By John Walker on May 20th, 2010 at 11:22 pm.
TheBlackBandit suggested we look at Flash game Orton And The Princess with the accompanying comment, “Your choice whether or not to post it.” It turns out it’s worth posting, and, well, even if it weren’t I figured maybe he’s being passive aggressive and if I don’t he’ll hurt me. It’s a strange little game – very simple platform mechanic, except… except the game mocks you.
It’s twitchy, and therefore tricky, to make the jumps. With an instant restart, this of course makes it a fairly regular Flash platform game, pushing you to keep retrying a single level until you get through. This is made somewhat tougher by the game pointing out how close you got that time, or quite rubbish you are.
At first this made me laugh. Out loud. It was smart. Not just random insults, but insults specific to how I messed up. Nice.
Then it quickly became. “Well how about you fix your fucking jump mechanic before you start having a go at ME?!”
I think the game just achieved its aim.
20/05/2010 at 23:30 Mr Labbes says:
Wow. It’s impressive how a game can go from really funny to pissing me off in just under five minutes.
When I stopped playing, I realized that the game had beaten me. Oh, dear.
24/05/2010 at 17:08 Hmm.-Hmm. says:
Better to be beaten than to beat the game and hate the time spent doing it, I say.
20/05/2010 at 23:39 HexagonalBolts says:
That guy is a *bastard*.
20/05/2010 at 23:43 LewieP says:
Played this earlier on today, and really liked it.
Also hated it.
20/05/2010 at 23:46 DMcCool says:
What sort of things does he say? The being insulted idea I find interesting but platformers like this bore me to tears.
20/05/2010 at 23:46 MWoody says:
If it stuck with it, I think I’d like it more. As it is, the vast majority of my many, many deaths went by without comment.
The music is delightful, though; I’ll give it that.
20/05/2010 at 23:48 Saucy says:
So it’s a passive aggressive indie game with tricky (See: poorly designed) jumping made in flixel? No one has ever done this before.
Truly, the Indie scene is the hub of innovation and birthplace of many interesting games.
21/05/2010 at 01:01 N says:
Iknowright?:I
20/05/2010 at 23:53 Saucy says:
also this guy should totally sell this game for about $15.00 it would make a bundle no really
21/05/2010 at 12:11 lhzr says:
exactly. could someone explain to me how this is different from that super meat boy that EVERYONE seems to be drooling over? and how they’re different from any number of identical platformers that the web is full of?
yeah. i thought so.
21/05/2010 at 23:08 Nick says:
It made me determined to beat it.. or, rather, not be beaten by it. I made it in the end, was quite an entertaining diversion, the ‘secret’ final level was a bastard till I worked out which platform I had to fall off on my third attempt (of getting to the final area, many mistimed jumps into bastard spikes on those platforms in between each attempt). Liked the ending.
21/05/2010 at 23:09 Nick says:
Aww, my first reply fail, I’m so proud.
20/05/2010 at 23:56 Super Herpes says:
Someone’s a bit angry they couldn’t complete the game…
21/05/2010 at 15:14 TeeJay says:
@Super Herpes
“Someone’s a bit angry they couldn’t complete the game…”
Whereas having read the above comments I am not even going to bother playing it.
Does that mean the game has beaten me? Or have I beaten the game?
20/05/2010 at 23:57 Army_of_None says:
Wasn’t particularly hard, compared to some of the other platformers recently, but I liked it. the bastard garbage tosser things was the only really notable thing, as I hadn’t really seen non-insta-death projectiles used like that before. Overall, good!
21/05/2010 at 00:09 noggin says:
I agree it wasn’t especially hard (and I’m not entirely sober).
The hindering garbage felt innovative
Cheers then!
21/05/2010 at 03:56 Tacroy says:
Yeah, I really liked the garbage thrower. I was totally hoping for some upward-spewing ones, too (a garbage fountain, maybe?) It would have been interesting.
As it is, I’m going to have to play the game again to see the narrator comments people are so mad at – the guy barely even spoke to me.
20/05/2010 at 23:58 Cinnamon says:
Thanks for posting a flash game at half eleven that insults you for being drunk and not being good enough. That’s all I’ve got to say. Thanks a bloody lot Mr “John Walker” if that is your real name.
21/05/2010 at 00:02 Metalfish says:
I’ve always found pixel perfect platformers tedious and this is no exception. One for all the masochists out there.
