Gibber on Gibbage

Posted by oddbob on July 24, 2006 · Lovingly Filed Under Other peoples games 
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Gibbage landed at Bob towers during a bit of an odd time, on the back of a recent discussion on another forum over game length vs value for money (of which, I subscribe to the opinion “who gives a shit as long as its fun?”) which saw things getting increasingly heated as anything with less than 20 hours of storyline was rubbished by a lone crusader, the neighbours blaring out U2 and Pink all day on their evidently awful sound system, a week where I’ve been alternating between Prey and Dotstream to get my gaming kicks, a time where I’m pondering just how many games I’m going to have to sit there and review in a little over a months time when the RR competition closes, and a time where I’ve had my head down pixelling when the heat allows me and as if all that wasn’t enough, contemplating tidying up the loose ends on VI once and for all (again). Oh, and beating my own personal record on Deadeye ;)

So, is there any room for me to possibly cram another Indie game into my schedule at the moment? Lets face it, a good proportion of them are just so po faced and serious that 2 seconds into the loading sequence you’re thinking “kill me now”. Even when they’re trying to be light hearted - hey, lets just throw a really cute dwarf in there shall we? Oh man, this game needs a fluffy cat - that’ll appeal to the ladies. Or as Dan Marshall, author of Gibbage has observed on his excellent blog - you could always make your game around err… balloons, balloons are nice and safe things (until one of the fuckers explodes, then you know about it).

Every week without fail, I check out the portals and see row after row of identikit games, soulless in the extreme. I’m not averse to a bit of match 3′ing, even the odd casual shooter occasionally sneaks into my gaming time - but for the most part, man oh man, I’m on my knee’s and begging for a game with some soul. Something not clinically planned to appeal to an assumed demographic, to maximise conversion rates by including a stock list of features and obligatory mouse control and a harmless safe front for selling bland shit to people. In fact, I’m not even sure why I bother anymore - it only winds me up when the game I’ve just downloaded the 60 minute demo of turns out to be so fucking rotten I may as well have chewed my own face off rather than piss my time away on it. Especially that disgusting “clone” (and I use the term very loosely) of Scramble I found on Reflexive. I feel sick just thinking about it, so I’ll not dwell on that any longer.

Thank fuck for Gibbage then.

Gibbage doesn’t pander to any perceived demographics, there’s no compulsory mouse control hacked in to sever any last vestiges of enjoyment you might possibly get from the game, there’s no cute drawing of a little girl in a balloon - what there is in Gibbage, is a pissload of blood and more severed heads than you could ever want. Gibbage is plain, simple insane fun. There’s no levelling up, there’s no interruptions to the game whilst you nip off to an ill thought out shop to buy more weapons, there’s no orcs (big fucking bonus) and not even a whiff of beard stroking joyless design by numbers in sight.

You start in your little booth where your little man gets constructed in a comic manner, leave said booth and have to collect some cubes and blow shit out of the opposition. Thats it. Thats all there is to playing it. And it couldn’t be more right if it tried. Why? Because last night I sat down and thought “I’ll just take a quick gander at this before I go off and make a cuppa” and half an hour later, I was still playing. Only, I hadn’t actually realised how shush I’d been until the missus disturbed me with a “so, are you brewing this week?” comment about the distinct lack of tea being made despite making promises before loading Gibbage up.

Its a 2d deathmatch bloodfest that appeals to the same part of me that used to huddle round the 2600 playing Combat with my mates for countless knows how many years. Its one of the few games that rubbishes my protestations that I don’t have a competetive edge to my personality, because killing your friends *is* a noble pastime isn’t it? Heck, its fun enough blowing seven kinds of crap out of the computer controlled player.

So, Gibbage - a shitload of maps, a shitload of blood and a shitload of fun, and brimming with character thats so sorely missing from a hefty proportion of games.

Now, what would I change if I were making it….only kidding ;)

Thanks to Thalamus for alerting me to the game, and Dan Marshall for his kindness.

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