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For: I wanna Figure
For: I wanna Figure
In 1912, German Psychologist Carl Jung would publish “Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido”. (I promise this is a review for “I Wanna Figure”.) In this book, he would put forth the idea that there were different levels of unconsciousness. In this idea, some levels are ones we are aware of and have direct influence over, while others go below what we are directly aware of and do not have direct interaction with. He would later go on to give each level its own archetype, defining it further into ideas on how each part not only interacts with each other, but also how each part contributes to forming the entire individual. For the purposes of this review, I will be grossly oversimplifying a lot of key concepts, but I feel it is important to clearly establish three of these archetypes so as to ensure the reader may understand where I will later take the conversation and discussion regarding “I Wanna Figure”.
Firstly, there is the outermost layer archetyped as “the persona”. This layer is meant to depict the way our unconsciousness wishes to present ourselves to others. For example, this is the conversations you have, the events you support or participate in, and the other public facing ideas and activities that you create specifically for interpersonal relations. This is the easiest layer for individuals who aren’t yourself to see, as the entire purpose of “the persona” is to be the composite of everything you put forth into being. “The persona” is a distillation or idealization of what we wish to achieve within ourselves, though we often omit parts of our unconsciousness from it for the purposes of connecting to those in the outside world.
Those omissions lead to the layer below “the persona”, archetyped as “the ego”. This layer contains the ideals that represent ourselves interacting with *ourselves*. For example, this is reaching for water instead of soda to boost your self image, playing a game because it gives you enjoyment, and any other actions performed for the satisfaction or interest of none other than yourself. This may take a second to acknowledge, but most people have an “inner voice” or “conscious choice” when it comes to taking actions in any form. At first, this seems like a contradiction (a “conscious choice” in the realm of unconsciousness), but it is important to point out the unconsciousness comes not from you responding to yourself, but rather from presenting yourself with the situation needing to be responded to in the first place. You are acknowledging yourself both before and after an event takes place, and your responses and actions form and shape “the ego” in ways that cannot typically be observed by those who aren’t yourself.
A question then arises: what comes of responses and actions that you can’t observe? The answer is the layer below “the ego” and the last to be mentioned before finally talking about “I Wanna Figure”, the one archetyped as “the shadow”. This layer consists of thoughts, actions, and events that aren’t personally acknowledged, yet still define both how we act and how our unconscious functions. For example, conversations you had with a person you don’t talk to anymore, the background observations you make when traveling that impact how you consider options in the future, and many other such actions that still affect and influence you despite not being actively aware of them. “The shadow” acts as the connecting point between collective unconsciousness and personal unconsciousness, bridging the influences and experiences you have with your personal convictions and ideals. Layers deeper than this one are more difficult to acknowledge and derive influence from, at least for the purposes of this review, and as such I will not be exploring Jung’s theory beyond this.
We have now established the outermost layers of this interpretation of unconsciousness, and can simplify them into more manageable ideas. “The persona” is how you present yourself to the outside world, and how you are perceived by others. “The ego” is how you present yourself to yourself, and what you believe yourself to be like from within your own mind. “The shadow” is what is presented to you without you being aware of it, while still being a part of you and influencing you. With these three concepts, I would now like to justify this overly long and complicated exposition to a fangame review with the following thesis:
I Wanna Figure is a game made by wonderful’s unconsciousness, culminating in an encounter with her “shadow”, and it is one of the closest methods to experiencing someone else’s “shadow” that I have ever encountered.
The remainder of this review is a justification of this statement.
Firstly, the numbers. I Wanna Figure presents itself as an “X-Floor Game” in which the objective is to go from the first screen to the last, and each individual room is numbered. Right from the start, it struggles to follow this pattern throughout the entire game by counting numbers in the following order:
0, 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 17, 2, 6, 4, 9, 2, 10, 18, 19, [nothing], 20, 21, 22, 29, [nothing], 3X, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45
It skips over several numbers (14, 15, 23, etc.), duplicates others (17, 2), and completely diverges from the idea of counting at multiple points. At first, one might be tempted to say that the numbers are completely arbitrary and meaningless, but there are still some patterns and meanings to discern. First, with the exception of jumping from 17 to 2, every number is increasing. The game is making forward progress, regardless of if that progress is immediately obvious to you or not. The numbers in that sense act less as a progress counter and more like a progress indicator. They are the game's way of saying “you’re still progressing, keep going”.
The most obvious counterexample to this is the aforementioned jump from 17 back to 2. At first, it may seem like it goes against everything I stated previously, that the game is suddenly saying “sorry, you’ve lost progress”. What I think is happening here, however, goes deeper than the numbers. This numerical reset can be treated as a single segment of the overall game, resulting in a chunk that lasts from game start to this moment. Keep this idea of segmentation in mind as we look at other aspects.
