Latest Reviews
Neos_
For: Kokomi Kokomi Kokomi
For: Kokomi Kokomi Kokomi
Tagged as: Trap
[0] Likes
Rating: 7.9 79
Difficulty: 28 28
Jul 17, 2022
Jopagu
For: I wanna be the Krypton
For: I wanna be the Krypton
As a collab between two of my all time favorite needle makers, Krypton was destined to be a game I loved, and it didn't disappoint. Chatran mimics Nader's style really well, while still keeping some of his own unique style. The two makers are very complimentary, and the game flows well, which is hard with the saves alternating makers. Both makers use platforms really well, and that remains the case in Krypton. Dotkid is fun as always, and contains some cool movements. The final stage combines dotkid and normal kid, and both makers create some fun stuff with this. Overall, the game is fantastic, and a deserved play from any needle fan.
[3] Likes
Rating: 8.8 88
Difficulty: 54 54
Jul 17, 2022
Jopagu
For: I wanna fall into the snow
For: I wanna fall into the snow
Fun easier game in Chatran's classic style. Chatran is a master of open layout needle, creating jumps through minimal blocks floating in the sky. The movements are varied and interesting, and the jumps all feel good. Chatran's spike patterns are here, with some screens using symmetry and others just using the variety of decorative arrangements he's known for. The difficulty balance is fantastic, and the game actually has a smooth difficulty curve, a rarity for games this short. Overall, the game is an easy recommendation.
[0] Likes
Rating: 8.0 80
Difficulty: 52 52
Jul 17, 2022
phgQED
For: I wanna be the immortal butterfly
For: I wanna be the immortal butterfly
A hyper-traditional butterfly needle game which heavily explores the tropes of the genre without contributing much new of its own. For those of you new to butterfly needle likes (as I am/was), here are some of the tenets. Check as many as possible if you can.
- Screen layout is as follows: 1 single jump screen, 2 full size screens but with heavy usage of empty space, 3 single jump screens, clear
- 'inverted shurikens' (where the points of each spike touch the base of the next)
- shiny space-themed background
- default-ish tileset with a lean towards blue
- player must fall into each level from the top left
- 8px stacked platform chain that boosts you instantly, usually through some fruit
- intense vine usage, especially vines on kill blocks
- a line or more of kill blocks integrated into the level/jumps
- heavy fruit usage
- jumps lean towards invert flavors for single jumps and more traditional usage for larger screens
- jumps tend to push the limits of technical possibility and/or require specific align usage/knowledge
- jumps tend to squeeze the maximum out of all possible elements (eg. if you see a vine you will almost certainly have to save your jump, if you see a platform you will almost certainly have to leave with your double jump intact, etc.)
The more of these your game has, the closer it is to being a 'needle butterfly like', whatever that ultimately means.
There are certain elements which are harder to pin down, like aesthetic choices and the exactitude of jumps which is difficult to describe. One of those is the 'maximum out of all possible elements', which ties into jump intuition: there is a way of looking at a jump in a butterfly game in which you will almost instantly realize what the creator intends you to do, and exactly how painful it intends to be. These can be simple things like the proximity of a platform to a spike in a boost segment, or how tight the vine usage has to be in terms of directional inputs. In any case, there is a level of communication inherent to this genre—which, conversely, is almost entirely abandoned for the single jump screens, in a way that feels mostly rewarding. Usually because of the nature of these single jumps you'll be expected to cancel somewhere, but there might be more intricate movements or patterns of movement required, and the sensation of breaking up a hard grind screen or save with a single focused grind is really refreshing, and one of my favorite things about the genre and its tropes.
As for this game in particular, there is not much being done here that you won't see in the list, and even most of the more interesting jumps are based on the inverted shurikens interacting. In particular, some of the jump utilization and orchestration feels 'rote'... there's a segment where you're meant to scale a series of vines while holding your double jump, and the jump at the very top which requires your double jump is just a 3/4 diamond. Nothing fancy, no angles or learning or precision going on besides your normal 3f and stutter or 2f hold right or whatever it is you normally do for that type of jump. So the player can, yes, read instantly that they are required to save their double jump until the top of the climb, but they're not then doing anything interesting with it once they get there: it feels like just filling out the boxes to a math equation, and while potentially satisfying conceptually, was not that rewarding to execute.
