to do. There’s a vine on the left wall; I kept exploring everything in that area because it was the obvious thing to do, at least for me. What you must do is stupid: jump over the completely useless and random spike on the far right wall (you must go through a 16 px space of course) and hug said wall double jumping as high as possible. And I mean, very high. This will intuitively deactivate the minispike on the previous left wall you were trying and will obviously remove the upper road once you run away from the floor trap. What in the world?!! Shamefully, this was the moment I had to use an online guide and this moment is beyond me.
-Save 2 of Stage 7 (gray castle-like stage): after doing the double diagonal in the middle of the screen, a spike opens, but the jump is impossible. Naturally, one must activate a new trigger that is... where? It’s a leap of faith. Well, let’s fall down. No? Ok, maybe try going through the diagonal and over the three spikes: perhaps one will move. No? Well, it’s the block beneath me even if I’d immediately die. Completely obvious!
Honorable mention goes to the water section of Stage 7 also.
Final boss Mushroom Mecha is fun, but the background choice can make you confused with what hurts you and what doesn’t. It has many phases, so be prepared for an endurance test. I am not a fan of the huge light made in the fifth phase to blind your view completely, making it a luck game pretty much more than a reading one.
If you finished this game, play the sequels; they do up the standards progressively.
[0] Likes
“Guess which random space to go to by dying many times: the game.”
128-Up applies his username to a fangame, the dream of all auteur(?). This is the first real attempt to create a Rukito-like game. Despite the variety and playtime this game aims at giving, I dislike this one very much.
The core problem is that it never decides between being a trigger game or a trap game (I don’t know why the trap tag hasn’t been applied as it is quite shameful in this department unlike the sequels: fake blocks, alternate paths, etc.). Traps can be memorized and that’s fine-ish, but the triggers are horrendous. The most intuitive way to handle a trigger game, which must not necessarily be a trap game, is to open a new path or activate a mechanism that transforms the screen at least marginally, or in the best of cases, reshapes it to a way that is not even considered as backtracking anymore. The game fails miserably at this.
It starts looking really bad from the first stage (perhaps it’s forced tradition, like all forced Stan Lee cameos in every Marvel film, may he rest in peace), and this is where the trigger problem begins, but I’ll get back to it later. The second stage looks really cool and this is where you realize the emulation of Rukito is real, but with a distinguishable stamp. Then the third stage, which is vine-heavy, comes back to an annoying Microsoft Pain green with a dark blue background. Visual style is not consistent and that original in its attempts to create soothing brand new appealing stages.
You can get over this: fangames that are deficient visually can more than compensate this with the platforming, and this was something very real in the early 2010s. However, the trigger implementation is, to put it mildly, stupid. As mentioned, triggers should be intuitive, but the problem begins even in Stage 1 where several spots could be tried after a long save to see if anything freaking moves. Take the second save of the first screen (no lie) as the first example. The first jump is quite tight. You might be trying to activate something in the ground, but nope, you have to go to the middle block. Fine, you see something moves. It worked: it required a very weird jump in the very first screen (no difficulty curve in this game; even Rukito had them). Now let’s go to beneath the two spikes with their tips colliding; there’s a small space beneath. Go. Yes, it works. A spike moved. Let’s go there. Cool, worked also; something opened on the right. The following moment is dumb: a spike opens to take you to a place that leads nowhere. It’s a 16px gap with nothing above. Should I try left? Should I try right? I did try right since there was no roof. Nope. It was left, but I died. It’s not obvious; sometimes it’s a guessing game.
There are two main ways to solve this:
-Close all alternate possibilities and have a single clear one
-Indicate with a marker what wall you should randomly touch or what 32X32 space you should go to
This bad trigger problem is ALL OVER the game, creating unnecessary difficulty. However, I’ll mention the three most infamous examples that scarred me:
-Screen 3 of Stage 5 (yellow pyramid-like stage): it’s an underwater race against the clock (which you of course activate by “almost doing” a random gate that exists because it exists. The road is obviously closed by spikes, so good luck finding the triggers, to keep opening the road. Some of them are even 16px wide. It’s nonsensical.