Secondly, the visuals. I Wanna Figure does not aim to impress you with its visuals; in fact, most of the assets in the game are either standard engine assets or monochromatic blocks and background, with the occasional image editor filter applied. Despite this, the visuals actively progress and develop as the game goes on, becoming much more important than just “it looks pretty”.
(For the purposes of clarity, I will define a “stage” to be each portion of the game in which a unique song plays, and refer to these stages by the names of said songs.)
Stage one, “Brown Eyed Girl”, uses only the simplest of assets, found in most engines. In fact, apart from the number 0 and the section with the moving spikes in the water, this entire screen is simply spikes and brown blocks and could be recreated in the program “jtool”. It’s abrasively simple, which further contrasts with the following screen introducing a grassy top to the blocks. One could compare this to someone being recently awoken, developing and expanding their awareness in real time. This further grows in stage two, “Let's Go”, which utilizes the more complex of the commonplace tilesets, the gray girders. This is the point in the game where moving obstacles start to become more frequent, in the form of fruit or cyclical spike paths. It remains, however, using solely what assets are readily available, which is why stage three “Lola” instead focuses on original features, presenting a recognizable identity to those looking on from outside. Stage four, “Bangkok”, acknowledges that this personified version of the game is capable of understanding movement and visuals individually, and is now attempting to present both at the same time. And yet, its comprehension is flawed, incomplete, and so it divides the room physically in two, the left half focused on movement, the right half on visuals and structure. Stage five, “King Rat”, acknowledges its lack of cohesion and overcorrects, swaying the balance in the opposite direction, akin to a pendulum swinging back and forth between “movement” and “artistry”. Where the previous stage swung over to artistry, this stage swung harder into movement, before eventually stabilizing in stage six, “The Boys Are Back In Town.”
“The Boys Are Back In Town” reaches the climax of the idea of being awoken and becoming aware in terms of “I Wanna Figure”. It is easily the most recognizable portion of the game, being referenced multiple times in games such as Crimson Needle 3, Guy Tower Defense, and even my own personal work of 100 Floor Medley. It mixes the idea of artistry (using jagged spike and block fragments in mixture with literal images of Goofy and Donald Duck) with movement (constant cycles of fruit being either aimed directly at you or in the path of progression), while not going too overboard with the ideas. This is also where floor 17 happens – twice. I think the game knows that this stage is the pinnacle of what it could possibly do with these aspects and, as such, is why the reset back to floor 2 happens after this stage. This reversion is the game transferring directorial authority from wonderful’s “persona” to wonderful’s “ego”. The entire game up to this point has been about finding how it wants to present itself to others, and mastering this presentation until it no longer has anything it can add.
After this handoff, wonderful’s “ego” is left in a situation of not being prepared to take the reins. Stage seven, “Chocolate Girl”, addresses this sudden change of perspective with a need to reestablish itself, not to the outside world, but internally. It’s sprawling and disjointed, sometimes unclear on where to go. Stage eight, “Disintegration Anxiety”, collects these fragments and holds them closer to each other, but not putting them together quite yet. The game is still in the process of coping with the sudden change, but it’s taking the proper steps towards doing so. This leads to stage nine, “Yellow Country Teeth”, which is able to take these fragments and arrange them in a way that is at least “presentable”, while not entirely being “complete”. Its appearance has been cleaned up, but its identity remains uncertain. Stage ten, “A 1000 Times”, takes a break from explicit progression to allow the game to address this uncertainty. It repeats the same ideas over and over again, before eventually looking back towards the first chunk of the game and acknowledging its previous successful blend of artistry and movement.
It is worth pointing out: every screen from floor 2 to these currently unnumbered floors has been entirely static rooms of needle – that is, nothing within them has been moving. Stage ten allows the game to break away from that – it’s no longer regaining its composure, it’s allowing itself to actually have self-expression in a way that wasn’t possible with just the “persona” of wonderful. Stage eleven, “Warned You”, is wonderful’s “ego” finally gaining the confidence to showcase that sense of expression. With that said, the way it expresses itself comes off as a bit dreary. Yes, there are signs of movement, and it even keeps some form of familiarity through the default spikes, as if to say “hey, I’m about to do this for myself, you can go do something else now if you want to”. This, however, is not the end state of I Wanna Figure. If it was, this review would be dramatically smaller and significantly less pretentious.