The music is a Touhou song from (I think?) Imperishable Night, which does a decent job of evoking feelings of spacey mysticism. This game seems like a sort of decent introduction to butterfly concepts for someone who's never encountered the genre, but most of those concepts are executed so straightforwardly, it seems like the game might only be fascinating from the perspective of digesting its tropes and then moving on.
Overall not sure if I had fun or would recommend, but it definitely is a very butterfly-ish butterfly game.
Time: ~13min
Deaths: 1079
- Screen layout is as follows: 1 single jump screen, 2 full size screens but with heavy usage of empty space, 3 single jump screens, clear
- 'inverted shurikens' (where the points of each spike touch the base of the next)
- shiny space-themed background
- default-ish tileset with a lean towards blue
- player must fall into each level from the top left
- 8px stacked platform chain that boosts you instantly, usually through some fruit
- intense vine usage, especially vines on kill blocks
- a line or more of kill blocks integrated into the level/jumps
- heavy fruit usage
- jumps lean towards invert flavors for single jumps and more traditional usage for larger screens
- jumps tend to push the limits of technical possibility and/or require specific align usage/knowledge
- jumps tend to squeeze the maximum out of all possible elements (eg. if you see a vine you will almost certainly have to save your jump, if you see a platform you will almost certainly have to leave with your double jump intact, etc.)
The more of these your game has, the closer it is to being a 'needle butterfly like', whatever that ultimately means.
There are certain elements which are harder to pin down, like aesthetic choices and the exactitude of jumps which is difficult to describe. One of those is the 'maximum out of all possible elements', which ties into jump intuition: there is a way of looking at a jump in a butterfly game in which you will almost instantly realize what the creator intends you to do, and exactly how painful it intends to be. These can be simple things like the proximity of a platform to a spike in a boost segment, or how tight the vine usage has to be in terms of directional inputs. In any case, there is a level of communication inherent to this genre—which, conversely, is almost entirely abandoned for the single jump screens, in a way that feels mostly rewarding. Usually because of the nature of these single jumps you'll be expected to cancel somewhere, but there might be more intricate movements or patterns of movement required, and the sensation of breaking up a hard grind screen or save with a single focused grind is really refreshing, and one of my favorite things about the genre and its tropes.
As for this game in particular, there is not much being done here that you won't see in the list, and even most of the more interesting jumps are based on the inverted shurikens interacting. In particular, some of the jump utilization and orchestration feels 'rote'... there's a segment where you're meant to scale a series of vines while holding your double jump, and the jump at the very top which requires your double jump is just a 3/4 diamond. Nothing fancy, no angles or learning or precision going on besides your normal 3f and stutter or 2f hold right or whatever it is you normally do for that type of jump. So the player can, yes, read instantly that they are required to save their double jump until the top of the climb, but they're not then doing anything interesting with it once they get there: it feels like just filling out the boxes to a math equation, and while potentially satisfying conceptually, was not that rewarding to execute.
The music is a Touhou song from (I think?) Imperishable Night, which does a decent job of evoking feelings of spacey mysticism. This game seems like a sort of decent introduction to butterfly concepts for someone who's never encountered the genre, but most of those concepts are executed so straightforwardly, it seems like the game might only be fascinating from the perspective of digesting its tropes and then moving on.
Overall not sure if I had fun or would recommend, but it definitely is a very butterfly-ish butterfly game.
Time: ~13min
Deaths: 1079
Tagged as: Needle
NeedleButterfly-like
[0] Likes
Rating: 5.0 50
Difficulty: 55 55
Jul 17, 2022
ColdWarrior
For: I wanna be the Justice Guy
For: I wanna be the Justice Guy
I loved it. I'm going to rate every ending of this game since I beat it 100% and your experience may vary depending on how far you wanna go.
