By Kieron Gillen on February 3rd, 2009 at 9:58 pm.
The Global Game Jam has led to absolutely many videogames being made in literally little time by totally complete strangers. Which to link to? Well, Karl Harris, one of the two (count ‘em!) composers in the team of Furballs has worked out one way. That is, mail us and claim to be an avid RPS reader. Is he an avid RPS reader? Who can tell, and certainly not us, because fact checking isn’t for punk-rock bloggers like us. Furballs involves cats, the favoured animal of 3/4 of RPS, which is also another big ol’ tick in its favour. You can get it from here (You’ll need all the XNA and Net3.5 and similar stuff too). And since it’s a two-players with one-controller game, I asked my delightful girlfriend to play it with me and then interviewed her. Which follows beneath the cut. Look, ma, we were lying about not doing any journalism.
RPS: So, what did you make of Furballs?
Delightful Girlfriend: There weren’t enough dogs in it.
RPS: So you don’t like cats? Jim likes cats. Alec like cats. John likes cats. Do you not like cats?
Delightful Girlfriend: I was going to say the only good thing about it is… I can’t say that, because I don’t believe violence against cats is good, really. Or violence against animals.
RPS: But you did like it when the cats got all dizzy.
Delightful Girlfriend: Yes.
RPS: Okay. Have you got anything else to say about the game? How did you think it played?
Delightful Girlfriend: They were like real cats – totally unweildy and very unhelpful.
RPS: It was made in less that two days. Does that change how you feel about the game?
Delightful Girlfriend: Not enough dogs.
RPS: It’s a two player game on a single joypad. That’s quite cute. In fact, it’s quite intimate. Do you feel more intimate with me now?
Delightful Girlfriend: Don’t touch me.
RPS: Thanks for your time.
03/02/2009 at 22:19 Pags says:
Can we have more interviews like this?
RPS: So what did you think of The Void?
Apathetic neighbour: I don’t actually have a computer.
03/02/2009 at 22:23 The Poisoned Sponge says:
Why does this article make me think that Kieron has heard the words ‘don’t touch me’ many, many times before?
03/02/2009 at 22:35 eyemessiah says:
Your no one if you haven’t told Kieron not to touch you.
Don’t touch me Kieron!
03/02/2009 at 22:45 Jonas says:
I should play this game with one of my cats.
03/02/2009 at 22:59 Leeks! says:
Almost entirely unrelated: I remember reading a long, long time ago about a proposed peripheral that one of your pets could play with while you played games that would alter enemy AI behavior depending on what they did with it. Anyone else remember that? It’s like a low-fi version of Valve’s director, but cuter.
03/02/2009 at 23:02 Rosti says:
Gettin’ geeky-freaky, I see. Excellent.
03/02/2009 at 23:08 cheeba says:
Class. I hope you discussed the androgynous issue in Crash Bandicott shortly after.
03/02/2009 at 23:31 yns88 says:
You should also try out Let’s Shooting Love. It’s a cool shmup made for the compo:
http://globalgamejam.org/games/let039s-shooting-love
03/02/2009 at 23:41 Markoff Chaney says:
Cats are the far superior animal, obviously. Love not because you are the alpha of the pack but because they actually love you. Or you feed them long enough to let them play in your blood after you trip on one of the buggers whilst going down the stairs carrying your old 21″ CRT. Either way, it’s pure love.
04/02/2009 at 00:08 monchberter says:
All together now.
Na-naaa-na-na-na-na-naa-naa-naa CATamari Damacy! :)
04/02/2009 at 01:26 qrter says:
Your girlfriend doesn’t like cats? How horrible.
04/02/2009 at 02:02 baf says:
I used to know someone who likes getting cats dizzy. She’d get them all excited about chasing a piece of yarn, then she’d get them to chase it in a circle, and wind the circle tighter and tighter until the cat basically just had to spin around fast a few times. Then she’d take the yarn away and watch the cat stumble into walls. It was mean.
04/02/2009 at 05:33 Tagert says:
I kind of want to play this game now…unfortunately I don’t think I should be installing such things on the work PC! Perhaps it can wait till I get home.
Further: You can touch me, Kieron!
04/02/2009 at 05:39 Kieron Gillen says:
monchberter: I totally forgot that Alec told me to make that pun.
KG
04/02/2009 at 06:20 mister slim says:
The “Delightful Girlfriend” tag needs more entries.
04/02/2009 at 06:43 evangelin says:
The game’s pretty cute! I think the game won first place for the Los Angeles location. The game was developed by USC students and there was an article in the student newspaper about it today. It seems to be doing pretty well on the Global Game Jam website, too.
http://www.dailytrojan.com/news/new_group_brings_international_video_game_competition_to_usc-1.1331741
04/02/2009 at 08:50 phuzz says:
An easier way to make dizzy cats (or dogs) is to sit on a rotating office chair holding said cat, and get your sibling to spin you round and round and round and round and round.
Then you place the cat on the ground and giggle as it attempts to run away from you but swings sideways, usually crashing into a wall.
Evil but fun :)
oh, but your cats will probably not trust you for a long while.