Instead, it goes forward into Stage twelve, “My Body is a Cage”. This stage follows through with the warning implied in the previous stage, delving fully into the almost “bleak” ideology wonderful’s “ego” has decided to present as the driving force of this game. Stage thirteen, “The Drugs Don't Work”, acts as wonderful’s “ego” pausing to take a breath from all of the work it has been doing before springboarding directly into the first boss of this game, “Crystalised”. This boss serves as the logical conclusion of the journey wonderful’s “ego” goes on, though I wouldn’t necessarily call it a climax. It feels weak, frail, almost limping through the motions before eventually allowing you to head towards stage fourteen, “Aquarius”. Wonderful’s “ego” now realizes that the path it developed has left it feeling even more isolated and confused than when it started out. “Aquarius” feels like it’s screaming out into a void, worried that the only response it receives will be a reflection of the sound waves they emit, that the moral of the story is “you have done this to yourself, now live with it.” In no truer sense does this feel like the culmination of wonderful’s “ego” dealing with itself, and more specifically of how it is *not* able to. It is at this point, then, that it hangs up its hat and allows the game to be directed by someone it wishes it could be, but worries it can’t.
This abstract feeling of depression is not met with redundancy, however, as it instead leads us to the third and final chunk of the game. Here, the structure of the game really breaks down, as the idea of “stages”, “artistry”, and “movement” all become meaningless labels that don’t really hold any weight in the situation anymore. wonderful’s “persona” was able to find a way to show the world that it could do whatever it wanted, and wonderful’s “ego” was faced with acknowledging that it couldn’t do that for itself. This leaves wonderful’s “shadow” who, not needing to worry about these ideas, instead reestablishes the idea of wonderful in such a way that even wonderful herself has gone on record saying she didn’t fully know what was going on. The stages – “32 Levels”, “A Breath Away”, “Down Under”, “Baby Blue Sedan”, and “Drinkee” – all take completely different approaches to what was previously done. None of them have numbers, there’s no order in which to do them, and some of them don’t even have unique tiles. This doesn’t matter, however, because wonderful’s “shadow” *knows* it doesn’t matter. The point of these stages existing isn’t for the game to achieve something – neither for those around it, nor for itself. The point of these stages is to allow wonderful as a collective idea to face herself as she truly is, either by acknowledging that having imperfections is part of what makes her human, or by shunning reality for itself and burying herself deeper into the hole wonderful’s “ego” found itself in.
How wonderful responded to this can only truly be known by wonderful herself, but as an onlooker, you can get a good idea through the final stage of the game, “Ghost in a Kiss”. This stage feels like you’re watching a dead body come back to life. Despite the depressing atmosphere taking a deeper cut than it ever has before, the stage is filled with an underlying sense of hope. The floor numbers have returned, and for the first time in the entire game, they are counting numerically. Floors 40-44 feel like wonderful’s “shadow” handing the power of the game, and by extension of wonderful herself, back into the hand of wonderful’s “ego”. wonderful’s “shadow” never wanted to completely replace her “ego”, instead wanting to present itself with a way to find contentness and peace in a world filled with uncertainty and chaos. The final boss, “Blast”, is wonderful’s “ego” finding said peace and moving forward, knowing that, while it may not be the most prolific or highly acclaimed part of wonderful, it is still the most true to who wonderful is as a person, and it shouldn’t let itself get in the way of that. The boss ends with a fade to a yellow screen, followed by a screen with the word “Clear” written out in giant block letters.
I Wanna Figure is not a game for everyone. In fact, I would go so far as to say that you probably shouldn’t play it. It’s hard, unforgiving, and in most cases seemingly unpolished and user hostile. Despite all of this, I Wanna Figure is a masterpiece. It is the truest expression of one’s self that has ever been created in a GameMaker project file, and it has inspired myself and countless others to be more open and experimental with the topics and ideas that we put into fangames. The ripples this game has left on the creations of this community as a whole will be felt for years to come, either from this game itself or from the numerous games inspired by it. It is my hope that anyone reading this is able to find a game that completely awe-strikes them as much as this game has for me. I Wanna Figure is a very raw and interpersonal statement from wonderful’s inner unconsciousness, and I am grateful that she has allowed us to take such a look into it.
With that said, I could just be overthinking all of this and it might not be that deep at all. There was a mistile on floor 6, 0/10 wonderful fix your game.
References:
wonderful. I Wanna Figure, 17 May 2017, delicious-fruit.com/ratings/game_details.php?id=18794. Accessed 1 Jan. 2026.
Boechat, Walter. “International Association for Analytical Psychology.” International Association of Analytical Psychology IAAP, iaap.org/jung-analytical-psychology/short-articles-on-analytical-psychology/the-collective-unconscious-2/. Accessed 1 Jan. 2026.
