Delicious Fruit
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by Razzor_iw
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by Razzor_iw
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by Mir
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by Razzor_iw
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by Razzor_iw
Creator's Comments:
Razzor_iw [Creator]
The TGCC Team's debut. Good luck!
Read Cthaere's review as a continuation of this review.
[2] Likes
Read Cthaere's review as a continuation of this review.
Rating: N/A
Difficulty: 82 82
Jul 18, 2022
32 Reviews:
Cthaere
Do not expect anything sort of resembling a traditional review; These are just some of my thoughts as a developer that I wanted to put out publicly.
This was meant to be the final game of the I wanna tourney. Luckily, it wasn't.
To put it bluntly, this game is both hard, and was never meant to be a grind. We knew it from the very beginning, and we have decided to make it for ourselves. A game where the mask is half on, half off, where we can be ourselves while also making a show out of it. Furthermore, the final boss took up most of the development cycle since the IWT, and so did many balance changes; Both the game and the tourney would have likely been much worse were it to be its final boss.
This extends further though. The readme states it plainly, I have already made that point, but it still bears repeating: This game was made with a specific audience in mind, and is likely too abrasive for most outside that audience. It was thoroughly tested, balanced and reiterated upon, until the final release was deemed not merely satisfactory, but excellent in delivering the experience we want to the audience we wanted to deliver it to, being released with the maker's full intent behind it. In that, the game fulfills its purpose; If you end up disliking it, it is much more likely it wasn't aimed at you rather than it was aimed at you but fell flat. If you choose to make yourself play it still, after discovering it isn't for you, don't expect much sympathy.
For those of you who I did make this for? I hope you enjoy. I put a lot of work into it, and had some fun (and some rage). It was a journey, and in the end, that is what matters the most. This release has definitely had me do some thinking, though. You'll hopefully see what comes of it.
There's a lot more I could say about this game, however this platform is inadequate for that. To put it simply, this game and the development team have gone through a LOT during the time of making it, and there is simply too much missing information for the outside player to understand where we were coming from sometimes. The stories are nearly as good as the content that was generated by them. This goes a bit beyond, in that the dev team has a general perspective about avoidances that is not shared by many outside it yet allows us to reach the levels of avoidance making we have, and while this specific project was about messing around, having fun, and showing off, it is also clear that for some parts in this as well as many of our other projects (and upcoming ones), people are unable to grasp where our perspectives come from (as evidenced by anyone who thinks milky ways is more than the bare minimum for mediocrity (yes I got razzor's permission and approval to say that)). I will ask that you trust us when we make takes based on these views when it comes to our own games.
[14] Likes
This was meant to be the final game of the I wanna tourney. Luckily, it wasn't.
To put it bluntly, this game is both hard, and was never meant to be a grind. We knew it from the very beginning, and we have decided to make it for ourselves. A game where the mask is half on, half off, where we can be ourselves while also making a show out of it. Furthermore, the final boss took up most of the development cycle since the IWT, and so did many balance changes; Both the game and the tourney would have likely been much worse were it to be its final boss.
This extends further though. The readme states it plainly, I have already made that point, but it still bears repeating: This game was made with a specific audience in mind, and is likely too abrasive for most outside that audience. It was thoroughly tested, balanced and reiterated upon, until the final release was deemed not merely satisfactory, but excellent in delivering the experience we want to the audience we wanted to deliver it to, being released with the maker's full intent behind it. In that, the game fulfills its purpose; If you end up disliking it, it is much more likely it wasn't aimed at you rather than it was aimed at you but fell flat. If you choose to make yourself play it still, after discovering it isn't for you, don't expect much sympathy.
For those of you who I did make this for? I hope you enjoy. I put a lot of work into it, and had some fun (and some rage). It was a journey, and in the end, that is what matters the most. This release has definitely had me do some thinking, though. You'll hopefully see what comes of it.
There's a lot more I could say about this game, however this platform is inadequate for that. To put it simply, this game and the development team have gone through a LOT during the time of making it, and there is simply too much missing information for the outside player to understand where we were coming from sometimes. The stories are nearly as good as the content that was generated by them. This goes a bit beyond, in that the dev team has a general perspective about avoidances that is not shared by many outside it yet allows us to reach the levels of avoidance making we have, and while this specific project was about messing around, having fun, and showing off, it is also clear that for some parts in this as well as many of our other projects (and upcoming ones), people are unable to grasp where our perspectives come from (as evidenced by anyone who thinks milky ways is more than the bare minimum for mediocrity (yes I got razzor's permission and approval to say that)). I will ask that you trust us when we make takes based on these views when it comes to our own games.