First ending is the most exciting and well-designed in my opinion and it makes sense. I enjoyed every boss, but I fell in love with final boss. First phase of it is like a preparation to second, where the REAL fight starts. Second phase is pure love, I've seen it before and I thought that it looked very hype, but it plays WAY WAAAY better, it's the most fun grind I've ever done (took me about 10 hours I think). The variety of attacks is crazy, and music, general presentation of it is simply brilliant. I never felt so excited fighting a boss before. People say this game has luck-based attacks, and I can agree with that to some extent. But I never felt like I was in for a lottery or something, when I did good I was rewarded for it, and damn it feels rewarding beating some of this bosses. Overall I recommend everyone to play up until first ending, it's the best portion of content this game has to offer. Final boss of this ending is also hardest boss of the game IMO.
Second ending involves fighting 18 not-as-fun bosses that appeared in maker's previous games. It's rather boring and serves more as a gate to hard mode. After beating this bosses, you gonna fight 2nd final boss, which is fun. This is the most "meh" ending of this game, but you gotta do it to get to a fun part. I would recommend it only if you want to experience late part of the game and enjoying it a lot.
Third ending requires beating all of main game bosses again on hard mode. This hard mode removes platforming entirely and buffs bosses significantly, final bosses all look different and play different, but they're all fun (except for Leina's 1st phase, but it wasn't too bad). It didn't take long for me to get this ending, because after all, bosses are MOSTLY the same, and you have health to spare (for some reason every hit counts as death, I always seen deaths as attempts and it just confused me). Three final bosses are very cool, but still not as cool as final boss in first ending. The very final boss delivers, thankfully, but their final attack can be tedious and frustrating. I recommend this if you can tolerate beating second ending and love the game like I do.
[0] Likes
First ending is the most exciting and well-designed in my opinion and it makes sense. I enjoyed every boss, but I fell in love with final boss. First phase of it is like a preparation to second, where the REAL fight starts. Second phase is pure love, I've seen it before and I thought that it looked very hype, but it plays WAY WAAAY better, it's the most fun grind I've ever done (took me about 10 hours I think). The variety of attacks is crazy, and music, general presentation of it is simply brilliant. I never felt so excited fighting a boss before. People say this game has luck-based attacks, and I can agree with that to some extent. But I never felt like I was in for a lottery or something, when I did good I was rewarded for it, and damn it feels rewarding beating some of this bosses. Overall I recommend everyone to play up until first ending, it's the best portion of content this game has to offer. Final boss of this ending is also hardest boss of the game IMO.
Second ending involves fighting 18 not-as-fun bosses that appeared in maker's previous games. It's rather boring and serves more as a gate to hard mode. After beating this bosses, you gonna fight 2nd final boss, which is fun. This is the most "meh" ending of this game, but you gotta do it to get to a fun part. I would recommend it only if you want to experience late part of the game and enjoying it a lot.
Third ending requires beating all of main game bosses again on hard mode. This hard mode removes platforming entirely and buffs bosses significantly, final bosses all look different and play different, but they're all fun (except for Leina's 1st phase, but it wasn't too bad). It didn't take long for me to get this ending, because after all, bosses are MOSTLY the same, and you have health to spare (for some reason every hit counts as death, I always seen deaths as attempts and it just confused me). Three final bosses are very cool, but still not as cool as final boss in first ending. The very final boss delivers, thankfully, but their final attack can be tedious and frustrating. I recommend this if you can tolerate beating second ending and love the game like I do.
Rating: 9.0 90
Difficulty: 75 75
Jul 17, 2022
Lemon
For: I wanna clear 25 floors
For: I wanna clear 25 floors
Its basically the first 25 screens of most 100F games except one of them has traps and sometimes the room transitions mean you will likely die because the kid spawns on the edge of the room. other than that its ok.
[0] Likes
Rating: N/A
Difficulty: N/A
Jul 17, 2022
Delicious Fruit