21/05/2010 at 00:07 Brumisator says:
“I lied”
I laughed :D
21/05/2010 at 04:11 Mr_Day says:
I chuckled quite a bit at that. Sadly, from that point on, I hated the game and all it stood for.
Curse you game. Curse your eyes.
21/05/2010 at 00:10 Nero says:
At first I thought I had loaded Jimmy’s Lost his Toilet Paper, because of the music. But no.. I usually play
these with my trusty Gravis Gamepad, but now I only had a laptop and didn’t have too much problem with it. Nothing wrong with the jumping here. Overall I give it a 7 out of 10.
21/05/2010 at 00:12 terry says:
If this just turns out to be N with abusive language, you can just fu
21/05/2010 at 00:14 Fetthesten says:
Eh. Only the secret level gave me any lasting trouble. Felt like a rush job, and it didn’t bring anything new to the table. Time Fcuk did both the mocking and the platforming much better, for example.
21/05/2010 at 00:26 Ricc says:
Very meta… All platformers are – to an extent – an exercise in douchebaggery, so the commentary is strangely in tone with the undercurrent of this genre.
21/05/2010 at 00:50 Zwebbie says:
The secret ending level didn’t do the mocking at all and that was the only difficult one.
That said, it’s refreshing! I hadn’t played a platformer in a long while. It’s good to take a step back from playing for items, experience or shiny cutscenes and going back to goold old manly I-will-not-let-this-game-beat-me.
21/05/2010 at 01:12 DJ Phantoon says:
Having played through the Meatboy user created levels I have to say this wasn’t that hard. I think it took me only about eight minutes.
But I must say, it sure seems like no one at RPS has the will, determination, and masochistic attitude required to beat all of Super Meat Boy when it comes out (this is a challenge/dare and also somewhat of a bet: I say Kieron shall be the one to best it)
21/05/2010 at 01:15 Oneironaut says:
That pissed me off, but I won! And it pissed me off enough that I took a screenshot to prove it.
http://s980.photobucket.com/albums/ae281/Oneironaut21/?action=view¤t=Iwin.jpg
21/05/2010 at 01:32 Cycle says:
So is the final insult the game calling you an idiot for actually bothering to play through the whole thing?
21/05/2010 at 01:35 DJ Phantoon says:
I guess? I really more thought the moral was “platformers are pointless, maybe”.
21/05/2010 at 20:37 Bret says:
Well, if you don’t get THE SECRET ENDING, maybe.
21/05/2010 at 02:06 merc says:
Hah! You call that frustrating? I’ve played most of I Wanna Be The Guy!
21/05/2010 at 02:18 Morti says:
eh, difficulty wise, it has nothing against I wanna be the guy (got stuck in level 17 in that one) or VVVVVV.
The music is excellent, however, and the insulting can be pretty accurate although not that amusing.
21/05/2010 at 03:53 Saul says:
I Wanna Be the Guy is not a game, it’s a torture chamber!
21/05/2010 at 03:27 nobody says:
Thought it was worth pointing out that the jump mechanic appears to behave differently depending on your system setup.
I happen to be booted into OS X right now. In firefox with flash 10.0, the jump is not high enough to reach the high block on the “this should be interesting level.” When I switch over to the latest Chrome beta with its built-in flash implementation, the jump is almost a whole character-height amount higher, making that jump that was previously impossible a complete breeze.
22/05/2010 at 02:41 Polysynchronicity says:
Confirming this; I’m also in firefox with Flash 10, and I can’t jump onto that block either.
21/05/2010 at 03:33 Hyoscine says:
Shame both endings are a bit rubbish…
21/05/2010 at 04:01 RedFred says:
This ain’t got shit on the frustration that Football Manager brings. It’s similar in the way it insults you though.
21/05/2010 at 06:00 Red Avatar says:
You guys suck :p completed it in 10 minutes AND got the secret ending where he asks her to marry.
21/05/2010 at 07:32 Nick says:
Not once did this game even attempt to mock me, very disappointing.
The platforming and music was fun at least.
21/05/2010 at 07:55 Driadan says:
In summary: people being insulted by a game for not being good enough, they post here and are insulted again for not being good enough (or not having the correct browser+flash implementation)!
Please, form a line to insult me after work :D
21/05/2010 at 08:44 PleasingFungus says:
Got to the level past the fake ending, stopped. Not angry, just… unmotivated.