Fordham, Frieda, Fordham, Michael S.M.. "Carl Jung". Encyclopedia Britannica, 4 Dec. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Jung. Accessed 1 January 2026.
Garnermann, Jasbinder. “The Origin of the Shadow.” Jung Centre, 2017, www.jungcentre.com/the-origin-of-the-shadow. Accessed 1 January 2026.
Hartman, Gary V. “A Time Line of the History and Development of Jung’s Works and Theories (1902-1935).” The Jung Page, 27 Oct. 2013, jungpage.org/learn/articles/analytical-psychology/162-a-time-line-of-the-history-and-development-of-jungs-works-and-theories-1902-1935. Accessed 1 January 2026.
[4] Likes
Firstly, there is the outermost layer archetyped as “the persona”. This layer is meant to depict the way our unconsciousness wishes to present ourselves to others. For example, this is the conversations you have, the events you support or participate in, and the other public facing ideas and activities that you create specifically for interpersonal relations. This is the easiest layer for individuals who aren’t yourself to see, as the entire purpose of “the persona” is to be the composite of everything you put forth into being. “The persona” is a distillation or idealization of what we wish to achieve within ourselves, though we often omit parts of our unconsciousness from it for the purposes of connecting to those in the outside world.
Those omissions lead to the layer below “the persona”, archetyped as “the ego”. This layer contains the ideals that represent ourselves interacting with *ourselves*. For example, this is reaching for water instead of soda to boost your self image, playing a game because it gives you enjoyment, and any other actions performed for the satisfaction or interest of none other than yourself. This may take a second to acknowledge, but most people have an “inner voice” or “conscious choice” when it comes to taking actions in any form. At first, this seems like a contradiction (a “conscious choice” in the realm of unconsciousness), but it is important to point out the unconsciousness comes not from you responding to yourself, but rather from presenting yourself with the situation needing to be responded to in the first place. You are acknowledging yourself both before and after an event takes place, and your responses and actions form and shape “the ego” in ways that cannot typically be observed by those who aren’t yourself.
A question then arises: what comes of responses and actions that you can’t observe? The answer is the layer below “the ego” and the last to be mentioned before finally talking about “I Wanna Figure”, the one archetyped as “the shadow”. This layer consists of thoughts, actions, and events that aren’t personally acknowledged, yet still define both how we act and how our unconscious functions. For example, conversations you had with a person you don’t talk to anymore, the background observations you make when traveling that impact how you consider options in the future, and many other such actions that still affect and influence you despite not being actively aware of them. “The shadow” acts as the connecting point between collective unconsciousness and personal unconsciousness, bridging the influences and experiences you have with your personal convictions and ideals. Layers deeper than this one are more difficult to acknowledge and derive influence from, at least for the purposes of this review, and as such I will not be exploring Jung’s theory beyond this.
We have now established the outermost layers of this interpretation of unconsciousness, and can simplify them into more manageable ideas. “The persona” is how you present yourself to the outside world, and how you are perceived by others. “The ego” is how you present yourself to yourself, and what you believe yourself to be like from within your own mind. “The shadow” is what is presented to you without you being aware of it, while still being a part of you and influencing you. With these three concepts, I would now like to justify this overly long and complicated exposition to a fangame review with the following thesis:
I Wanna Figure is a game made by wonderful’s unconsciousness, culminating in an encounter with her “shadow”, and it is one of the closest methods to experiencing someone else’s “shadow” that I have ever encountered.
The remainder of this review is a justification of this statement.
Firstly, the numbers. I Wanna Figure presents itself as an “X-Floor Game” in which the objective is to go from the first screen to the last, and each individual room is numbered. Right from the start, it struggles to follow this pattern throughout the entire game by counting numbers in the following order:
0, 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 17, 2, 6, 4, 9, 2, 10, 18, 19, [nothing], 20, 21, 22, 29, [nothing], 3X, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45
It skips over several numbers (14, 15, 23, etc.), duplicates others (17, 2), and completely diverges from the idea of counting at multiple points. At first, one might be tempted to say that the numbers are completely arbitrary and meaningless, but there are still some patterns and meanings to discern. First, with the exception of jumping from 17 to 2, every number is increasing. The game is making forward progress, regardless of if that progress is immediately obvious to you or not. The numbers in that sense act less as a progress counter and more like a progress indicator. They are the game's way of saying “you’re still progressing, keep going”.
The most obvious counterexample to this is the aforementioned jump from 17 back to 2. At first, it may seem like it goes against everything I stated previously, that the game is suddenly saying “sorry, you’ve lost progress”. What I think is happening here, however, goes deeper than the numbers. This numerical reset can be treated as a single segment of the overall game, resulting in a chunk that lasts from game start to this moment. Keep this idea of segmentation in mind as we look at other aspects.
