Nifty was originally released by Garalina under the name Nift. This version is no longer available anywhere. If you own it, I would suggest not making it publically accessible.
Plenty of things have been altered, and it may seem a little more complex and confusing than the original. However, this one is indeed winnable.
Play this all the way through.
Nifty is a meta puzzle horror game by Tony Domenico aka THROMPD. The game is separated into 30 levels, and each level consists of a screen in which the player must click blocks on the screen in order to cycle through colors and make certain colors appear. The goal is to complete the objective displayed on the top of the screen, then click the Finish button to advance to the next level. All the while, a robot known as Nif appears on the top right of the screen, showing whether you are progressing or not. The main gimmick is that quite a bit of these puzzles require you to access the game's files, adding the meta element to the game.
In-Universe, the game is a fan remake of Nift, yet another unreleased title developed by the company Garalina (who developed but never released Petscop). Naturally, though the game seems normal, it becomes clear something is strange about it... especially when an entity tells the player to stop playing, and starts getting in the way.
Can be downloaded on the creator's website here
. See also There Are People In The Blocks, another puzzle game by THROMPD. For Garalina's (and Tony's) loosely-connected successor, see Petscop.
This game contains examples of:
- Apocalyptic Log: The logs that can be found in New Game Plus come from a staff member who developed the game and talk about how the game is coming along, as well as the game becoming self-aware and antagonistic, ultimately killing people.
- Big Bad: The Nift/Nifty AI itself is the mysterious entity that seeks to keep you from reaching the end of the game, and drove the prior players to suicide.
- Failure Is the Only Option: Level 22 asks you to save Nif from the rock that is crushing him. Unfortunately, there is no way to accomplish this, and he will be Squished Flat when you go to click the finish button.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: The game talks directly to the player, and has driven people to suicide in the past.
- Implied Death Threat: The Big Bad, the Nift AI, tells the player that it wants them to stop playing the game, and when the player does not respond, it says “I hope you change your mind soon”. It later kills Nif, the little Robot Buddy, and by doing this attempts to drive the player to suicide, and has actually succeeded in doing so to the original Nift players.
- Literal Metaphor: The Big Bad, the Nift AI, says that it is time to “drop the rock” on Nif. Cue him actually dropping a rock on Nif and challenging you to save him, which is impossible. Lampshaded:Little Nif. My dear friend. It is time to drop the rock. And I can safely say... that was no idiom of any kind.
- The Most Dangerous Video Game: Nift, the original game, developed sentience and killed Nif, the in-game Robot Buddy, then used his death to drive players to suicide.
- Mythology Gag: Level 16 is a big reference to There Are People In The Blocks, another game by THROMPD. It has a similar puzzle in that you have to click all the blocks with stick figures in them and avoid the ones with evil smiles on them, only it is not timed unlike the original game.
- Paradiegetic Gameplay: Many puzzles require you to look at the header of the game window and/or into the files of the folder that came with the game, usually to get passwords and directions on how to complete a puzzle, and a hombrewed texture editor packaged with Nifty is necessary to progress through a later stage. One level also makes you delete the save files in order to progress (though this does nothing to the actual game), and New Game Plus is accessed by moving files into a specific folder.
- Rhythm Game: Level 29 requires the player to press a button according to the beat of the music.
- Terms of Endangerment: The Big Bad, the Nift AI, calls Nif their “dear friend”, just before killing him with a big rock.
- Unwinnable by Design: In-Universe, the original Nift was apparently designed to be impossible to beat for some reason. You need a special file creator that was packaged with the game but not with the original to get past a certain level.
