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A joke game that emphasizes its own pointlessness for lols
Gibmaker- 01/16/2011 11:28 PM
- 13254 views
3:51 - I download and install Space Funeral.
3:58 - I start the game. All three main menu options have been replaced with the word "Blood". Lol. I choose the bottom one just to make sure it still quits.
4:05 - I start the game again. We are dumped right onto the first map, a grotesque version of the "hero's house" that many games start with. No introductory cinematic at all. Mom says "Eat your greens." The coffin functions as a "rest point". Why is my guy all ready shown lying in the coffin when I'm walking around? The opening strains of White Waking sound a little demented. Sets the mood perfectly.
4:07 - The starting "village" looks like, well ...
When I walk around, my guy claps his jaw and flails his arms. This isn't a joke game, is it?
4:09 - Oh no, a "battle school" area. I bet this game has a hundred tricks and rules that I'm expected to memorize. Some guy tells me about going to a "perfect city" but first I have to find a "blood cavern" blah blah blah, well, at least they don't beat around the bush in terms of laying out my tasks in this game.
4:11 - White Waking continues in the swamp area. It's starting to get to me. It's a pretty crappy swamp too. But I don't think I'm supposed to take this game seriously. There are no battle backgrounds.
4:16 - The first boss! It's a dragon! Have I prepared sufficiently!? Well, I kill it with autobattle, so I guess so.
4:23 - I get my next party member! It's a "leg horse". Picture what that might be, literally, and you're probably right. Perfectly effed up, as suits a game like this I suppose.
4:30 - The Blood Cavern is a red-on-black hellhole with a macabre poetry reading for music.
I'm actually quite amused now just because the attitude of pointlessness and despair has become so over-the-top and ridiculous. I don't let the wizard drink my blood -- later during a replay I will discover that I narrowly avoided a game over here. The appearance of the blood monster is actually pretty scary.
4:40 - We're at the next town. Monsters coming up from the mines, blah blah blah. A random NPC says "Would you like to see a pyramid?" and teleports you to a pyramid. I'm thinking about how when writing for an RPG you're supposed to try your best to build up a sense of urgency and momentousness. You're supposed to try your very, very best.
4:57 - I kill the next boss in one turn by lucking out with the "Mystery" battle command.
5:14 - I decide to play Mass Effect for a while.
8:05 - I get tired of Mass Effect and decide to play Space Funeral some more.
8:10 - From now on, I'm trying to avoid all combat, since I suspect that there's no point in grinding for experience. So far all battles have been pointlessly easy.
8:20 - Dracula's house turns out to be just a pointless joke area, like most of this game.
8:26 - I have a headache, probably from too many video games today. Then I get to the final area, the "City of Forms", and it looks like this:
Oh God, my head.
8:30 - The final boss battle begins. I autobattle it.
8:31 - The final boss battle ends. There's a twist ending.
Space Funeral is definitely a joke game, through and through. It's not very long, and the attitude of fatalism and apathy is genuinely funny in many places. The fact that the graphics are 100% custom is a plus, crude as they might be. It's good for some lols when you're bored. The fact that the game is laughably easy is also a plus, since a game like this can't expect much from the player. You can probably avoid as many battles as possible, since there's no point in leveling up, and don't bother buying equipment or managing your inventory. All that stuff in the "training room" about using Moral techniques and using certain items on certain kinds of enemies just doesn't matter. The best strategy is to just get smashed on Kahlua rum and breeze through it. It's probably the way this game was meant to me played.
Final Thought: I decided to try this game because of the Feature and the Paste Magazine article. Honestly, I suspect that its inclusion in the top 20 list was facetious, or else the author of the article hasn't seen enough of RPG Maker to recognize a joke game. But then, all top-20 lists are based on arbitrary personal preferences anyway.
Auxillary Final Thought: I thought it was going to be set in space.
My rating: 2 / 5
3:58 - I start the game. All three main menu options have been replaced with the word "Blood". Lol. I choose the bottom one just to make sure it still quits.
4:05 - I start the game again. We are dumped right onto the first map, a grotesque version of the "hero's house" that many games start with. No introductory cinematic at all. Mom says "Eat your greens." The coffin functions as a "rest point". Why is my guy all ready shown lying in the coffin when I'm walking around? The opening strains of White Waking sound a little demented. Sets the mood perfectly.