Secondly, the visuals. I Wanna Figure does not aim to impress you with its visuals; in fact, most of the assets in the game are either standard engine assets or monochromatic blocks and background, with the occasional image editor filter applied. Despite this, the visuals actively progress and develop as the game goes on, becoming much more important than just “it looks pretty”.
(For the purposes of clarity, I will define a “stage” to be each portion of the game in which a unique song plays, and refer to these stages by the names of said songs.)
Stage one, “Brown Eyed Girl”, uses only the simplest of assets, found in most engines. In fact, apart from the number 0 and the section with the moving spikes in the water, this entire screen is simply spikes and brown blocks and could be recreated in the program “jtool”. It’s abrasively simple, which further contrasts with the following screen introducing a grassy top to the blocks. One could compare this to someone being recently awoken, developing and expanding their awareness in real time. This further grows in stage two, “Let's Go”, which utilizes the more complex of the commonplace tilesets, the gray girders. This is the point in the game where moving obstacles start to become more frequent, in the form of fruit or cyclical spike paths. It remains, however, using solely what assets are readily available, which is why stage three “Lola” instead focuses on original features, presenting a recognizable identity to those looking on from outside. Stage four, “Bangkok”, acknowledges that this personified version of the game is capable of understanding movement and visuals individually, and is now attempting to present both at the same time. And yet, its comprehension is flawed, incomplete, and so it divides the room physically in two, the left half focused on movement, the right half on visuals and structure. Stage five, “King Rat”, acknowledges its lack of cohesion and overcorrects, swaying the balance in the opposite direction, akin to a pendulum swinging back and forth between “movement” and “artistry”. Where the previous stage swung over to artistry, this stage swung harder into movement, before eventually stabilizing in stage six, “The Boys Are Back In Town.”
“The Boys Are Back In Town” reaches the climax of the idea of being awoken and becoming aware in terms of “I Wanna Figure”. It is easily the most recognizable portion of the game, being referenced multiple times in games such as Crimson Needle 3, Guy Tower Defense, and even my own personal work of 100 Floor Medley. It mixes the idea of artistry (using jagged spike and block fragments in mixture with literal images of Goofy and Donald Duck) with movement (constant cycles of fruit being either aimed directly at you or in the path of progression), while not going too overboard with the ideas. This is also where floor 17 happens – twice. I think the game knows that this stage is the pinnacle of what it could possibly do with these aspects and, as such, is why the reset back to floor 2 happens after this stage. This reversion is the game transferring directorial authority from wonderful’s “persona” to wonderful’s “ego”. The entire game up to this point has been about finding how it wants to present itself to others, and mastering this presentation until it no longer has anything it can add.
After this handoff, wonderful’s “ego” is left in a situation of not being prepared to take the reins. Stage seven, “Chocolate Girl”, addresses this sudden change of perspective with a need to reestablish itself, not to the outside world, but internally. It’s sprawling and disjointed, sometimes unclear on where to go. Stage eight, “Disintegration Anxiety”, collects these fragments and holds them closer to each other, but not putting them together quite yet. The game is still in the process of coping with the sudden change, but it’s taking the proper steps towards doing so. This leads to stage nine, “Yellow Country Teeth”, which is able to take these fragments and arrange them in a way that is at least “presentable”, while not entirely being “complete”. Its appearance has been cleaned up, but its identity remains uncertain. Stage ten, “A 1000 Times”, takes a break from explicit progression to allow the game to address this uncertainty. It repeats the same ideas over and over again, before eventually looking back towards the first chunk of the game and acknowledging its previous successful blend of artistry and movement.
It is worth pointing out: every screen from floor 2 to these currently unnumbered floors has been entirely static rooms of needle – that is, nothing within them has been moving. Stage ten allows the game to break away from that – it’s no longer regaining its composure, it’s allowing itself to actually have self-expression in a way that wasn’t possible with just the “persona” of wonderful. Stage eleven, “Warned You”, is wonderful’s “ego” finally gaining the confidence to showcase that sense of expression. With that said, the way it expresses itself comes off as a bit dreary. Yes, there are signs of movement, and it even keeps some form of familiarity through the default spikes, as if to say “hey, I’m about to do this for myself, you can go do something else now if you want to”. This, however, is not the end state of I Wanna Figure. If it was, this review would be dramatically smaller and significantly less pretentious.