-Save 2 of Stage 6 (red stage): this is the worst example of them all. I had no idea what to do. There’s a vine on the left wall; I kept exploring everything in that area because it was the obvious thing to do, at least for me. What you must do is stupid: jump over the completely useless and random spike on the far right wall (you must go through a 16 px space of course) and hug said wall double jumping as high as possible. And I mean, very high. This will intuitively deactivate the minispike on the previous left wall you were trying and will obviously remove the upper road once you run away from the floor trap. What in the world?!! Shamefully, this was the moment I had to use an online guide and this moment is beyond me.
-Save 2 of Stage 7 (gray castle-like stage): after doing the double diagonal in the middle of the screen, a spike opens, but the jump is impossible. Naturally, one must activate a new trigger that is... where? It’s a leap of faith. Well, let’s fall down. No? Ok, maybe try going through the diagonal and over the three spikes: perhaps one will move. No? Well, it’s the block beneath me even if I’d immediately die. Completely obvious!
Honorable mention goes to the water section of Stage 7 also.
Final boss Mushroom Mecha is fun, but the background choice can make you confused with what hurts you and what doesn’t. It has many phases, so be prepared for an endurance test. I am not a fan of the huge light made in the fifth phase to blind your view completely, making it a luck game pretty much more than a reading one.
If you finished this game, play the sequels; they do up the standards progressively.
Rating: 3.3 33
Difficulty: 80 80
Nov 6, 2023
ElCochran90
For: I wanna be the Dieary
For: I wanna be the Dieary
*Cleared on 25/05/2023*
Rating and difficulty score include “extra”, but I’d highly debate it is actually extra. Secrets are required to go for the true ending, but there is really no ending for making only the basic stages.
Azure is one of a kind. When it comes to platforming ideas, there is nothing new, and the overabundance of traps will make you chop your head off. However, there is a story behind this fangame that is quite intriguing, as subjective as it might be. It has RPG splashes all over it.
The story opens with an undefeatable boss that is meant to be impossible until everything turns out to be a dream. At this point, your intuition will whisper: “this is obvious foreshadowing for the final boss I’ll have to face when I’m more powerful”. You wake up. Nice to see the Kid finally owning an apartment with a nice view; what this fangame plays with is the notion between what is real and what is not, and this “portal” between the two realms seems to be his bed. One could theorize that the entire game is a dream and the final boss is a projection of his internal fears or loneliness (can’t ever read too much in a fangame), as there doesn’t seem to be an ominous danger for the planet, but inner challenges the Kid must face. There is even a secret in Kid’s bed, which might also indicate everything is happening in a dream.
All is beautiful so far, but it is the stages that make you forget about Azure’s intriguing conception of bringing a fantasy adventure story to life and take you back to generic half-assedness. Some are fun to play (Bomberman, chase of spike walls and roofs with the wooden tilesets), one is cryptic (puzzle) and one of them in particular (red warp which takes you to a purple stage; for some funny reason colors never coincide) is completely mental with the traps. Do not even dare play this in Hard Mode; it’s obvious many are meant to be played in Medium Difficulty for save balancing.
One review stated there is a lot going on in this “surprisingly short game”. Make no mistake, as this is no short fangame at all. For reference, Wolfie’s first playthrough took more than 2 hours, and the WR currently for 100% is 25:42 (17:46 for any %). The game has six main stages, each one with a visual style and platforming of their own; there is a secret in each stage, which location are more than often cryptic, but they are fun to get. At least the game provides variety, and if you’re suffering through a stage, you have the guarantee that the next one will be slightly different at the least. A secret in particular requires dancing at a beat while dodging, and although it is quite mental, the game gives you enough error margin for pulling it off.
Bosses are not that generic, so expect zero cherries, which is an overused old-school trope. One boss in particular (all I will say is it involves a dog) is so sudoku-looking and yet so sentimental that you have no idea what the intention behind the boss is, and once you get the funny-looking segment, there is a second phase that gives you no prior warning of what it was meant to be. There is a troll boss, maybe for the laughs, but it is shown in one of the longest stages, so maybe it is not such a good idea to reward the player looking for adventure bosses with a troll boss after so much effort was invested in a long stage considering their length and difficulty is all over the place and you can take them in any order you wish: it’s a dice’s roll.