Rating: N/A
Difficulty: N/A
Jul 18, 2022
Chrisay
Review currently based on up to final boss.
Cool wacky adventure game that is very varied in its content. A lot of it is based on rng and that central gimmick gets used in a lot of creative ways. Visually great with a clean art style and some nice touches here and there to make everything look and feel great. I appreciate the attention to sound design displayed here as it helps establish a unique identity with a bunch of different trigger sounds that help communicate what is going on.
Music choices in the platforming were generally pretty great, they fit well with their individual sections.
Despite the clear effort put into every single save in this game, the amount of enjoyment I had varied quite a bit. A lot of the saves are long, challenging and sometimes very learny. The game has no consistent difficulty curve which can make your experience incredibly rough if you choose one of the harder paths first. Once you get out of the tutorial area, you're thrown into some of the harder platforming segments in the game immediately, which can be very overwhelming and discourage less skilled players who might otherwise find enjoyment in some of the easier stuff later into the game.
At the end of every path you'll find a short avoidance. These are mostly good with a few really funny ones here and there. They're short enough to not be a major hurdle, but they will greatly challenge players who are less skilled at avoidance. A lot of them are based on memes or references, so they can get very tiring to grind due to not having a song that works well for avoidance. I personally didn't struggle much with any of them, but I can see some of them being incredibly annoying to play for extended periods of time.
There's also a few minibosses in the game and they generally play better than the end avoidances and are actually really fun. Good job on those.
Have yet to finish final boss, it's pretty hard. Maybe an option for hp would smooth over the difficulty for players who are less interested in longer grinds. The boss has a lot of cool attacks and is very visually pleasing. Can't really judge the true difficulty of it, since I've yet to clear it, but it's a step up from the rest of the game.
Overall I had a somewhat rocky experience with the game at first, but I came to enjoy it a lot more later on due to me finding the more enjoyable content later into the game. I think the presentation is excellent and does a lot to make the game stand apart from other fangames, it's very obvious that a lot of love was put into this. I respect it a lot.
Below is a list of specific spots that I found annoying, anything not mentioned I either enjoyed or was not enough of an issue warrant mentioning (Spoilers):
- Bottom left first screen platforms were not intuitive and made me quit early on that save.
- Bottom right first few saves are pretty challenging pure needle which would probably have better pacing if their difficulty was tones down.
- Soulless mini arena 5 has a weird and learny attack which ended up being frustrating cause of how far into the save it was.
- Making the player get stuck in the wall during the Chaos part only made the section more frustrating than it needed to be, having that not be a thing would make the gimmick a lot more enjoyable.
- Squid game gimmick hitboxes are not obvious and it makes the entire gimmick a lot more awkward to play with.
- The Squid game boss fountain attack was harder to learn than it needed to and it isn't a very interesting or enjoyable attack to deal with.
- The Squid game boss gimmick sections could sometimes give insane rng, which expects too much from the player and just serves to drag out the boss.
- Soulless 6 attack 3 is actually insane compared to the other attacks in that fight, might wanna consider nerfing the speed of that. Or you could go joker mode and buff the other attacks instead.
- Cn2 boss should probably not be able to instagib you if you're close to the ceiling, it just kinda feels cheap, even if you can avoid it by being strategic.
[12] Likes
Cool wacky adventure game that is very varied in its content. A lot of it is based on rng and that central gimmick gets used in a lot of creative ways. Visually great with a clean art style and some nice touches here and there to make everything look and feel great. I appreciate the attention to sound design displayed here as it helps establish a unique identity with a bunch of different trigger sounds that help communicate what is going on.
Music choices in the platforming were generally pretty great, they fit well with their individual sections.
Despite the clear effort put into every single save in this game, the amount of enjoyment I had varied quite a bit. A lot of the saves are long, challenging and sometimes very learny. The game has no consistent difficulty curve which can make your experience incredibly rough if you choose one of the harder paths first. Once you get out of the tutorial area, you're thrown into some of the harder platforming segments in the game immediately, which can be very overwhelming and discourage less skilled players who might otherwise find enjoyment in some of the easier stuff later into the game.