Instead, it goes forward into Stage twelve, “My Body is a Cage”. This stage follows through with the warning implied in the previous stage, delving fully into the almost “bleak” ideology wonderful’s “ego” has decided to present as the driving force of this game. Stage thirteen, “The Drugs Don't Work”, acts as wonderful’s “ego” pausing to take a breath from all of the work it has been doing before springboarding directly into the first boss of this game, “Crystalised”. This boss serves as the logical conclusion of the journey wonderful’s “ego” goes on, though I wouldn’t necessarily call it a climax. It feels weak, frail, almost limping through the motions before eventually allowing you to head towards stage fourteen, “Aquarius”. Wonderful’s “ego” now realizes that the path it developed has left it feeling even more isolated and confused than when it started out. “Aquarius” feels like it’s screaming out into a void, worried that the only response it receives will be a reflection of the sound waves they emit, that the moral of the story is “you have done this to yourself, now live with it.” In no truer sense does this feel like the culmination of wonderful’s “ego” dealing with itself, and more specifically of how it is *not* able to. It is at this point, then, that it hangs up its hat and allows the game to be directed by someone it wishes it could be, but worries it can’t.
This abstract feeling of depression is not met with redundancy, however, as it instead leads us to the third and final chunk of the game. Here, the structure of the game really breaks down, as the idea of “stages”, “artistry”, and “movement” all become meaningless labels that don’t really hold any weight in the situation anymore. wonderful’s “persona” was able to find a way to show the world that it could do whatever it wanted, and wonderful’s “ego” was faced with acknowledging that it couldn’t do that for itself. This leaves wonderful’s “shadow” who, not needing to worry about these ideas, instead reestablishes the idea of wonderful in such a way that even wonderful herself has gone on record saying she didn’t fully know what was going on. The stages – “32 Levels”, “A Breath Away”, “Down Under”, “Baby Blue Sedan”, and “Drinkee” – all take completely different approaches to what was previously done. None of them have numbers, there’s no order in which to do them, and some of them don’t even have unique tiles. This doesn’t matter, however, because wonderful’s “shadow” *knows* it doesn’t matter. The point of these stages existing isn’t for the game to achieve something – neither for those around it, nor for itself. The point of these stages is to allow wonderful as a collective idea to face herself as she truly is, either by acknowledging that having imperfections is part of what makes her human, or by shunning reality for itself and burying herself deeper into the hole wonderful’s “ego” found itself in.
How wonderful responded to this can only truly be known by wonderful herself, but as an onlooker, you can get a good idea through the final stage of the game, “Ghost in a Kiss”. This stage feels like you’re watching a dead body come back to life. Despite the depressing atmosphere taking a deeper cut than it ever has before, the stage is filled with an underlying sense of hope. The floor numbers have returned, and for the first time in the entire game, they are counting numerically. Floors 40-44 feel like wonderful’s “shadow” handing the power of the game, and by extension of wonderful herself, back into the hand of wonderful’s “ego”. wonderful’s “shadow” never wanted to completely replace her “ego”, instead wanting to present itself with a way to find contentness and peace in a world filled with uncertainty and chaos. The final boss, “Blast”, is wonderful’s “ego” finding said peace and moving forward, knowing that, while it may not be the most prolific or highly acclaimed part of wonderful, it is still the most true to who wonderful is as a person, and it shouldn’t let itself get in the way of that. The boss ends with a fade to a yellow screen, followed by a screen with the word “Clear” written out in giant block letters.
I Wanna Figure is not a game for everyone. In fact, I would go so far as to say that you probably shouldn’t play it. It’s hard, unforgiving, and in most cases seemingly unpolished and user hostile. Despite all of this, I Wanna Figure is a masterpiece. It is the truest expression of one’s self that has ever been created in a GameMaker project file, and it has inspired myself and countless others to be more open and experimental with the topics and ideas that we put into fangames. The ripples this game has left on the creations of this community as a whole will be felt for years to come, either from this game itself or from the numerous games inspired by it. It is my hope that anyone reading this is able to find a game that completely awe-strikes them as much as this game has for me. I Wanna Figure is a very raw and interpersonal statement from wonderful’s inner unconsciousness, and I am grateful that she has allowed us to take such a look into it.
With that said, I could just be overthinking all of this and it might not be that deep at all. There was a mistile on floor 6, 0/10 wonderful fix your game.
References:
wonderful. I Wanna Figure, 17 May 2017, delicious-fruit.com/ratings/game_details.php?id=18794. Accessed 1 Jan. 2026.
Boechat, Walter. “International Association for Analytical Psychology.” International Association of Analytical Psychology IAAP, iaap.org/jung-analytical-psychology/short-articles-on-analytical-psychology/the-collective-unconscious-2/. Accessed 1 Jan. 2026.