**disclaimer** only evil children would possibly do this to their pets, not bored grownups back at home for christmas, oh no.
04/02/2009 at 09:08 Catastrophe says:
You can tell alot about a girl if she doesn’t like cats.
Shes not really a girl.
Shes a demon.
Ask her.
04/02/2009 at 09:16 Ian says:
Kieron’s Delightful Girlfriend talks the truth.
04/02/2009 at 09:30 Dan Harris says:
My Delightful Girlfriend loves cats, so I can’t imagine she’d like any game where you were being a bit mean to them. Unless it was, you know, funny.
It never ceases to amuse me how she’s the epitome of the PC ‘casual gamer’ (as distinct from the console casual gamer, who plays Wii Sports). She only plays games which are very shallow, and diverting in a very short term way so she can play them for any amount of time from five minutes to two hours. And she loves Peggle.
Anyone have a Proper Gaming Delightful Girlfriend? Or a Death of Post-modernism Delightful Girlfriend who’s looking forward to The Void?
04/02/2009 at 09:42 Bobsy says:
RPS: So how do you feel about your portrayal in Furballs?
A Cat: Mew.
RPS: Mew… dinner?
A Cat: Mew!
RPS: I’ll get your dinner.
A Cat: Excellent.
RPS: Wait, what?
A Cat: Mew.
04/02/2009 at 09:46 Ian says:
@ Bobsy: I can only imagine cat owners are in that scenario a lot.
Cats can clearly talk and are just hiding their schemes from us.
04/02/2009 at 10:45 My robots girlfriend says:
This is a surprisingly fun game, I kinda felt guilty kicking my little sisters but at it, kick ass music too!
04/02/2009 at 11:33 Down Rodeo says:
I’d like to play this but cannot. I might install it on my delightful girlfriend’s laptop… we shall see.
Actually, on a tangential note, it would be interesting to see how many games out of this could be made multiplatform… Obviously this one can’t really be due to the whole XNA nonsense but making a small game over a couple of days… could be easier to move to, say, Macs and Linux than a full game (hell they managed it with WoG). Particularly as Macs seem to be gaining in popularity of late.
04/02/2009 at 11:35 Hermit says:
@Ian
Cats don’t need to talk. Mine has discovered that the keyboard is a useful weak point. It becomes increasingly difficult to play games when a great furry lump comes and sits on the space bar until food is provided.
Also, more interviews with random non-gaming folk, please.
“Next week, our mothers play GTA IV multiplayer. Stay tuned for the definitive verdict.”
04/02/2009 at 11:39 smorgasbord says:
Be playing this when i get home.
Also just checked the jam website. So. Many. Games. Hoping for an RPS roundup of the best ones soon ;)
04/02/2009 at 12:02 Ian says:
@ Hermit: They don’t need to implement their evil plans to enslave mankind, but that certainly won’t stop them.
04/02/2009 at 12:08 Dorsch says:
This reminded me of the best bits of one life left, which is taliah, a little child, getting interviewed about child games. I, too, would like to see more of this kind of games journalism.
04/02/2009 at 13:05 Pags says:
RPS: So what do you think of the various tensions that run through The Void?
Bloke who came round to fix the telly: Y’wot?
RPS: Do you feel Ice Pick Lodge were more successful in creating art that is more ‘playable’ this time around?
Bloke who came round to fix the telly: Look mate, just tell me what channels you aren’t getting.
RPS: Any closing comments?
Bloke who came round to fix the telly: Don’t touch me.
RPS: Thank you for your time.
04/02/2009 at 13:26 Raining Cats vs Dogs says:
My girlfriend hates cats. Goes all narrow-eyed and growly when I mention them. Says she can’t trust them. Meanwhile, I find dogs too insanely stupid to make rewarding pets. I predict many amusing Dogs vs Cats arguments ahead for us.
Oh yes, games…I may try these later but the thought of installing Net3.5 and XNA etc is rather putting me off.
04/02/2009 at 13:39 cyrenic says:
Not enough Dogmeat.
04/02/2009 at 17:28 cheeba says:
Converslely, my wife likes cats, but is allergic to them :(
05/02/2009 at 08:01 Mgsflavour says:
Game is very gimmicky, but kinda fun.
05/02/2009 at 08:12 Muzman says:
It’s a two player game, yet one side of equation was taken up by The Conglomerate, The Collective, The Many, the dread RPSblob.
No wonder Delightful Girlfriend was all-hands-on-deck-prepare-to-fend-off.
My delightful cat hates girlfriends; they always sleep/sit where she was just about to, like right this minute, lie down. It’s like they know and they’re just doing it to annoy her.
05/02/2009 at 09:38 Heliocentric says:
One life left was genius. Who else should review kids games but kids.
It also aired that kids pretty generally get annoyed by things adults get annoyed by. Making the terrible state of most kids games fairly shocking.
10/02/2009 at 01:41 amishmonster says:
I know this is a little off-topic for RPS, but does anyone know if this will actually be coming to the Xbox? I’d love to play it with my girlfriend but I don’t particularly want to spend $50 to buy a controller for the privilege.