At the end of every path you'll find a short avoidance. These are mostly good with a few really funny ones here and there. They're short enough to not be a major hurdle, but they will greatly challenge players who are less skilled at avoidance. A lot of them are based on memes or references, so they can get very tiring to grind due to not having a song that works well for avoidance. I personally didn't struggle much with any of them, but I can see some of them being incredibly annoying to play for extended periods of time.
There's also a few minibosses in the game and they generally play better than the end avoidances and are actually really fun. Good job on those.
Have yet to finish final boss, it's pretty hard. Maybe an option for hp would smooth over the difficulty for players who are less interested in longer grinds. The boss has a lot of cool attacks and is very visually pleasing. Can't really judge the true difficulty of it, since I've yet to clear it, but it's a step up from the rest of the game.
Overall I had a somewhat rocky experience with the game at first, but I came to enjoy it a lot more later on due to me finding the more enjoyable content later into the game. I think the presentation is excellent and does a lot to make the game stand apart from other fangames, it's very obvious that a lot of love was put into this. I respect it a lot.
Below is a list of specific spots that I found annoying, anything not mentioned I either enjoyed or was not enough of an issue warrant mentioning (Spoilers):
- Bottom left first screen platforms were not intuitive and made me quit early on that save.
- Bottom right first few saves are pretty challenging pure needle which would probably have better pacing if their difficulty was tones down.
- Soulless mini arena 5 has a weird and learny attack which ended up being frustrating cause of how far into the save it was.
- Making the player get stuck in the wall during the Chaos part only made the section more frustrating than it needed to be, having that not be a thing would make the gimmick a lot more enjoyable.
- Squid game gimmick hitboxes are not obvious and it makes the entire gimmick a lot more awkward to play with.
- The Squid game boss fountain attack was harder to learn than it needed to and it isn't a very interesting or enjoyable attack to deal with.
- The Squid game boss gimmick sections could sometimes give insane rng, which expects too much from the player and just serves to drag out the boss.
- Soulless 6 attack 3 is actually insane compared to the other attacks in that fight, might wanna consider nerfing the speed of that. Or you could go joker mode and buff the other attacks instead.
- Cn2 boss should probably not be able to instagib you if you're close to the ceiling, it just kinda feels cheap, even if you can avoid it by being strategic.
Rating: 8.6 86
Difficulty: N/A
Jul 19, 2022
cLOUDDEAD
a betrayal of expectations
I was wrong
[8] Likes
I was wrong
Rating: 10.0 100
Difficulty: 86 86
Jul 19, 2022
maxg26
Phenomenal adventure game utilizing powerful visual effects and intriguing level design that challenges the norm you'd expect, the final boss of the game is one of the best thing I've ever seen, I highly recommend playing the game if you aren't afraid of having a bit of challenge and twists thrown at you, as in the end I believe it will be worth playing no matter what.
[8] Likes
Rating: 10.0 100
Difficulty: 82 82
Jul 18, 2022
BoshyGo11
Edit 24.11.2022: Finished the game, didn't take as much, as I expected, but it was still quite tough. Thoughts are below under a spoilertag, rating before the final boss was 7.6.
Well, it was something. I would say my experience with the first phase of the final boss, the boss part, wasn't exactly pleasant. It's immediately apparent that it's a difficulty spike over everything in the game before, all attacks range from relatively involved to pretty fucking hard, the number of attacks is unfathomable. Most of the attacks are enjoyable and fun, but some I ended up not liking at all, mostly the attacks involving water. I got really lucky on my winning attempt by having to do some of the trickiest attacks first and ending with the easiest. My hands were, however, shaking.
The second phase, the avoidance, is easily the best part of the game though, it just skyrockets the experience up. Interesting attacks, amazing visuals, a lot of small details, great variety, it has it all. Also it isn't as frontloaded as CTC, while the hardest part of the avoidance is everything up to chorus 1 and chorus 1, the following segments are also not free. I don't really know what else to say, it's just really enjoyable and also a good way to end off the game.
I should probably do some kind of final thoughts segment, after reflecting on my experience with most of the game and finally getting through the climax. This game is probably the thing that most deserves the tag "Special" on Delfruit, it's truly a special game that is maybe rocky at spots and inconsistent, but extremely memorable. I am still eager to see what's the next TGCC release going to be, but after finishing the game I'm thinking it'll be hard to top this as an experience.
