Initially posted in the Bad Games hangout but was told this could be its own thread, so. . . thread.
Been watching supergreatfriend's Games Night! series from around early 2016 and The Adventures of Willy Beamish for DOS/Amiga is. . . something. The gameplay is conventional point-and-click and works for the most part; SGF has had issues with crashing but that could be the emulator. The story is mostly a cartoony rip-off of The Wizard animated in some cheap Nickelodeon-ish style with terrible framerate. There's foreshadowing (which is weirdly remeniscient of Troll 2) of some Soylent Green conspiracy as well but we're not that far into it yet. At first glance Willy's an unremarkable Dennis the Menace/Bart Simpson clone who likes comic books and video games and has issues with authority.
Then during the intro he crashes through his school's front door on purpose, and you start thinking there may be more to this.
As the "Must Get to the Nintari Championships" plot goes through its lazy motions, it quickly becomes apparent that almost everyone in the game is a psychopath. Everyone. Willy is always manipulating others, which is kind of fair because he's in constant danger of getting murdered or vanished to a forsaken hellhole. That's not an exaggeration. Just one example, when SGF had Willy pluck a couple of ferry tokens out of a public water fountain, a nearby cop arrests him and throws him in jail. Not juvie -- adult jail. Packed into a cell with violent criminals, then fade to black. That's not even the craziest thing we've seen so far, and as I understand it, we're not even half done! (Oh, and while we're on crazy, the game is peppered with sexual humor and casual racism that'll make you flinch or gape, such as when Willy's mother orders Willy to walk in on his teenage sister while she's taking a bath.)
After a few game overs, some in which Willy arguably died in scenes of body-mangling violence, SGF had to re-start and play much more conservatively to keep this 10-year-old boy, however superficial and sociopathic, from suffering some ghastly fate.
Never mind that alien probe-like thing on the upper right. Notice that's a crosscut wood saw on the shelf next to the operating table!
You're in cartoon suburbia, yet simmering underneath the doing chores and collecting doodads there's this survival-horror tension to just make it through the next encounter alive.
Been watching supergreatfriend's Games Night! series from around early 2016 and The Adventures of Willy Beamish for DOS/Amiga is. . . something. The gameplay is conventional point-and-click and works for the most part; SGF has had issues with crashing but that could be the emulator. The story is mostly a cartoony rip-off of The Wizard animated in some cheap Nickelodeon-ish style with terrible framerate. There's foreshadowing (which is weirdly remeniscient of Troll 2) of some Soylent Green conspiracy as well but we're not that far into it yet. At first glance Willy's an unremarkable Dennis the Menace/Bart Simpson clone who likes comic books and video games and has issues with authority.
Then during the intro he crashes through his school's front door on purpose, and you start thinking there may be more to this.
As the "Must Get to the Nintari Championships" plot goes through its lazy motions, it quickly becomes apparent that almost everyone in the game is a psychopath. Everyone. Willy is always manipulating others, which is kind of fair because he's in constant danger of getting murdered or vanished to a forsaken hellhole. That's not an exaggeration. Just one example, when SGF had Willy pluck a couple of ferry tokens out of a public water fountain, a nearby cop arrests him and throws him in jail. Not juvie -- adult jail. Packed into a cell with violent criminals, then fade to black. That's not even the craziest thing we've seen so far, and as I understand it, we're not even half done! (Oh, and while we're on crazy, the game is peppered with sexual humor and casual racism that'll make you flinch or gape, such as when Willy's mother orders Willy to walk in on his teenage sister while she's taking a bath.)
After a few game overs, some in which Willy arguably died in scenes of body-mangling violence, SGF had to re-start and play much more conservatively to keep this 10-year-old boy, however superficial and sociopathic, from suffering some ghastly fate.
Never mind that alien probe-like thing on the upper right. Notice that's a crosscut wood saw on the shelf next to the operating table!
You're in cartoon suburbia, yet simmering underneath the doing chores and collecting doodads there's this survival-horror tension to just make it through the next encounter alive.
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