The reason I debate extra is because there is not a “Thank You” screen once you jump off the balcony; it just says “The End” in an obvious “This is not the intended end, bro”. Getting the secrets is more than commended, because it will lead to the most special section of them all: the final stage before the boss.
This stage is easy to confuse with an L_game, and for being such an early game, that notion could be challenged. Azure is the author of an infamous fangame called “I Wanna Be the Goner”. In short, it is a freaking J-Tool default tileset with extremely precise cancer-ish jumps, but with a save immediately after each jump. Sounds like L, but it is not, as it mostly restricts the jumps to 16px, but mostly it is 32px. Align knowledge is utmost recommended. The final stage is a Goner-like stage, perhaps the prototype for Goner and Goner-like games, as I don’t know the actual release of Goner. It’s THE Guy-Rock-themed, generic-looking stage of the game, but just like the route to the right in Go the Dotkid!, it is oh-so-fun. For 2011-2012, it was strange to find something like this and, as far as I’m concerned, you cannot softlock (theoretically, you should try really hard to get there). It has only two screens, and believe me, it is enough. Azure was really conscious about the unusual difficulty peak, so there is a counter of your deaths on the top right corner that belong exclusively to this area. I wish this area had another song and visual style, but I swear it was so fun.
The final boss was a first try, which is beyond stupid. It was one of the most anti-climactic feelings I’ve ever had after such a huge build-up.
Recommended; there’s more than meets the eye.
[0] Likes
Rating and difficulty score include “extra”, but I’d highly debate it is actually extra. Secrets are required to go for the true ending, but there is really no ending for making only the basic stages.
Azure is one of a kind. When it comes to platforming ideas, there is nothing new, and the overabundance of traps will make you chop your head off. However, there is a story behind this fangame that is quite intriguing, as subjective as it might be. It has RPG splashes all over it.
The story opens with an undefeatable boss that is meant to be impossible until everything turns out to be a dream. At this point, your intuition will whisper: “this is obvious foreshadowing for the final boss I’ll have to face when I’m more powerful”. You wake up. Nice to see the Kid finally owning an apartment with a nice view; what this fangame plays with is the notion between what is real and what is not, and this “portal” between the two realms seems to be his bed. One could theorize that the entire game is a dream and the final boss is a projection of his internal fears or loneliness (can’t ever read too much in a fangame), as there doesn’t seem to be an ominous danger for the planet, but inner challenges the Kid must face. There is even a secret in Kid’s bed, which might also indicate everything is happening in a dream.
All is beautiful so far, but it is the stages that make you forget about Azure’s intriguing conception of bringing a fantasy adventure story to life and take you back to generic half-assedness. Some are fun to play (Bomberman, chase of spike walls and roofs with the wooden tilesets), one is cryptic (puzzle) and one of them in particular (red warp which takes you to a purple stage; for some funny reason colors never coincide) is completely mental with the traps. Do not even dare play this in Hard Mode; it’s obvious many are meant to be played in Medium Difficulty for save balancing.
One review stated there is a lot going on in this “surprisingly short game”. Make no mistake, as this is no short fangame at all. For reference, Wolfie’s first playthrough took more than 2 hours, and the WR currently for 100% is 25:42 (17:46 for any %). The game has six main stages, each one with a visual style and platforming of their own; there is a secret in each stage, which location are more than often cryptic, but they are fun to get. At least the game provides variety, and if you’re suffering through a stage, you have the guarantee that the next one will be slightly different at the least. A secret in particular requires dancing at a beat while dodging, and although it is quite mental, the game gives you enough error margin for pulling it off.
Bosses are not that generic, so expect zero cherries, which is an overused old-school trope. One boss in particular (all I will say is it involves a dog) is so sudoku-looking and yet so sentimental that you have no idea what the intention behind the boss is, and once you get the funny-looking segment, there is a second phase that gives you no prior warning of what it was meant to be. There is a troll boss, maybe for the laughs, but it is shown in one of the longest stages, so maybe it is not such a good idea to reward the player looking for adventure bosses with a troll boss after so much effort was invested in a long stage considering their length and difficulty is all over the place and you can take them in any order you wish: it’s a dice’s roll.