I'm currently at the final boss and the first impression (two hours of playtime) says that it might be a while before I proceed further, so I might as well write a review for the first portion of the game before I forget everything. Also I'll put the entirety of the review under a spoilertag so I don't have to worry about accidentally saying something that would damage the experience of a player looking to avoid being spoiled. The first portion will be more general stuff, then I'll go through each area and note my thoughts.
I have never been so mixed on a game and I don't even know if I'm supposed to feel this way.
The readme says this is not a game for people who dislike gimmick, avoidance or bullshit and I would say the first two of these are my favorite fangame genres. Yet while some of the saves are now some of my favorite fangame saves of all time it wasn't rare that I found myself being frustrated by some section. Am I allowed to feel this way or this just means "this game isn't meant for me"? It's a very confusing attitude, because as I intrepret it either I like everything in the game and this means I'm the player it was aimed at or I don't like something which means this game isn't for me and my opinion loses value because of that.
Another thing that is throwing me off is the last part of Cthaere's review that as I see it is basically saying "We, TGCC team, have achieved deeper understanding of avoidance and while you might not understand it everything we now create is above average" and if that is what Cthaere is really trying to say, I'm just really confused. Every avoidance in the game ranges from "unoffensive, I guess fun" to "pretty fun" and I'm just not seeing where that avoidance magic formula is. I will go into specifics on all the avoidances in the bottom section, but for now I will just say this, no avoidance in this game up until the final boss was better than Musiclock, Bye bye the bye, CTC or Milky ways.
As for the gimmick and needle segments, because I'd like to put a clear distinction between those in the context of this game, that is the part that's the most divisive for me. This is one of the most variety-packed fangames I've played and it is most likely the reason for my opinion and the overall mixed reception. Every room is different from the last one, but most can be divided into "platforming challenges" and "endurance romps". The romps are all pretty fun and I doubt anyone playing the game would get butthurt or grindy at those, but the platforming challenges are usually a lot more challenging than the romps and some are a lot more demanding of the player's needle ability. Those are the ones I and some other players I have seen playing the game or have heard from strugged with most and usually it wasn't just all needle areas in general but one or two specific saves which were different for different people. I'm not sure whether this game just isn't meant to be played by all those people or it's just a testament to how all over the place the content of the game is (for reference the phrasing "all over the place" in this context means literally being very varied, so not in a bad way)
With that I'll go into talking about each area individually. My final general thoughts would be that I don't know if I can recomend this game to anyone because of how hit or miss everything in it is. For a very high-skilled player there is nothing in the game that could stop their playthrough for too long and for very low-skilled players I'm afraid even if they are the player this game aims for a grind could ruin the fun very fast.
I honestly don't really remember what order I did the areas in so I'll probably just go clockwise starting from the first one:
- Up-left hub:
Nothing I can say about it other than it was fun. It's by far the easiest hub part. I chuckled at the Eminem easter egg.
- CN2:
It was fun, if I were making something like this I'd maybe make it so the yellow worms don't kill the player at the top-right part of the screen, but you can avoid dying there by stalling until weather changes to cold so idk. Meth gave me some motion sickness but it's unavoidable with this kind of gimmicks.
- This, is not meth:
Nice and easy, the attacks are all pretty standard, but anything out of the ordinary probably wouldn't work with meth. I liked the end of the avoidance because it's the funny kind of scummy while making great use of meth.
- Squid games:
The jump refresher part of the entrance made me sweat a bit, but it's fine because the section is mostly fair and strategic. The actual squid games screen went by fast, don't have anything bad to say about it besides the hitboxes of Gi Hun and the soldiers being really uninituitive. Thanks for not making those literally square, I guess?
- The Pyramid of RNG:
I didn't go in blind so I knew what to expect, but I did think of my own strats for all attacks (for my memory is not the greatest). It went by relatively fast, but I can imagine the fight becoming frustrating if you grind it for a long time. Also the non-gimmicky attacks felt a bit generic, thought the fancy visuals salvage the avoidance a bit.
