Intro

"SQUIRMUNITY : Ballad of the Prankmonger" is a weird, comedic visual novel being developed by SquirmunityJoey. Though if you actually play the game it claims it was developed by Penis Interactive. A name that probably tells you all you need to know about the nature of a lot of jokes on display in this project. This isn't to say that such jokes can't be funny, but this game really doesn't provide an environment for that to work considering one of your first descriptions you'll find in your house is your character lamenting his/her inability to hang himself/herself because cubes don't have necks.



Story
Summary

You play as a cube named Cubicle who traverses a weird and seemingly nonsensical world. Though what our ultimate goal isn't exactly clear beyond explore this strange land and see how many inexplicable things happen like a character turning into the famous statue "The Thinker" by Auguste Rodin can occur.



Comedy

The game's comedy tends to rely on random lol humor which means the game isn't that funny in my opinion. So much so that I couldn't even bring myself to read the game's dialogue after the first couple of minutes since I didn't feel like I was getting anything actually useful out of the game's dialogue. A position readily supported by what happens if you agree to let the developer give you a summary of what's happened so far and this results in a text crawl of Genesis 1 playing while the opening theme from every film in the Star Wars franchise plays.

Strengths/Weaknesses

I really can't think of any narrative strengths this project has since it really doesn't have a narrative. At least that's how it comes across to me. On the other hand the game's nonsensical nature is likely to drive players away since they'll get tired of the random lol jokes in a hurry.

Gameplay

You move around using the w, a, s, and d keys while being able to interact with objects using the e key and spacebar. And that's really all there is to the game in terms of gameplay. At least that's all I found before the comedy pushed me away and made me turn this game off after about ten minutes.

Graphics

Graphically the game is highly unappealing in my opinion. And this is coming from someone that can appreciate a game with a simple look. After all, just because your game looks nice doesn't mean it's fun to play. A good example of this is "Final Fantasy XIII" for the PS3.



As for why the visuals don't work here. I'm guessing it's because there are notable discrepancies between the looks of some of the characters which range from deranged doctors to basic 3-Dimensional shapes to an emoji.

Sound

Sound wise the game tends to be pretty forgettable for the most part. Though that bit with the opening theme from Star Wars is pretty memorable. Unfortunately it's part of the reason I want be uploading any footage of this game to youtube since I know Disney is very protective of it's intellectual property and I'd rather not earn their ire.

Conclusion

"SQUIRMUNITY : Ballad of the Prankmonger" is a weird game that really isn't worth playing in my opinion, but I suppose if your a fan of the weird and random lol humor you might enjoy this one. Other wise my advice would be to skip this one and focus on something more enjoyable like "Punch Bears" by MakioKuta.