The reason I debate extra is because there is not a “Thank You” screen once you jump off the balcony; it just says “The End” in an obvious “This is not the intended end, bro”. Getting the secrets is more than commended, because it will lead to the most special section of them all: the final stage before the boss.
This stage is easy to confuse with an L_game, and for being such an early game, that notion could be challenged. Azure is the author of an infamous fangame called “I Wanna Be the Goner”. In short, it is a freaking J-Tool default tileset with extremely precise cancer-ish jumps, but with a save immediately after each jump. Sounds like L, but it is not, as it mostly restricts the jumps to 16px, but mostly it is 32px. Align knowledge is utmost recommended. The final stage is a Goner-like stage, perhaps the prototype for Goner and Goner-like games, as I don’t know the actual release of Goner. It’s THE Guy-Rock-themed, generic-looking stage of the game, but just like the route to the right in Go the Dotkid!, it is oh-so-fun. For 2011-2012, it was strange to find something like this and, as far as I’m concerned, you cannot softlock (theoretically, you should try really hard to get there). It has only two screens, and believe me, it is enough. Azure was really conscious about the unusual difficulty peak, so there is a counter of your deaths on the top right corner that belong exclusively to this area. I wish this area had another song and visual style, but I swear it was so fun.
The final boss was a first try, which is beyond stupid. It was one of the most anti-climactic feelings I’ve ever had after such a huge build-up.
Recommended; there’s more than meets the eye.
Rating: 4.6 46
Difficulty: 75 75
Nov 5, 2023
ElCochran90
For: I wanna be the Shiny spark!!
For: I wanna be the Shiny spark!!
*Cleared on 18/05/2023*
This game... This game has me mad.
Important disclaimer: If you want to make all planned challenges for the game and play all extra content, you must play in Very Hard Mode (because Popularity, remember??). This is very dumb by itself, as the Normal difficulty is the intended one (not Zako).
For anyone that claims this is the worst fangame featured in K2, you should (not) introduce yourself to Sadist, but this one is quite up (down?) there.
From the creator of the infamous Popularity and one of the makers of THE iDOLM@STER, Shiny Spark is infamously stupid and hilarious at the same time, a surreal and absurd experience I would only recommend to those that can extract fun from Sudoku idiocy.
The whole game circles around the concept of you having to conquer hidden areas in the original castle of The Guy. Each fake exit is now an entry to a new area that goes from very interesting to mind-blowingly dumb. There are also extremely cryptic secrets hidden in each stage for unlocking the extra content of the game which is the equivalent of willingly signing a contract for free urethrotomy.
Levels are listed in the order I played them:
-The Super Mario Bros. 3 section is straight-up sudoku trash. All block and “spike” sprites are from the original game and have no rhyme or reason. Version 1.0 had a straight-up gray background; the most recent Version 2.0 has a cave background which makes it look less cancer. More often than not, the game uses a star gimmick which is too precise for its own sake: it gives you invincibility and higher speed, but the timing for it to end is very specific and one screen expects you to do miracles as there is almost no spare frames to get to the end. The secret is a horrible guessing game full of black 32X32 piranha plants, and many of these are fake, so you must find your way through. However, you cannot save inside the secret room, so you have to do the way to the secret every time. The boss is ok, featuring a funny recreation of the famous Fight Against Smithy from Super Mario RPG, including his most damaging attack.
-My second stage ended up being an absolute rarity and I can’t say I loathe it because of how crazy it is, but also has inconsistent obstacle hitbox mechanics: a race through a track where everything kills you, including the sides of the racetrack. The level uses an infinity jump gimmick for maneuvering (thank God no Nekoron engine), and it amusingly implements a map of the whole racetrack which is no more than a copy-paste of the original screen but in smaller size (you can see yourself in there as well). Contemplating every pixel of all stationary and spinning attacks is amusing to the max, but the design is really badly done, especially with the rotating ones, so they cannot be timed correctly at first glance. Secret requires an awful, long backtrack and surviving a very tight, prolonged section, but the boss is the worst highlight of the game for me: a grindy, learny avoidance that has a high degree of precision during the last attacks (you’ll spend most of your time here), and a very prolonged and unnecessary choke phase at the end which is so easy that you can get bored and hence die easily. This post-section trash demands from you to pay attention to the embodiment of boredom. Concept is funny, as it is not an avoidance featuring music, but dialogue, but it gets tedious real fast.