- Up-right hub:
The first screen is a lot of fun, it was actually the first thing I did in the game (after the intro of course). The FTFA screen though is total bullshit. It would be bearable if the player was given a view of the entire room when rerolling, but as it is right now you just pray not to have any hard jumps on any screen after the first one. On my first try with the game I would roll a corner or a double gate on the second screen every time I got there so when I got to the third screen and was faced with more FTFA bullshit I just restarted, leaving this path as the last one. And it's a shame because inside was one of my favorite areas of the game.
- K3:
The level design at the chaos section was for the most part utilising the gimmick in really cool ways, however the final section gave me some despair from getting stuck in the ceiling after getting the joker at the end. If I were making something like this I'd program it so no sticking would occur.
The K3 section was really great. The audio-visual aspect landed perfectly and doing K3 screens with HP lead to a really fun game of "strategise spending HP on specific spikes to avoid danger from other spikes". The emperor section afterwards wasn't as interesting, but there is not a single bad thing I can say about it either.
- Mayumushkatri:
As expected from something derived from Mayumushi, this little avoidance showcases a bunch of original strat-based attacks. The platforming section at the end was also a lot of fun and wrapped up one of my favorite avoidances in the game nicely.
- Grandma:
Same general criticism and praises regarding the chaos gimmick. The grandma joke didn't really land, but nothing was lost because of it either.
- Something familiar:
For the most part it's a nerfed start of MHC's "RNG hell" (kinda fitting for *RNG* Dungeon tbh) followed by a relatively generic skelly barrage, btw I died two times at the very end to not being able to outrun the Skeleton. I must say though, dying to some stray apple and restarting to hear "man ur so BAD at avoidance" is some next level of meta humour, absolutely brilliant.
- Down-right hub:
The first screen was fun and easy, but then the next one, jeez. I didn't get particularly upset at it, but the CN3 golden save is the platforming segment that took me the longest by far, about an hour actually. Also I died to the gate once.
- Dogwater:
The dogwater save is fun despite it being one of the hardest things in the game and me spending a lot of time to get good at doing the spiral. The IP save is nothing special, just some more needle with a bit of Butterfly-like backtracks.
- IP grabber:
One of my favorite avoidances in the game, the mapping is absolutely insane and I love it.
- Soulless:
The butterfly save was a lot of fun, I love Noesis circles and I'd love to see what the version that sucked balls looked like. Annoying orange didn't bring me as much joy as Eminem did, because I was immediately faced with the grim reality of having to sit through the Team TGCC logo again.
The mini Soulless save is by far my favorite thing in the game. Not only is it just very fun to play and also really funny with the literal gates, but THE gate 5 attack is there. Makes me wonder what a full Soulless avoidance in a small room would look like.
- Soulless 6:
Probably the hardest avoidance in the game, but also one of my favorites. Really hectic, really original, really fun. I'm now a bit better with fast-paced barrages.
- Down-left hub:
The first save is definetely one of the toughest saves in the game to do blind. A lot of strat-based needle, a lot of jumpscares and on the first go I doubt anyone would remember the touchable apple colors. The platforms are arguably wacky tho, also maybe a bit keyboard-dependant with the relatively strict jump timings. The second save is just Razzor flexing his math skills. Whan a hypocrite, given the avoidance tournament prefinals...
- Crimson:
The timed section is just a bit of fun, that's it, the gimmick reminds me of Ocean princess a bit actually. You know, the castle stage.
The Crimson boss is fun, but spamming is absolutely impossible and even landing one shot on a wrong boss can ruin a run. Patrick's post-death homing thingy was a bit hard to dodge when bullets would arrive from outside the screen border, but it felt more like skill issue rather than unfair. Squidward's rings sniping the kid on spawn did feel really unfair sometimes and while you can strategise around it by seeing the letter B appear above your head and moving away from Mr. Squidward, it's too convoluted to be an excuse.
- The formula:
Once I understood the hitbox is a dot it was very easy. I don't know what I can say about the quality, it's very obviously not supposed to be taken seriously, and if it is that's where I think a problem arises.
- Destination:
Again, the timed section is pretty fun, nothing special.
The Destination boss looked imposing on video but went by a lot quicker than Crimson when I was playing it. A pretty fun boss, maybe green's a bit garbage sometimes, but that's probably it.
- what:
A very fun avoidance, the attacks were all cool. Firsttried everything past the intro lol.