P.S.: The Garbage Thrower is suspiciously similar to the Flixel physics-demos. Not sure what I feel about that.
21/05/2010 at 09:05 Chman says:
Hey, I’m the bastard who made that “game” :)
I had a good laugh while reading your comments, it made my day !
Quick note though : this game wasn’t supposed to be featured on websites like this one. The original topic from the flixel forum is here, and this was just an exercise I made to teach myself AS3 & Flixel… Nothing more.
But still, I’m glad some of you liked it, as I’m glad some of you hated it (that’s the whole point actually).
21/05/2010 at 14:04 Superbest says:
Seriously? If you’re reading this, can we please get a dump of all the insults? All I got was “This is gonna be hard for you” when I died deliberately in the tutorial. But “I lied” was great! Although rather than lie, my reaction was profound sadness. “Yaaa- Oh. Aw, shucks. ;_;”
Also, you know that one level where there’s guns shooting everywhere and you need to take the secret tunnel to get to the princess? If you try hard enough you can just drop down through the bullet carpet, but disappointingly the game won’t care =(
21/05/2010 at 21:05 Ginhyun says:
For a game made just as an exercise, it really was quite enjoyable. The music and comments contributed a lot to this, but overall, it was just well-designed. The difficulty was balanced well enough that I never felt particularly frustrated, nor bored.
I’d love to see any future games you come up with.
21/05/2010 at 09:16 Petethegoat says:
Hey. I found this pretty good, having completed it with both endings. It was pretty intuitive to tell you the truth, so well done with that.
21/05/2010 at 12:03 Psychopomp says:
That music was delightful
21/05/2010 at 12:25 pimorte says:
RE: garbage thrower
Clearly I need to be more selective about my friends in future.
21/05/2010 at 12:34 Chiller says:
I really liked this. Being able to jump so high with excellent air control really made me feel in control of my character’s actions for a change; as a consequence, I never blamed the game for killing me, only myself. The comments were quite brilliant. Also of note (and I mean ALSO OF NOTE): the awesome mechanic of seeing parts of the level BEFORE you have to navigate them, as opposed to while they kill you. The ending really made my day; it was exactly the thing I wanted to see in a game like this. All in all I say it was really well-designed, clever and fun. Keep up the good work.
Also, the garbage dispenser is definitely replacing the companion cube as my new pal.
21/05/2010 at 13:07 rei says:
I fell through the geometry and quit. I didn’t particularly enjoy the trip up to that point, but it made me think I should give Flixel a go myself. More Flixel games is exactly what the internets need, right?
21/05/2010 at 13:12 rei says:
Oh, the author is reading! I should clarify that this was my subjective experience, and my opinion should not necessarily be considered to reflect badly on the quality of the game itself as much as my personal failings. I thought it was well-made, at least.
21/05/2010 at 18:05 Kazang says:
A strange game, the only winning move is to not play. How about a nice game of chess?
21/05/2010 at 22:44 Jack says:
Just completed it. When I did I was like “FUCK YEAH MOTHERFUCKER! OWNED”
Except now whenever I hear that music, I start to twitch, feel shooting pains through my body, and i’m currently sweating like hell.
This game is NOT good for you.
21/05/2010 at 23:14 Svenska says:
I happen to be booted into OS X right now. In firefox with flash 10.0, the jump is not high enough to reach the high block on the “this should be interesting level.” When I switch over to the latest Chrome beta with its built-in flash implementation, the jump is almost a whole character-height amount higher, making that jump that was previously impossible a complete breeze.
Wow, I really thought I was missing something, like a double jump or something.
22/05/2010 at 10:45 Erlend M says:
@Svenska:
Thanks for the tip. I wondered why I couldn’t get past the “Do you know my cousin Benny?” level, but playing the game in Safari instead of Firefox helped.
23/05/2010 at 05:48 DoubleW says:
There really should be a distinction between light platformers like Robot Want Kitty and dick moves like this one. I made it to the secret level before giving up, and my eyes were rolling all the way. This shit’s been wrung dry guys, time to move on.
26/05/2010 at 16:16 gnodab says:
i loved it. although i think the difficulty curve is more of a bell curve. i died dozens of times in that one level where you “just” need to jump up through the insta-death-projectieles, but after that i didn’t even find the secret level very hard.
but overall loads of fun and i really liked the artstyle and music and of course the insults.
i lied = win
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