By Adam Smith on October 19th, 2011 at 11:31 am.
Note my romantic idealisation. You see, it’s actually Keyboard Drumset Fucking Werewolf and it’s like Ice Climbers but with a deliciously engaging maniac singing a catchy song. But then, no, it’s suddenly like falling to a horrible demise while the same maniac becomes irate and uses ‘gay’ in a fashion that will surely offend some people. Argh, but no, it’s not that either, it’s a button mashing, vomit-strewn lycanthropic transformation sequence, and now there’s chasing and slicing and killing while the song becomes ever stranger.
What it is, as well as all those things and more, is a new downloadable game from Cactus. I suspect the song will be stuck in my head for the rest of the day, for it is a malicious and worrying ear-worm. Probably with teeth. There’s a new trailer for the madcap developer’s entry into the IGF as well.
Life/Death/Island is the name of that upcoming oddity. Is it a more rational take on the narrative and themes of Lost? Is it the 8-bit survival horror game we’ve all secretly been waiting for? I suspect that whatever it is, it’ll be a blast to play.
Via Indiegames.
19/10/2011 at 11:39 Bodminzer says:
This fucking rules. Play the videogame, everyone.
e; the cool thing about Cactus games is that yeah their made primarily for art or looking cool or whatever, but their fun as hell. Looking forward to legions of sperglords waltzing in here to talk shit before returning to childrens cartoons about talking horses.
19/10/2011 at 12:16 Robin says:
“they’re”
Nice concept, broken and uninteresting gameplay.
19/10/2011 at 13:59 Bodminzer says:
Hahaha ‘I can’t play this because my reflexes have been destroyed by the steady pace of anime rape sims, BUT I TOTALLY DIDN’T WANT TO PLAY IT ANYWAY BECAUSE IT’S BORING SO NERRR”
19/10/2011 at 14:16 LimEJET says:
@bodminzer You, good sir, are an idiot.
19/10/2011 at 14:29 Echo Black says:
What is this “Bodminzer” chap’s problem?
19/10/2011 at 16:24 Tatourmi says:
Bodminzer, please, be civil, this is a gentlemen’s lounge.
19/10/2011 at 19:12 Wulf says:
Hey! Leave 30/30 out of this!! >8C
Oh, wait, he was probably talking about My Little Pony.
Protip: A pony is not a horse. No, a pony is a pony.
19/10/2011 at 20:20 LionsPhil says:
Princess Celestia looks pretty horsey to me.
19/10/2011 at 11:47 Orija says:
Looks better than A valley without wind
19/10/2011 at 16:28 Tatourmi says:
Quite harsh for the devs to put it that way but yes, I do agree. What the windless valley’s problem is its lack of artistic coherence. Things look “pasted”, “out of place”. Here it is not the case, the graphics are coherent, and that makes it visually more pleasing, at least as far as I am concerned.
19/10/2011 at 11:59 Pemptus says:
0:53: “Shot BEAR in THE FACE”
It’s good to have Cactus in my life again.
19/10/2011 at 20:16 LionsPhil says:
I am comforted to see that someone beat me to pointing that out.
19/10/2011 at 22:13 Droopy The Dog says:
And I feel I have found my peers too
19/10/2011 at 12:02 Okami says:
*sigh*
Could people please, please, please stop assigning commands to Z and X? This leads to serious pain in the fingers for those of us using a QWERTZ layout keyboard. Or at least include an option to map functions to other keys.
1/10
19/10/2011 at 13:18 Hoaxfish says:
key-mapping at least gives a game the ability to choose your preferences…
19/10/2011 at 13:57 blind_boy_grunt says:
do not panic, i’m here to solve all your problems:
alt+shift usually changes your keyboard to english layout, made a lot of flash/indie games a lot more fun or like… playable.
19/10/2011 at 21:38 Tatourmi says:
Yes, it is a temporary solution, but believe me, constantly changing keyboard layout gets old after a while. And using the chat when in qwerty layout? Awful.
20/10/2011 at 17:12 blind_boy_grunt says:
either you are trying to be contrary or you play way too many games. Or start the same game repeatedly over a short time. I don’t know but it was never a problem for me and the layout change doesn’t effect all the programs, just the one which was active when you changed it.
19/10/2011 at 12:13 Woden says:
I’d like to be the first to say “what the fuck.”
And then I’d like to continue by saying “no seriously, what the fuck, and why is this so fun?”
19/10/2011 at 13:30 destroy.all.monsters says:
You know I saw the headline and thought this was about Duane Hitchings for a moment.
19/10/2011 at 13:33 Burky says:
This is a seriously difficult game. Mess up and you have to start from the start, which pretty much happens every time you progress to the next stage because the rules are completely different each stage. Not sure that’s a good thing. Every stage is fun to work out though.
The song and graphics are really great too.
19/10/2011 at 14:17 LimEJET says:
The game is okay, but the song is seriously bad.
19/10/2011 at 14:25 hosndosn says:
Nice to see he’s still around. Cactus was ahead of his time, largely inventing (or at least, popularizing) the indie games spirit as we know it today. But it got quiet around him.
Still can’t play his games because the excessive flashing lights give me headaches…
19/10/2011 at 20:18 LionsPhil says:
Sounds more like you’re describing Jeff Minter to me…
19/10/2011 at 14:27 Echo Black says:
After much dying I got to the Contra part, then died. Too burned out to try again.
19/10/2011 at 14:57 Eukatheude says:
It’s awesome, but the contra part is way too hard.
19/10/2011 at 20:13 Sagan says:
Can someone please confirm that the Contra part is even possible? I have tried several times and just can’t make it. I think I’m almost as good as I’m gonna get, but I can’t get the horse head to die at all.
edit: It is possible. I just beat the boss. I think that all that matters is killing the horse head. Killing the other parts doesn’t do anything. To beat the boss you have to learn the pattern so that you don’t die. Once you manage to not die you can actually kill him fairly easily.
19/10/2011 at 16:10 JFS says:
I couldn’t even get past the first transformation sequence. Also, I don’t get how to climb in the very first stage. Strange game.
19/10/2011 at 16:33 sneetch says:
The only winning move is not to play?
19/10/2011 at 21:07 caddyB says:
thanks rps for making me spend a lot of money again.
It’s good music though.
19/10/2011 at 21:36 zhmmpp says:
top good games item,welcome to http://top4biz.com
21/10/2011 at 01:28 Shooop says:
Great fun watching, but too goddamn frustrating to actually play.
06/04/2012 at 04:31 dellphukof says:
As usual, awesome game, Cactus! I didn’t considered it hard at all (died 6 or 7 times), and I really like how the story is developed through level design and “titles” of the rooms.
Now, I’ll keep waiting for Mondo Nation, Sky Pirates (that’s the name?), Shotgun Ninja 2, Tuning… So many nice projects!!! seo service.
Ah, Cactus, are you still working on Brain Damaged Toon Underworld? There are any future plans for it? Will the switch from game maker be permanent?