Misc nitpicks:
- I think the game would benefit a lot from a warp out system and some sort of more involved hub. Some of the avoidances are genuinely something I'd maybe occasionally reopen (if Milky Ways or Musiclock is erased from my hard drive ig), so something like "jumping into the cube and pressing up warps you into the avoidance" would be a treat. I also feel like a warp out system would fix most of the issues stemming from players getting stuck and frustrated at an unfun area they stumbled upon.
- Also a thing that would work well towards acessibility would be a HP system or even a whole "low diff mode", as is the game is really tough at times and it's not Vandal or something where grinding a save doesn't feel bad, this game's design, both in the plaforming and the bosses/avoidances, is really grind-unfriendly. I do understand that would be a ton of work to implement and balance though.
- Block buttons and reroll blocks both being called "reroll" just feels... off, I don't really care if it's changed or not though.
That is probably all I can say right now, but if I think of something else I'll add it in an edit. Sorry for the long post, but I just felt like I need to say what I feel about the game. It really feels very mixed, I adore some of the sections, but not others as much and also the attitude of the devteam doesn't really vibe with me.
All in all I think I'd describe this first impression of Team TGCC as "solid, but not outstanding", so I'll be waiting for the next release with a lot of hope, perhaps it will be a thing that will absolutely blow me away and open a whole new level of avoidance design to the community.
Edit #1: I immediately forgot I wanted to say that the game's biggest strengths are production value, which sweetens the pill on otherwise memey and/or lackluster avoidance or platforming, music and visuals, which are just really nice throughout the whole game including the final boss, and humour, not every joke landed, but when it did, it really did.
[7] Likes
Well, it was something. I would say my experience with the first phase of the final boss, the boss part, wasn't exactly pleasant. It's immediately apparent that it's a difficulty spike over everything in the game before, all attacks range from relatively involved to pretty fucking hard, the number of attacks is unfathomable. Most of the attacks are enjoyable and fun, but some I ended up not liking at all, mostly the attacks involving water. I got really lucky on my winning attempt by having to do some of the trickiest attacks first and ending with the easiest. My hands were, however, shaking.
The second phase, the avoidance, is easily the best part of the game though, it just skyrockets the experience up. Interesting attacks, amazing visuals, a lot of small details, great variety, it has it all. Also it isn't as frontloaded as CTC, while the hardest part of the avoidance is everything up to chorus 1 and chorus 1, the following segments are also not free. I don't really know what else to say, it's just really enjoyable and also a good way to end off the game.
I should probably do some kind of final thoughts segment, after reflecting on my experience with most of the game and finally getting through the climax. This game is probably the thing that most deserves the tag "Special" on Delfruit, it's truly a special game that is maybe rocky at spots and inconsistent, but extremely memorable. I am still eager to see what's the next TGCC release going to be, but after finishing the game I'm thinking it'll be hard to top this as an experience.
I'm currently at the final boss and the first impression (two hours of playtime) says that it might be a while before I proceed further, so I might as well write a review for the first portion of the game before I forget everything. Also I'll put the entirety of the review under a spoilertag so I don't have to worry about accidentally saying something that would damage the experience of a player looking to avoid being spoiled. The first portion will be more general stuff, then I'll go through each area and note my thoughts.
I have never been so mixed on a game and I don't even know if I'm supposed to feel this way.
The readme says this is not a game for people who dislike gimmick, avoidance or bullshit and I would say the first two of these are my favorite fangame genres. Yet while some of the saves are now some of my favorite fangame saves of all time it wasn't rare that I found myself being frustrated by some section. Am I allowed to feel this way or this just means "this game isn't meant for me"? It's a very confusing attitude, because as I intrepret it either I like everything in the game and this means I'm the player it was aimed at or I don't like something which means this game isn't for me and my opinion loses value because of that.
Another thing that is throwing me off is the last part of Cthaere's review that as I see it is basically saying "We, TGCC team, have achieved deeper understanding of avoidance and while you might not understand it everything we now create is above average" and if that is what Cthaere is really trying to say, I'm just really confused. Every avoidance in the game ranges from "unoffensive, I guess fun" to "pretty fun" and I'm just not seeing where that avoidance magic formula is. I will go into specifics on all the avoidances in the bottom section, but for now I will just say this, no avoidance in this game up until the final boss was better than Musiclock, Bye bye the bye, CTC or Milky ways.
