kaleidoscope

kaleidoscope
Release date: Feb 27, 2025	Author: neen	Download: 1.0 (670 downloads)
Genre: Exploration [?] Game:	Difficulty: Veteran [?]	Average runtime: 3:26 Average collection: 86%
Read Me: [None]	Forum Thread: [None]	Rating:
Other Links: github

Description

kaleidoscope is an oil painting

please read the included me

Screenshots

Ratings and Reviews

By Exister on Feb 27, 2025 (

)

No completion stats.

This hack has very unique visuals, level design, and even a very cool titular item. It's sometimes a little hard to find the way forward, but the biggest roadblock that slowed things down for me was missing an obvious path forward. Overall it was satisfying to play through, every item got giving a "I know where I want to use this!" with an excited romp back to where I saw a progression blocker. Highly recommend.

By mosul on Feb 28, 2025 (

)

88% in 2:44

This is one of the best-looking hacks I've played, up there with the best of Digital_Mantra. Comparisons to Digital_Mantra are inevitable, but I think neen has iterated upon his style in ways that make this stand out as a personal and unique work. I appreciate the authenticity and idiosyncrasies on display here. It's impossible to think that anyone else could have made this.

The exploration is wonderfully open-ended, and the world is quite easy to get around, with many shortcuts and connections to facilitate backtracking. In gossamer, you were often required to slowly travel in a loop around the entire map, but here everywhere is just a short trek from anywhere else. I would say that the hack is a bit too easy, but difficulty is clearly not the focus. To make up for the lack of challenge, there are some items that require somewhat advanced techniques for those who want to get them, but these are entirely optional.

I'd highly recommend this to anyone looking for a unique and enjoyable hack.

By Digital_Mantra on Mar 01, 2025 (

)

No completion stats.

Kaleidoscope is a showcase of trippy visuals that encompass true hacking soul. Neen had fun with this one and hit it out of the park. The transparencies throughout the level design, the visual effects with certain upgrades, the mapscreen flair, it all culminates into a psychedelic experience that begs to be experienced (especially on a CRT).

In terms of gameplay this hack is short and sweet, connects well with regions and has that staple Neen room design you can find in Gossamer. Kaleidoscope is fun but also challenging in that it caters to experienced players that know the intricacies of super metroid, but that only falls under the 100% category, making it puzzling but fair.

I hope to see more from Neen in the future. His style is unique, unorthodox, and crosses that line that breathes an artistic freedom to explore how visually outre we can push the engine.

By Sickwood on Mar 04, 2025 (

)

100% in 3:35

Holy crap this was a good hack. The tilework, background visuals and aesthetics are much improved from Gossamer and up there among the greats. Like Exister, I just wanted to keep playing and use newly acquired items to further explore the map. Speaking of the pause screen map, by far the best implementation of the new map system, looks incredible. I liked the new featured item, but was a little nervous when acquiring it that there wasn't going to be the root item behind its' mechanics, but was relieved later on after obtaining a connected item. I do like the interconnectedness of the hack, but at the same time, wish there was a little more distinction between the areas and themes; basically I wish selfishly the hack was larger for more gameplay. The graphics special effects in some areas and the new PB explosion were by far the most ground breaking effects I've seen since Ascent and of course Vitality. The only confusing part to me was when going for 100% because when you collect max missiles, the number count disappears, presumably meaning you have infinite ammo from there on out. This doesn't happen for the other 2 ammo types which made me think I still had items to find, but after finishing the game to get a percentage check, I had already found 100%. Not a big deal, but either consistency with implementing that with the other ammo types or a percentage tracker in the item menu would help alleviate that. Fantastic hack and I look forward to Neen's next work.

By vsf3000 on Mar 06, 2025 (

)

No completion stats.

this is a very good hack. visually impressive, progressions were smooth, the kaleidoscope item was fun and unique, and overall everything was very simple.

for me personally, i wished it would have been a little longer, and had a clear story/objective to it. but overall, i was very captivated.

great work!

By Virrit on Mar 07, 2025 (

)

78% in 4:17

yep, this is peak.
I think this hack is really fun and looks really good
felt a little short, but I still thought it was good
has a lot of digital mantra influence, especially in the graphics. that's this hacks main thing: it has epic graphics
uhh spring ball is early so 5/5

By Zhs2 on Mar 13, 2025 (

)

93% in 3:25

Not peak. It's fine gameplaywise but neen is really willing to sacrifice all sense of aesthetics for his work. In a way, he appeals to an aesthetic that misses quirky, trips over avant-garde, and falls off the cliff and into a net he suspended within the pit of terrible. Trying to copy Digital Mantra's tiling without even the littlest sense of how to make tolerable palettes does not work for me, and that's saying something considering how meh stock Eris looks. The hilarious amount of blur applied by gratuitous FX1 filters doesn't help either in several rooms. The map is only barely decipherable and this is because he uses the solid white outlines for normally separating rooms as a large crutch to show you what's missing and what's not under the haze of whatever FX1 displays over the map. Protip: Reset the game and continue your save to preview the map in a way that won't kill your eyes. If there was something I'd have to complain about with the gameplay, it is rooms with enemies stuck inside walls for the sake of having the player seek and destroy them with free echos. While not hard it is tedious to sit around on a black screen waiting for old Tourian fog clouds to highlight your targets so you can actually do something about them. Overall, I'd say this hack is worth experiencing just once, and that's if you can tolerate looking at it. Good luck - it's a step up from Gossamer but the step is so shallow you put your foot on it expecting a raise in height and end up stumbling instead.

