By Alec Meer on July 2nd, 2009 at 9:30 pm.
Fancy ten-minutes of uber-difficult indie platformer about domestic violence? ‘Course you do. Because you’re sick in the head.
Although domestic violence was the theme of a recent LudumDare competition (the rules of which were to solo-develop a game in less than 72 hours), this particular entry is less “I walked into a door handle, officer” and more Henry VIII meets Tom’n'Jerry. The game kicks off with the ‘orrible king pushing his latest bride down a pit. At the bottom are a sequence of traditional platformer obstacles – leaps of faith, falling stalactites, shooty turrets…
If the Queen dies, as she almost inevitably will, we cut right back to the start of the game – but with a different queen booted into the dungeon. Yep, that bastardly old king’s already found and discarded another wife. Boo, kingy, boo! Worse still, he has an infinite supply of new brides. Money may not be able to buy love, but it can buy a hell of a lot of wives.
The game’s cutest/most distressing feature is that each Queen is given a name. You may become fond of one of these names, determined that this is the one you’ll finally save. Queen Rametta, you shall be the one! Then she’ll fall to her death and you’ll never see her again. Oh. Queen Jessamine, you shall be the one! Oh. It’s very funny, and it’s very cruel.
It’s also a brutally hard game, requiring precise timing and jump-steering. You’ll die repeatedly, and you’ll get frustrated that there’s no checkpointing – but suffering is kinda the point. Just remember that it’s only four screens long, so it’s worth persevering. Play it here.
It’s all the work of one Noonat, who has other, similarly speed-developed lo-fi treats here.
Found via the sterling Indiegames.
02/07/2009 at 21:36 LewieP says:
Almost as fun as punching a woman in the face!
02/07/2009 at 21:43 Serondal says:
@LewieP – almost , almost.
02/07/2009 at 21:43 Flint says:
Fair Queen Souplice, your may not have the fairest name in all the kingdom but you only had the strength to survive the evil king’s dungeon.
02/07/2009 at 21:44 MrBejeebus says:
This game is brutally hard, havent made it past the 1st screen, ah well, we soldier on!
02/07/2009 at 21:45 LewieP says:
it’s really not all that hard. Although I played Megaman 9 not all that long ago…
02/07/2009 at 21:46 Z says:
Oh holy god, that is sickly, brutally hard.
02/07/2009 at 21:49 Bas says:
If he wanted to make it brutally hard, he should have made sure the hit detection is spot on as well. It’s not. This game = fail.
02/07/2009 at 21:49 MrBejeebus says:
ok, i have to admit, only the 1st 2 screens are hard, after those i did it in 1
02/07/2009 at 21:54 AiglosCelt says:
Queen Wimarca, a scrappy, short-haired brunette tomboy sort of girl finally managed to escape the king’s clutches.
Is it weird that I made up a personality for every queen I got killed? >:
02/07/2009 at 21:57 AiglosCelt says:
Also, that I have the urge to repeatedly play this game until I can save every queen on every try.
I am a strange person.
02/07/2009 at 22:31 JKjoker says:
hmm, that reminds me … What happened with king’s bounty: sideboob princess anyway ? how long does it take to translate a game ?
02/07/2009 at 22:32 Serondal says:
I thought sideboob princess was already out ?
02/07/2009 at 22:35 JKjoker says:
in russian
02/07/2009 at 22:47 Wallace says:
So many queens.
02/07/2009 at 23:06 Serondal says:
I’ve seen King’s Bounty listed for sale as an RPG annd an RTS, I thought it was a turn based war game akin to Might and Magic Heros ?
02/07/2009 at 23:14 scionkiller says:
Actually, the competition is normally to finish a game in 48 hours, but the rules are less strict on the Mini-LDs.
Great to see an LD game up on RPS, congrats to noonat!
02/07/2009 at 23:17 Serondal says:
I can’t beat the 4th screen and I refuse to try any more lol. I can’t even get past the first smasher. Am I missing a run key here?
02/07/2009 at 23:21 Bhazor says:
It’s nay hard! Try I Wanna Be The Guy or A Crow in Hell to see games that genuinely hate you.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/465949
http://kayin.pyoko.org/iwbtg/
02/07/2009 at 23:29 Brother None says:
Heh, oh yes, the old Rick Dangerous “just keep on trying and memorize the oblique traps” school of design
I made the mistake of running through into screen 4, but if you don’t it’s obviously not hard. Ending is satisfying, too
02/07/2009 at 23:31 Sinnerman says:
It does have a sort of “I wanna be the guy” difficulty level going on but it isn’t as relentless or illogical.