As for the gimmick and needle segments, because I'd like to put a clear distinction between those in the context of this game, that is the part that's the most divisive for me. This is one of the most variety-packed fangames I've played and it is most likely the reason for my opinion and the overall mixed reception. Every room is different from the last one, but most can be divided into "platforming challenges" and "endurance romps". The romps are all pretty fun and I doubt anyone playing the game would get butthurt or grindy at those, but the platforming challenges are usually a lot more challenging than the romps and some are a lot more demanding of the player's needle ability. Those are the ones I and some other players I have seen playing the game or have heard from strugged with most and usually it wasn't just all needle areas in general but one or two specific saves which were different for different people. I'm not sure whether this game just isn't meant to be played by all those people or it's just a testament to how all over the place the content of the game is (for reference the phrasing "all over the place" in this context means literally being very varied, so not in a bad way)
With that I'll go into talking about each area individually. My final general thoughts would be that I don't know if I can recomend this game to anyone because of how hit or miss everything in it is. For a very high-skilled player there is nothing in the game that could stop their playthrough for too long and for very low-skilled players I'm afraid even if they are the player this game aims for a grind could ruin the fun very fast.
I honestly don't really remember what order I did the areas in so I'll probably just go clockwise starting from the first one:
- Up-left hub:
Nothing I can say about it other than it was fun. It's by far the easiest hub part. I chuckled at the Eminem easter egg.
- CN2:
It was fun, if I were making something like this I'd maybe make it so the yellow worms don't kill the player at the top-right part of the screen, but you can avoid dying there by stalling until weather changes to cold so idk. Meth gave me some motion sickness but it's unavoidable with this kind of gimmicks.
- This, is not meth:
Nice and easy, the attacks are all pretty standard, but anything out of the ordinary probably wouldn't work with meth. I liked the end of the avoidance because it's the funny kind of scummy while making great use of meth.
- Squid games:
The jump refresher part of the entrance made me sweat a bit, but it's fine because the section is mostly fair and strategic. The actual squid games screen went by fast, don't have anything bad to say about it besides the hitboxes of Gi Hun and the soldiers being really uninituitive. Thanks for not making those literally square, I guess?
- The Pyramid of RNG:
I didn't go in blind so I knew what to expect, but I did think of my own strats for all attacks (for my memory is not the greatest). It went by relatively fast, but I can imagine the fight becoming frustrating if you grind it for a long time. Also the non-gimmicky attacks felt a bit generic, thought the fancy visuals salvage the avoidance a bit.
- Up-right hub:
The first screen is a lot of fun, it was actually the first thing I did in the game (after the intro of course). The FTFA screen though is total bullshit. It would be bearable if the player was given a view of the entire room when rerolling, but as it is right now you just pray not to have any hard jumps on any screen after the first one. On my first try with the game I would roll a corner or a double gate on the second screen every time I got there so when I got to the third screen and was faced with more FTFA bullshit I just restarted, leaving this path as the last one. And it's a shame because inside was one of my favorite areas of the game.
- K3:
The level design at the chaos section was for the most part utilising the gimmick in really cool ways, however the final section gave me some despair from getting stuck in the ceiling after getting the joker at the end. If I were making something like this I'd program it so no sticking would occur.
The K3 section was really great. The audio-visual aspect landed perfectly and doing K3 screens with HP lead to a really fun game of "strategise spending HP on specific spikes to avoid danger from other spikes". The emperor section afterwards wasn't as interesting, but there is not a single bad thing I can say about it either.
- Mayumushkatri:
As expected from something derived from Mayumushi, this little avoidance showcases a bunch of original strat-based attacks. The platforming section at the end was also a lot of fun and wrapped up one of my favorite avoidances in the game nicely.
- Grandma:
Same general criticism and praises regarding the chaos gimmick. The grandma joke didn't really land, but nothing was lost because of it either.
- Something familiar:
For the most part it's a nerfed start of MHC's "RNG hell" (kinda fitting for *RNG* Dungeon tbh) followed by a relatively generic skelly barrage, btw I died two times at the very end to not being able to outrun the Skeleton. I must say though, dying to some stray apple and restarting to hear "man ur so BAD at avoidance" is some next level of meta humour, absolutely brilliant.