-My third stage was LoveTrap, and it is a genius stage, so genius, that the game-maker reinvented the stage... Not really. Eden literally just makes you play the original water stage in reverse and, as far as I’m concerned, nothing changes. It even has the planes at the ending (or beginning?) of the stage. There is the secret, and it’s the least cryptic of them all. I don’t even have to explain the boss because it is the Suki Suki Suki cherry and I don’t need to tell to jack sh!t. This is the fangame dictionary definition of how not to do a tribute to another fangame.
-My fourth stage was fun against all odds, in spite of its unfair RNG: it’s a beatmania stage with an amazing song that unfortunately restarts with pressing R (you simply don’t restart a beat like that), and an avoidance featuring the song Miracle Moon. The stage consists in a cascade of RNG platforms that push you up at random speeds, so it’s a clumsy mix of skill, timing and luck. The section is quite trollish, as you’re going up happily at full speed and it turns out the entire left or right side of the screen is guaranteed death by spike. The secret requires you to do the first screen, save, and come back all the way down, and it is torture. Sounds easier to fall than to go up, but no; there is a section where you get bombarded by spikes from both sides. The boss is badly timed and a few times the timing does not consist with the song: I am aware this takes a lot of time to program, but bad programming can cause death, and the very ending of the avoidance forces you to do a forced maneuver; it gets worse when the beat lines become invisible and it becomes either a forecasting teller exercise, or one of memory.
-My fifth stage was the puzzle stage with the Trials of Mana layout and sprites. The puzzles are stupid, especially one that asks you to progress every you’re your PC time ends up with the number 5. This is beyond belief. There’s so much dead time in 10 minutes. There is nothing special about this stage, save for the design, but the infamous part of you choosing invisible walls as correct paths goes beyond description, and that is a requirement not only for getting through the stage, but also for the secret. The boss is interesting in the sense that, as long as you fire only one bullet in his direction while your horizontal position matches any pixel of his hitbox, he will avoid it. If there are two bullets on the screen, and the second is done at damaging him, it works best. Doesn’t help that the screen gets loaded with trash the more damage to inflict, but it is what it is. The strat is two shooting him while falling, but the first bullet must be above him and the second or third towards his direction; for some reason, boss goes blind and the attack works.
-My sixth stage was the worst and I wish I didn’t have left it for last. It’s the infamous Yoshi stage, where you face the same level over and over again and you must, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, figure out what to do: invisible blocks, triggers, traps, appearing and disappearing blocks, or sometimes even wait. Anything goes in this horrible stage, except you’re not given a single hint whatsoever of what one should do. It’s unspeakably terrible and up there with the most frustrating stages I’ve ever played. The secret requires a great endurance test and avoid going to the warp during a particular screen; it’s horrendous. The boss is equally bad: it’s a bunch of Super Mario World tubes which spawn an increasing amount of Yoshis throwing eggs at you the more damage you inflict the main green one.
Once this has been done, you can collect an extra secret, which is found within the hub of The Guy’s maze itself by activating several triggers. I must admit this overtly simplistic idea was mildly entertaining and, with the help of some additional triggers to the original, it makes you go through almost every ramification of the maze from beginning to end and back to the beginning to obtain the secret. One switch is very hidden, but the challenge is ok to do.
As old-school tradition dictates, we have a new section dedicated to the original IWBTG and a boss rush. Terrific. No news here. Once beaten, you go to an amusing Pokemon battle which, for my two cents, has amusingly the best production quality of the game. The fight is interesting, and I can’t get over how freaking cute the dancing Pikachu is (you also feel like an idiot when you die to him).
Game ends, credits roll and a wonderful song plays: 隣に・・・ 三浦あずさ(CV:たかはし智秋) (Tonari Ni... by Azusa Miura). The game does two things to hint you it’s not the true end:
1) It plays the music differently. During a portion that is supposed to be heavy in instrumentation, you only hear the singing. For my two cents, this is, I think, an unofficial version and my favorite: you hear her voice echo and the chorus accompanying only, contrary to the original version. This is something stunning. Unintended brilliance?