02/07/2009 at 23:49 Serondal says:
Still can’t get past the first smasher in screen 4.
02/07/2009 at 23:51 Sinnerman says:
@Serondal: Try exploring screen 3 some more.
03/07/2009 at 00:02 Serondal says:
@Sinnerman Oh, I beat it now. I didn’t see those little mini-platforms on the 3rd screen ( should mention it took me 2 minutes to beat the 3rd screen because I was so afraid of traps I walked through it extremly slowly and STILL missed that lol)
03/07/2009 at 00:22 Dracko says:
Wow, I don’t see how anyone could consider this hard at all.
03/07/2009 at 00:56 Lovejoy says:
Dracko:
You truly are the most macho gamer around.
03/07/2009 at 04:25 Dracko says:
Lovejoy, there’s all of half a dozen obstacles and they’re not randomised. Hell, the game is only four screens long.
It just strikes me as ridiculous that people seem to consider this exacerbatingly difficult, especially here on a blog where the general stance seems to be “consolification is bad”.
03/07/2009 at 05:36 Serondal says:
omfg I want to be the guy is horrible! you’re right this is easy compared
03/07/2009 at 05:45 vagabond says:
I’m slightly annoyed that whilst you can make it past the first two bashers you can’t make it past the third, it just goes too fast.
I wanted an alternate ending dammit!
03/07/2009 at 09:47 Ian says:
And yet if I pushed a woman into a trap-laden dungeon I’d be some sort of monster.
This world we live in…
03/07/2009 at 10:36 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Not -that- hard, really. At least compared to some other games I’ve tried.
03/07/2009 at 11:20 Owen says:
Hmm not too impressed that you can get by first two smashers. I couldnt even see the ledges on screen three until turn my contrast up a little. Bastard :|
good tho!
03/07/2009 at 11:35 Heliocentric says:
I would have liked the kings way to be possible, or is it? Yunno, some people survive domestic abuse without killing their spouse, just saying.
03/07/2009 at 11:43 autogunner says:
compared to meat circus this was a breeze
03/07/2009 at 11:48 Heliocentric says:
Using a game pad made meat circus pleasant, it was a chore on a keyboard though, what with the fixed rotation camera meaning what you are pressing not meaning what it would mean if you let go and pressed it again because the camera was moved on you.
And in the game?
03/07/2009 at 13:33 Synnah says:
Hooray for Queen Helsin! 5th wife to be pushed into the pit, she came out alive!
03/07/2009 at 14:00 Elman says:
It didn’t take too many tries, and I don’t think you can possibly die in the 3rd and 4th screens, unless you just rush into the 4th one without thinking.
So yeah, it was easy. But then again, I did finish I Wanna Be The Guy on Very Hard, so… :P
03/07/2009 at 14:22 Dracko says:
Maybe you guys don’t get that the smashers are supposed to be designed as impossible to get past and are only there to give false hope.
Which makes sense to me, considering you’re dealing with a sadistic member of royalty who tosses women into death traps.
03/07/2009 at 15:57 Lucky Main Street says:
Good challenge for the first two screens, and I lucked into figuring out the last two on the first go. I was disappointed at a lack of an ending. It would’ve been nice if, after saving a Queen, the game became “Kings” and started all over again.
03/07/2009 at 16:35 Diogo Ribeiro says:
Just finished. Kinda liked the ‘secret’ path to the point I totally forgot the name of the Queen I saved.
Maybe that’s a social commentary on how when it all comes down to it, one woman saved from domestic violence comes down to being just a number, just a statistic. The importance we place on name neglecting the story.
Ha ha, I crack myself up.
03/07/2009 at 19:03 Zyrxil says:
It’s not really that hard, unless I wasn’t supposed to use the secret way on the 3rd screen to make the 4th screen a non-issue. What threw me off at the beginning was the total lack of jump momentum that I’ve become used to in platformers. I kept pushing back to shorten my landing and falling in pits.
04/07/2009 at 06:59 Bobic says:
I like how the little skull moves around the first level every time you restart.
04/07/2009 at 07:49 john t says:
my review.
fuck you for making this game and fuck you for linking it.
the end.
06/07/2009 at 01:12 bob says:
on the second screen, if you wait for the king to cross, he’ll be on the same level as the queen on the third screen.
what is the hidden meaning behind this?