- Down-right hub:
The first screen was fun and easy, but then the next one, jeez. I didn't get particularly upset at it, but the CN3 golden save is the platforming segment that took me the longest by far, about an hour actually. Also I died to the gate once.
- Dogwater:
The dogwater save is fun despite it being one of the hardest things in the game and me spending a lot of time to get good at doing the spiral. The IP save is nothing special, just some more needle with a bit of Butterfly-like backtracks.
- IP grabber:
One of my favorite avoidances in the game, the mapping is absolutely insane and I love it.
- Soulless:
The butterfly save was a lot of fun, I love Noesis circles and I'd love to see what the version that sucked balls looked like. Annoying orange didn't bring me as much joy as Eminem did, because I was immediately faced with the grim reality of having to sit through the Team TGCC logo again.
The mini Soulless save is by far my favorite thing in the game. Not only is it just very fun to play and also really funny with the literal gates, but THE gate 5 attack is there. Makes me wonder what a full Soulless avoidance in a small room would look like.
- Soulless 6:
Probably the hardest avoidance in the game, but also one of my favorites. Really hectic, really original, really fun. I'm now a bit better with fast-paced barrages.
- Down-left hub:
The first save is definetely one of the toughest saves in the game to do blind. A lot of strat-based needle, a lot of jumpscares and on the first go I doubt anyone would remember the touchable apple colors. The platforms are arguably wacky tho, also maybe a bit keyboard-dependant with the relatively strict jump timings. The second save is just Razzor flexing his math skills. Whan a hypocrite, given the avoidance tournament prefinals...
- Crimson:
The timed section is just a bit of fun, that's it, the gimmick reminds me of Ocean princess a bit actually. You know, the castle stage.
The Crimson boss is fun, but spamming is absolutely impossible and even landing one shot on a wrong boss can ruin a run. Patrick's post-death homing thingy was a bit hard to dodge when bullets would arrive from outside the screen border, but it felt more like skill issue rather than unfair. Squidward's rings sniping the kid on spawn did feel really unfair sometimes and while you can strategise around it by seeing the letter B appear above your head and moving away from Mr. Squidward, it's too convoluted to be an excuse.
- The formula:
Once I understood the hitbox is a dot it was very easy. I don't know what I can say about the quality, it's very obviously not supposed to be taken seriously, and if it is that's where I think a problem arises.
- Destination:
Again, the timed section is pretty fun, nothing special.
The Destination boss looked imposing on video but went by a lot quicker than Crimson when I was playing it. A pretty fun boss, maybe green's a bit garbage sometimes, but that's probably it.
- what:
A very fun avoidance, the attacks were all cool. Firsttried everything past the intro lol.
Misc nitpicks:
- I think the game would benefit a lot from a warp out system and some sort of more involved hub. Some of the avoidances are genuinely something I'd maybe occasionally reopen (if Milky Ways or Musiclock is erased from my hard drive ig), so something like "jumping into the cube and pressing up warps you into the avoidance" would be a treat. I also feel like a warp out system would fix most of the issues stemming from players getting stuck and frustrated at an unfun area they stumbled upon.
- Also a thing that would work well towards acessibility would be a HP system or even a whole "low diff mode", as is the game is really tough at times and it's not Vandal or something where grinding a save doesn't feel bad, this game's design, both in the plaforming and the bosses/avoidances, is really grind-unfriendly. I do understand that would be a ton of work to implement and balance though.
- Block buttons and reroll blocks both being called "reroll" just feels... off, I don't really care if it's changed or not though.
That is probably all I can say right now, but if I think of something else I'll add it in an edit. Sorry for the long post, but I just felt like I need to say what I feel about the game. It really feels very mixed, I adore some of the sections, but not others as much and also the attitude of the devteam doesn't really vibe with me.
All in all I think I'd describe this first impression of Team TGCC as "solid, but not outstanding", so I'll be waiting for the next release with a lot of hope, perhaps it will be a thing that will absolutely blow me away and open a whole new level of avoidance design to the community.
Edit #1: I immediately forgot I wanted to say that the game's biggest strengths are production value, which sweetens the pill on otherwise memey and/or lackluster avoidance or platforming, music and visuals, which are just really nice throughout the whole game including the final boss, and humour, not every joke landed, but when it did, it really did.
Rating: 8.9 89
Difficulty: 78 78
Jul 22, 2022