2) The clear screen has a question mark.
So this is the point where the credits play the role, right? Well, not necessarily. You’re royally f**ked if you played in any difficulty lower than Very Hard, because all the extra deaths and time wasted for getting those tough secrets is completely a waste of your life: in Normal, it didn’t make a difference if you went for them or not. You might say: “bruh, the original IWBTG did the same thing”, but I disagree: the secrets were additional optional challenges and the disappointment was that they didn’t unlock anything or gave you extra guns. Here, you know there’s a whole game still lying ahead of you, including new platforming stages based on the original six stages, and you will never see them because, just like eden did with Popularity or Carnival with Picture. Picture betrays you with being able to get secrets in Medium and then raises a middle finger to you; this game does as well.
For anything that’s worth, I have some references that, at least, extra involves all bosses in a boss rush buffed and you must clear it without deaths; extra increased difficulty to unreasonable levels. Maybe, no thank you?
Anyway, screw you.
[0] Likes
This game... This game has me mad.
Important disclaimer: If you want to make all planned challenges for the game and play all extra content, you must play in Very Hard Mode (because Popularity, remember??). This is very dumb by itself, as the Normal difficulty is the intended one (not Zako).
For anyone that claims this is the worst fangame featured in K2, you should (not) introduce yourself to Sadist, but this one is quite up (down?) there.
From the creator of the infamous Popularity and one of the makers of THE iDOLM@STER, Shiny Spark is infamously stupid and hilarious at the same time, a surreal and absurd experience I would only recommend to those that can extract fun from Sudoku idiocy.
The whole game circles around the concept of you having to conquer hidden areas in the original castle of The Guy. Each fake exit is now an entry to a new area that goes from very interesting to mind-blowingly dumb. There are also extremely cryptic secrets hidden in each stage for unlocking the extra content of the game which is the equivalent of willingly signing a contract for free urethrotomy.
Levels are listed in the order I played them:
-The Super Mario Bros. 3 section is straight-up sudoku trash. All block and “spike” sprites are from the original game and have no rhyme or reason. Version 1.0 had a straight-up gray background; the most recent Version 2.0 has a cave background which makes it look less cancer. More often than not, the game uses a star gimmick which is too precise for its own sake: it gives you invincibility and higher speed, but the timing for it to end is very specific and one screen expects you to do miracles as there is almost no spare frames to get to the end. The secret is a horrible guessing game full of black 32X32 piranha plants, and many of these are fake, so you must find your way through. However, you cannot save inside the secret room, so you have to do the way to the secret every time. The boss is ok, featuring a funny recreation of the famous Fight Against Smithy from Super Mario RPG, including his most damaging attack.
-My second stage ended up being an absolute rarity and I can’t say I loathe it because of how crazy it is, but also has inconsistent obstacle hitbox mechanics: a race through a track where everything kills you, including the sides of the racetrack. The level uses an infinity jump gimmick for maneuvering (thank God no Nekoron engine), and it amusingly implements a map of the whole racetrack which is no more than a copy-paste of the original screen but in smaller size (you can see yourself in there as well). Contemplating every pixel of all stationary and spinning attacks is amusing to the max, but the design is really badly done, especially with the rotating ones, so they cannot be timed correctly at first glance. Secret requires an awful, long backtrack and surviving a very tight, prolonged section, but the boss is the worst highlight of the game for me: a grindy, learny avoidance that has a high degree of precision during the last attacks (you’ll spend most of your time here), and a very prolonged and unnecessary choke phase at the end which is so easy that you can get bored and hence die easily. This post-section trash demands from you to pay attention to the embodiment of boredom. Concept is funny, as it is not an avoidance featuring music, but dialogue, but it gets tedious real fast.
-My third stage was LoveTrap, and it is a genius stage, so genius, that the game-maker reinvented the stage... Not really. Eden literally just makes you play the original water stage in reverse and, as far as I’m concerned, nothing changes. It even has the planes at the ending (or beginning?) of the stage. There is the secret, and it’s the least cryptic of them all. I don’t even have to explain the boss because it is the Suki Suki Suki cherry and I don’t need to tell to jack sh!t. This is the fangame dictionary definition of how not to do a tribute to another fangame.
