Nobody reads reviews these days and takes them as gospel, but it’s still worth checking them out. While I’m biased when it comes to that statement, I pretty much ignored the reviews I’d read of Indiecalypse as being bad and instead told myself, “I’ll make my own opinion, thank you very much”.
On my wishlist and forever hovering over the option to add to my basket but then forgetting to or talking myself out of it, the full price always felt like a gamble. Well, a holiday discount of 50% or so, and I thought sod it and snapped it up. At least it was in a sale.
I expected puerile humour in Indiecalypse and for it to be quite erratic, but I’m ok with that. The artwork appealed to me, and the variety seemed like it would stop me from pushing old ladies down wells. Not much beats that anyway, but it would have been nice if Indiecalypse held my attention longer than it did.
In Indiecalypse, you play Jack, an uber programmer that knows kung fu – the coding type. Confided to the school corridors, he’ll move back and forth between classes to fulfil some task or another, represented by a game or two.
Titles parodied include Guitar Hero, The Binding of Isaac, and more. These games get the gist of the titles they mimic, but the controls and overall fun sneak under the radar for a cheeky smoke behind the bike sheds while we (I) repeatedly shoot at a sprite hidden behind some indestructible objects. Is this the game? Ah, perhaps not. Restart the level (if not forced due to poor skill), and it doesn’t feel worth it.
The cutscenes were good, but the language in the game feels a little off too. It’s nothing to do with being prudish, but it’s like when a kid first hears the word fuck and uses it in every sentence, over-enunciating a crisp ‘k’ to the point that it doesn’t feel right. Well, having little Johnny, aged four, telling you to go fuck yourself because you asked him to recite the periodic table feels a trifle unnecessary, but hopefully, you get the point. It feels awkward.
I suppose encountering a teacher called Fuckeye also verifies the above.
Don’t get me wrong, dick and fart jokes can be euphoric (yes, I intentionally misuse words. I’m aware). With Indiecalypse, I just found myself indifferent. Not annoyed, frustrated or even disappointed, maybe that I’d wasted my money, but not necessarily the time.
Harsh? For me, yes. Indiecalypse is not the worst game I’ve played, but as I bought a batch of games in one go, it was effortless to exit this and go to the next. If the game were a new title up for review, the argument would be that I’d spend more time on it, but the point is, I paid for it because I wanted the game but haven’t wanted to return to it. Sorry and all that, but perhaps I should have paid attention to the reviews. Just saying.
198X is a better example of bytesize (intentional) minigames.
Here’s the link to the Nintendo eShop page if this excites you. The trailer sort of sums it up.
