King's Brutality: Queens

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.