-My fourth stage was fun against all odds, in spite of its unfair RNG: it’s a beatmania stage with an amazing song that unfortunately restarts with pressing R (you simply don’t restart a beat like that), and an avoidance featuring the song Miracle Moon. The stage consists in a cascade of RNG platforms that push you up at random speeds, so it’s a clumsy mix of skill, timing and luck. The section is quite trollish, as you’re going up happily at full speed and it turns out the entire left or right side of the screen is guaranteed death by spike. The secret requires you to do the first screen, save, and come back all the way down, and it is torture. Sounds easier to fall than to go up, but no; there is a section where you get bombarded by spikes from both sides. The boss is badly timed and a few times the timing does not consist with the song: I am aware this takes a lot of time to program, but bad programming can cause death, and the very ending of the avoidance forces you to do a forced maneuver; it gets worse when the beat lines become invisible and it becomes either a forecasting teller exercise, or one of memory.
-My fifth stage was the puzzle stage with the Trials of Mana layout and sprites. The puzzles are stupid, especially one that asks you to progress every you’re your PC time ends up with the number 5. This is beyond belief. There’s so much dead time in 10 minutes. There is nothing special about this stage, save for the design, but the infamous part of you choosing invisible walls as correct paths goes beyond description, and that is a requirement not only for getting through the stage, but also for the secret. The boss is interesting in the sense that, as long as you fire only one bullet in his direction while your horizontal position matches any pixel of his hitbox, he will avoid it. If there are two bullets on the screen, and the second is done at damaging him, it works best. Doesn’t help that the screen gets loaded with trash the more damage to inflict, but it is what it is. The strat is two shooting him while falling, but the first bullet must be above him and the second or third towards his direction; for some reason, boss goes blind and the attack works.
-My sixth stage was the worst and I wish I didn’t have left it for last. It’s the infamous Yoshi stage, where you face the same level over and over again and you must, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, figure out what to do: invisible blocks, triggers, traps, appearing and disappearing blocks, or sometimes even wait. Anything goes in this horrible stage, except you’re not given a single hint whatsoever of what one should do. It’s unspeakably terrible and up there with the most frustrating stages I’ve ever played. The secret requires a great endurance test and avoid going to the warp during a particular screen; it’s horrendous. The boss is equally bad: it’s a bunch of Super Mario World tubes which spawn an increasing amount of Yoshis throwing eggs at you the more damage you inflict the main green one.
Once this has been done, you can collect an extra secret, which is found within the hub of The Guy’s maze itself by activating several triggers. I must admit this overtly simplistic idea was mildly entertaining and, with the help of some additional triggers to the original, it makes you go through almost every ramification of the maze from beginning to end and back to the beginning to obtain the secret. One switch is very hidden, but the challenge is ok to do.
As old-school tradition dictates, we have a new section dedicated to the original IWBTG and a boss rush. Terrific. No news here. Once beaten, you go to an amusing Pokemon battle which, for my two cents, has amusingly the best production quality of the game. The fight is interesting, and I can’t get over how freaking cute the dancing Pikachu is (you also feel like an idiot when you die to him).
Game ends, credits roll and a wonderful song plays: 隣に・・・ 三浦あずさ(CV:たかはし智秋) (Tonari Ni... by Azusa Miura). The game does two things to hint you it’s not the true end:
1) It plays the music differently. During a portion that is supposed to be heavy in instrumentation, you only hear the singing. For my two cents, this is, I think, an unofficial version and my favorite: you hear her voice echo and the chorus accompanying only, contrary to the original version. This is something stunning. Unintended brilliance?
2) The clear screen has a question mark.
So this is the point where the credits play the role, right? Well, not necessarily. You’re royally f**ked if you played in any difficulty lower than Very Hard, because all the extra deaths and time wasted for getting those tough secrets is completely a waste of your life: in Normal, it didn’t make a difference if you went for them or not. You might say: “bruh, the original IWBTG did the same thing”, but I disagree: the secrets were additional optional challenges and the disappointment was that they didn’t unlock anything or gave you extra guns. Here, you know there’s a whole game still lying ahead of you, including new platforming stages based on the original six stages, and you will never see them because, just like eden did with Popularity or Carnival with Picture. Picture betrays you with being able to get secrets in Medium and then raises a middle finger to you; this game does as well.