Also speaking of tedious, I tried hard mode. Hours spent at one refill bug station. Not worth it.

By Kirarin on Mar 13, 2025 (

)

100% in 3:00

Another excellent hack by Neen.

Terrific visuals. Neen clearly took inspiration early by DMantra, but you can tell he put his on spin and identity on his newer hacks. In Kaleidoscope, you see rooms and palletes that resemble and will remind you of vanilla SM, Gossamer (the rooms, but the identity is meshed with Kaleidoscope) and newly designed stuff, which is a lot. Some rooms before changing areas will blow your mind by how smooth they transit from one zone to another; Neen really nailed the aesthetics in this hack. I do prefer the style in Gossamer, but Kaleidoscope is much more palpable for the general audience. Think of Gossamer as a cult J-Horror movie and Kaleidoscope as a famous A-24 movie.

Speaking of the areas, they're quite distinct. The Kaleidoscope world has its identity and it's very well-connected (another factor that is a MUST for me for a 5/5 hack). You have lots of paths to go around, and get even more shortcuts as your first ammo packs and majors get collected.

The hack is extremely rewarding in exploration. Most people will get some majors in a different order if they explore well.

Speaking of exploration, the item that receives the hack name, the Kaleidoscope is dope. Very helpful for progression, travelling fast, lots of puzzles that use it and you can get very creative using it. Best new item a romhack creator designed in the past 5 years or so, if ever imo

This hack is a step down in difficulty (and weirdness) compared to Gossamer. Neen did something other romhack creators end up doing, toning down the difficulty so more people can enjoy their works. He still put a hard mode (how do I trigger that???) for the insane ones that want to suffer, so I got mad respect for him in trying to accomodate two different profile of players.

Recommended. Go play this.

Hint: Like Gossamer, there's a hidden boss (albeit less hidden this time imo). Also there's something that gives you lots of E-tanks, like Gossamer.

By Contendo on Mar 13, 2025 (

)

74% in 3:46

This is a very special hack. I will preface this by saying that I had a pretty good time playing it and I recommend this to everyone who is searching for something trippy.

Its hard to talk about this hack without talking about the graphics first. The hack description sums it up best: kaleidoscope is an oil painting. I dont remember seeing such wildly different rooms with crazy backgrounds in any hack ever. So many rooms with special effects. Overall just very pretty.

Another very positive part of this hack is the kaleidoscope item itself. First I thought that a "insta shinespark" item would make the hack boring quickly but it turns out that the whole concept is very well utilized. The other, less used ability of the kaleidoscope is also a nice touch and lead to some cool puzzles.

I like the map designs, but its unfortunate that the minimap is displaying some weird artifacts because of it.

Now to my negative experiences with this hack: I struggled, so much, to find the way forward. I dont think the map is designed very intelligently. Rooms connect at random points and the map doesnt help, since it doesnt show every border or doors at all. It was very tough to find points of interest after getting a new item. I honestly dont even remember what my sequence was or how I stumbled upon the ending. I was just doing an item cleanup since I couldnt find anything better to do.
I also had a tough time remembering which area lead where. There even seems to be a wraparound vertically which just made it ever more confusing. My exploration usually consisted of just running through rooms until I found an unexplored map tile.

Part of a reason for this is, I belive, the overall very dark rooms. I know I praised the graphics but in terms of gameplay I sometimes struggled to find breakable walls or blocks. Sometimes I also felt like the way forward wasnt hidden in a very intuitive way.

Overall I feel like there was a lack of a proper flow in the hack.

Some enemies should be rebalanced since they deal an unproportional amount of damage compared to the time you encounter them. Even in the late game I found enemies that deal a whole E-Tank (with both suits)

Again, even though my negative points seem very large, and I dont think they are small, the hack was compelling enough to make me keep playing and I actually wanted to keep playing. I will take that as a clear sign that something was made very well even if I cant point my finger straight onto it.

By Law on Mar 16, 2025 (

)

69% in 3:21

kaleidoscope is very good if you're into exploration hacks, but you may not like it as much if you prefer some direction to figure out where you need to go next.

It's requires some advanced tech to complete, but the main crux is some tech which I used a lot which was very fun to use.

I enjoyed the aesthetic and use of effects and tiles to make the rooms, but there were a few spots where I got confused because it was hard to distinguish between solid and air blocks at points. Some effects were hard to look at, such as when collecting certain items.

Overall I enjoyed my time with this.

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