Certainly a surprise, but I’m interested to see how it turns out. I appreciate that there’s a sort of sincerity to it - they nailed the style of those old games but it doesn’t seem too tongue-in-cheek or reliant on references/memes.
Well, has the fully Youtube Poop-compliant animations, I suppose. The actual ‘game’ part of the games, if they weren’t so absurdly sluggish to respond to inputs and take such a very long time to load each new screen, would have been indistinguishable from any other completely uninspired, middle of the road platformer of the early 90s. From the gameplay segments of that video, that looks like all they’re aspiring to here, as well.
I think that’s a respectable enough goal, though. Those games are clearly awful to play or actually experience in any way directly, but something about the weird and off-putting animations and voice acting has really resonated with people. I think with a team that has the skill and interest to put together something they’re actually invested in (and polish those platforming controls for the love of god) you could get something truly special.
Sure, it’s probably never going to achieve wide appeal, but I don’t think that’s the intent. This is the kind of stuff I want to see coming out of the indie scene, cult classics born of weird passions.
That’s so fun!
By the way I recently played through both CD-i games, Faces of Evil and Wand of Gamelon, and I legit LOVE them. Once I understood the controls and the gameplay that the developers were going for it all just kind of clicked. If you have any interest in giving them a real try, I recommend downloading the remastered versions for PC and checking them out. :)