Fordham, Frieda, Fordham, Michael S.M.. "Carl Jung". Encyclopedia Britannica, 4 Dec. 2025, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carl-Jung. Accessed 1 January 2026.
Garnermann, Jasbinder. “The Origin of the Shadow.” Jung Centre, 2017, www.jungcentre.com/the-origin-of-the-shadow. Accessed 1 January 2026.
Hartman, Gary V. “A Time Line of the History and Development of Jung’s Works and Theories (1902-1935).” The Jung Page, 27 Oct. 2013, jungpage.org/learn/articles/analytical-psychology/162-a-time-line-of-the-history-and-development-of-jungs-works-and-theories-1902-1935. Accessed 1 January 2026.
Rating: 10.0 100
Difficulty: 85 85
Jan 8, 2026
bluiiCH
For: I wanna Love the Winter 2
For: I wanna Love the Winter 2
rating based on hard
for a short game i really really like this, especially the art. some saves can be a little too long and the boss's big snowball attack can feel a lil stupid at times but whatever (also i think the boss is wearing a bnuy hoodie so like. bonus points for me.........)
update 1/10/2026
alright i have completed extra difficulty. its, something alright.
the needle makes the unbalanced parts of medium and hard even more notable (especially that one area with the 3 cannons) but aside from that its nothing crazy. the boss is where it REALLY gets difficult. the icicle attack for me personally was pretty hard to keep track of due to the games more complicated graphics, which kinda just made everything blend together and make it hard to read. the sword attack requires quicker reaction time than id like it to but its not the worst. the "ground-pound" attack is weird because the shockwaves that come from it have a smaller hitbox than their sprite, so thats a pretty significant hurdle when it comes to beating the boss. and then theres the laser attack. this attack is pretty much entirely rng based, and you can pretty much kiss your attempt goodbye if you get it at all. (spoilering to avoid flooding ig) it may be temping to try it out after completing the normal difficulties, but if youre a complete beginner, definitely wait until youre more experienced to give it a try (or hell, just skip it entirely)
[0] Likes
for a short game i really really like this, especially the art. some saves can be a little too long and the boss's big snowball attack can feel a lil stupid at times but whatever (also i think the boss is wearing a bnuy hoodie so like. bonus points for me.........)
update 1/10/2026
alright i have completed extra difficulty. its, something alright.
the needle makes the unbalanced parts of medium and hard even more notable (especially that one area with the 3 cannons) but aside from that its nothing crazy. the boss is where it REALLY gets difficult. the icicle attack for me personally was pretty hard to keep track of due to the games more complicated graphics, which kinda just made everything blend together and make it hard to read. the sword attack requires quicker reaction time than id like it to but its not the worst. the "ground-pound" attack is weird because the shockwaves that come from it have a smaller hitbox than their sprite, so thats a pretty significant hurdle when it comes to beating the boss. and then theres the laser attack. this attack is pretty much entirely rng based, and you can pretty much kiss your attempt goodbye if you get it at all. (spoilering to avoid flooding ig) it may be temping to try it out after completing the normal difficulties, but if youre a complete beginner, definitely wait until youre more experienced to give it a try (or hell, just skip it entirely)
Rating: 8.5 85
Difficulty: 25 25
Jan 8, 2026
Charm
For: Exordium
For: Exordium
(Review will be relatively spoiler-free!)
Secret Santa is one of my favorite times of year in IWC. I always love to see what my friends and other people in the community make, and Lucster is no exception to this.
Exordium has at least three stages, each of them introducing a new gimmick. Every new gimmick shown to the player fits well in the ecosystem of each stage, and the jumps, movements, and pathing always feel satisfying to pull off. There are almost no saves in this game that feel rough around the edges or awkward, and I acknowledge that may be appealing to some which, to each their own, but I think it allows for the gimmicks to take the center of attention in every stage, rather than JUST the raw needle.
Another appeal of this game is the amount of easter eggs and secrets you can find throughout, ranging from small little jokes to revealing pieces of a mystery. Some aren't that hard to find, but others will require you to think a little outside the box. You might notice oddities throughout the game, try messing around if you can! You are bound to find something eventually...
[0] Likes
Secret Santa is one of my favorite times of year in IWC. I always love to see what my friends and other people in the community make, and Lucster is no exception to this.
Exordium has at least three stages, each of them introducing a new gimmick. Every new gimmick shown to the player fits well in the ecosystem of each stage, and the jumps, movements, and pathing always feel satisfying to pull off. There are almost no saves in this game that feel rough around the edges or awkward, and I acknowledge that may be appealing to some which, to each their own, but I think it allows for the gimmicks to take the center of attention in every stage, rather than JUST the raw needle.