For anything that’s worth, I have some references that, at least, extra involves all bosses in a boss rush buffed and you must clear it without deaths; extra increased difficulty to unreasonable levels. Maybe, no thank you?
Anyway, screw you.
Rating: 2.2 22
Difficulty: 60 60
Nov 3, 2023
ElCochran90
For: I wanna run the Terminal!
For: I wanna run the Terminal!
*Cleared on 11/05/2023*
This game and Yassan(21) are pretty much tied in entertainment value even if this one has more gimmick variety, as it also places much emphasis on traps. As the game progresses through the first three stages, you gradually see a change in visual style that separates itself from the generic standard tilesets, so this game is better at creating visual differentiation. All damn bosses are cherries, and you’ll forget about them in a while. Potentially, the most memorable stage is the third one, which places fun gimmick ideas concerning a limited amount of time for infinite jumping, but traps worsen the experience. Some screens are still just common needle with boring traps.
The fourth stage is a tribute to the original IWBTG, but it is very generic territory, and for some reason is the longest as well. Sometimes, when it comes back to the mechanic of pressing buttons for triggering platforms, the room is transformed to something you couldn’t predict before, which is more than welcome. Final boss is annoying since you have to double jump every time to make significant damage, and the blue attack is quite easy to die to. Otherwise, it is not a big threat.
[0] Likes
This game and Yassan(21) are pretty much tied in entertainment value even if this one has more gimmick variety, as it also places much emphasis on traps. As the game progresses through the first three stages, you gradually see a change in visual style that separates itself from the generic standard tilesets, so this game is better at creating visual differentiation. All damn bosses are cherries, and you’ll forget about them in a while. Potentially, the most memorable stage is the third one, which places fun gimmick ideas concerning a limited amount of time for infinite jumping, but traps worsen the experience. Some screens are still just common needle with boring traps.
The fourth stage is a tribute to the original IWBTG, but it is very generic territory, and for some reason is the longest as well. Sometimes, when it comes back to the mechanic of pressing buttons for triggering platforms, the room is transformed to something you couldn’t predict before, which is more than welcome. Final boss is annoying since you have to double jump every time to make significant damage, and the blue attack is quite easy to die to. Otherwise, it is not a big threat.
Rating: 4.1 41
Difficulty: 44 44
Nov 3, 2023
ElCochran90
For: I wanna be the Yassan(21)
For: I wanna be the Yassan(21)
*Cleared on 09/05/2023*
Three-stage adventure fangame that keeps it very simple when it comes to ideas and platforming implementations, including generic traps, save for the black and white stage where difficulty is increased notoriously for no reason, and two of the bosses are interesting to say the most, but visually, it wants to create something different.
The red stage suddenly gets unwatchable, and the invincibility frames of the boss don't help us all involuntary bullet smashers; it is also really easy to choke at the end. The water-and-ice stage looks good for an early fangame and the ice spike sprites eliminate the possibility of standard jumps.
Final boss is the most challenging and yet the most entertaining of them all; however, it is learny. The attacks uses visual effects and projectiles that would be used often in future bosses of other games, but the greatest thing about it is that it doesn't pose a visual challenge.
Recommended for killing a not-so-brief amount time.
[0] Likes
Three-stage adventure fangame that keeps it very simple when it comes to ideas and platforming implementations, including generic traps, save for the black and white stage where difficulty is increased notoriously for no reason, and two of the bosses are interesting to say the most, but visually, it wants to create something different.
The red stage suddenly gets unwatchable, and the invincibility frames of the boss don't help us all involuntary bullet smashers; it is also really easy to choke at the end. The water-and-ice stage looks good for an early fangame and the ice spike sprites eliminate the possibility of standard jumps.
Final boss is the most challenging and yet the most entertaining of them all; however, it is learny. The attacks uses visual effects and projectiles that would be used often in future bosses of other games, but the greatest thing about it is that it doesn't pose a visual challenge.
Recommended for killing a not-so-brief amount time.
Rating: 4.2 42
Difficulty: 50 50
Oct 30, 2023
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