Another appeal of this game is the amount of easter eggs and secrets you can find throughout, ranging from small little jokes to revealing pieces of a mystery. Some aren't that hard to find, but others will require you to think a little outside the box. You might notice oddities throughout the game, try messing around if you can! You are bound to find something eventually...
Rating: 9.5 95
Difficulty: 65 65
Jan 8, 2026
UbersawMedic
For: I Wanna Feel The Cold Soil Press Down Upon My Chest
For: I Wanna Feel The Cold Soil Press Down Upon My Chest
So apparently very big rooms just make Game Maker stop working properly sometimes (which, admittedly, is not a very hard thing for it to do). How do I now know this information? Weeeeeeell...
Packaged with the rest of the Secret Santa 2025 games and now delivered standalone, this game does a fun twist on the Geometry Dash formula. It consists of a single, very, very, very long screen (5+ minutes) that can be traversed without ever stopping moving right, kinda like the Tom and Jerry stage in Variety. When played like so, this game feels like the needle version of avoidance, drawing from the strengths of both.
Intriguingly, the premise of walking right for 5 minutes does sound like it could very easily lead to severe corridor needle syndrome, and yet it doesn't. With a combination of good design, music, and sheer eye candy, this game is incredibly enticing to play. Each death just leaves you wanting to restart and try again to see how far you can get. It also shares the intrinsic motivation that avoidances have to play them, where the longer you last, the more of the song you get to listen to.
Reiterating the previous points, let's talk about the visuals, whose main gimmick is apparent from any given screenshot. This game, like, looks so cool. Fractaloid Vib Ribbon-ass-looking game here. Being able to see so much of the level at once makes for some stunning vistas, especially with how varied the geometry of the level gets. It even feels smart in a mechanical sense, where when you go high up, you don't collide with killers drawn above you because they are off-screen.
As is tradition for Secret Santa games, this is a long save game, but it does the smart thing where it gives you 10 HP with generous i-frames to boot. As daunting as the prospect of staying alive for 5 minutes is, having so much HP makes progression very smooth. Playtime spent in this game feels like incremental progress stacking up bit by bit, your personal best being pushed forwards bit by bit, as you use landmarks to compare how much HP you had at a specific point.
Let me be sincere; I still haven't beaten this game myself, though I will be doing so soon. But for the avid players that do, there seems to be a slew of extra modes and optional challenges to keep you entertained! The game allowing you to get as much from it as you want is always very nice to have and makes it feel complete. An amazing time, y'all go give it a try. And do read the readme, please.
[1] Like
Packaged with the rest of the Secret Santa 2025 games and now delivered standalone, this game does a fun twist on the Geometry Dash formula. It consists of a single, very, very, very long screen (5+ minutes) that can be traversed without ever stopping moving right, kinda like the Tom and Jerry stage in Variety. When played like so, this game feels like the needle version of avoidance, drawing from the strengths of both.
Intriguingly, the premise of walking right for 5 minutes does sound like it could very easily lead to severe corridor needle syndrome, and yet it doesn't. With a combination of good design, music, and sheer eye candy, this game is incredibly enticing to play. Each death just leaves you wanting to restart and try again to see how far you can get. It also shares the intrinsic motivation that avoidances have to play them, where the longer you last, the more of the song you get to listen to.
Reiterating the previous points, let's talk about the visuals, whose main gimmick is apparent from any given screenshot. This game, like, looks so cool. Fractaloid Vib Ribbon-ass-looking game here. Being able to see so much of the level at once makes for some stunning vistas, especially with how varied the geometry of the level gets. It even feels smart in a mechanical sense, where when you go high up, you don't collide with killers drawn above you because they are off-screen.
As is tradition for Secret Santa games, this is a long save game, but it does the smart thing where it gives you 10 HP with generous i-frames to boot. As daunting as the prospect of staying alive for 5 minutes is, having so much HP makes progression very smooth. Playtime spent in this game feels like incremental progress stacking up bit by bit, your personal best being pushed forwards bit by bit, as you use landmarks to compare how much HP you had at a specific point.
Let me be sincere; I still haven't beaten this game myself, though I will be doing so soon. But for the avid players that do, there seems to be a slew of extra modes and optional challenges to keep you entertained! The game allowing you to get as much from it as you want is always very nice to have and makes it feel complete. An amazing time, y'all go give it a try. And do read the readme, please.
Rating: 9.0 90
Difficulty: 60 60
Jan 8, 2026
hydreigon786
For: I wanna be the Destination
For: I wanna be the Destination
Tagged as: Adventure
[0] Likes
Rating: 8.0 80
Difficulty: 80 80
Jan 8, 2026