4:07 - The starting "village" looks like, well ...
When I walk around, my guy claps his jaw and flails his arms. This isn't a joke game, is it?
4:09 - Oh no, a "battle school" area. I bet this game has a hundred tricks and rules that I'm expected to memorize. Some guy tells me about going to a "perfect city" but first I have to find a "blood cavern" blah blah blah, well, at least they don't beat around the bush in terms of laying out my tasks in this game.
4:11 - White Waking continues in the swamp area. It's starting to get to me. It's a pretty crappy swamp too. But I don't think I'm supposed to take this game seriously. There are no battle backgrounds.
4:16 - The first boss! It's a dragon! Have I prepared sufficiently!? Well, I kill it with autobattle, so I guess so.
4:23 - I get my next party member! It's a "leg horse". Picture what that might be, literally, and you're probably right. Perfectly effed up, as suits a game like this I suppose.
4:30 - The Blood Cavern is a red-on-black hellhole with a macabre poetry reading for music.
I'm actually quite amused now just because the attitude of pointlessness and despair has become so over-the-top and ridiculous. I don't let the wizard drink my blood -- later during a replay I will discover that I narrowly avoided a game over here. The appearance of the blood monster is actually pretty scary.
4:40 - We're at the next town. Monsters coming up from the mines, blah blah blah. A random NPC says "Would you like to see a pyramid?" and teleports you to a pyramid. I'm thinking about how when writing for an RPG you're supposed to try your best to build up a sense of urgency and momentousness. You're supposed to try your very, very best.
4:57 - I kill the next boss in one turn by lucking out with the "Mystery" battle command.
5:14 - I decide to play Mass Effect for a while.
8:05 - I get tired of Mass Effect and decide to play Space Funeral some more.
8:10 - From now on, I'm trying to avoid all combat, since I suspect that there's no point in grinding for experience. So far all battles have been pointlessly easy.
8:20 - Dracula's house turns out to be just a pointless joke area, like most of this game.
8:26 - I have a headache, probably from too many video games today. Then I get to the final area, the "City of Forms", and it looks like this:
Oh God, my head.
8:30 - The final boss battle begins. I autobattle it.
8:31 - The final boss battle ends. There's a twist ending.
Space Funeral is definitely a joke game, through and through. It's not very long, and the attitude of fatalism and apathy is genuinely funny in many places. The fact that the graphics are 100% custom is a plus, crude as they might be. It's good for some lols when you're bored. The fact that the game is laughably easy is also a plus, since a game like this can't expect much from the player. You can probably avoid as many battles as possible, since there's no point in leveling up, and don't bother buying equipment or managing your inventory. All that stuff in the "training room" about using Moral techniques and using certain items on certain kinds of enemies just doesn't matter. The best strategy is to just get smashed on Kahlua rum and breeze through it. It's probably the way this game was meant to me played.
Final Thought: I decided to try this game because of the Feature and the Paste Magazine article. Honestly, I suspect that its inclusion in the top 20 list was facetious, or else the author of the article hasn't seen enough of RPG Maker to recognize a joke game. But then, all top-20 lists are based on arbitrary personal preferences anyway.
Auxillary Final Thought: I thought it was going to be set in space.
My rating: 2 / 5
Posts 
spirit_young
2343
View playlists
CloseYeah, I was surprised how fast I beat the game! I farmed a bit, didn't know the max level was 20, and . . . I think if I run through this game again I'm gonna avoid as many battles as possible to challenge myself! I pretty much agree with the review.
author=Deckiller
does the diamond shield absorb diamond attacks
deranged jewelers: the deadliest of RPG creepy crawlies
Jericho
52
author=Fallen-Griever
Let me clarify, because I think some people are making an incorrect assumption: I think this is a joke game but I enjoyed it anyway.
Joke game =/= bad game.
okay but I don't understand what you mean by joke game.
Because I thought the main usage of that phrase around here was "a game that was made as a joke," not "a game that makes a joke."
My God what has happened here.
Okay well look. I gave it 2/5 because I only give high ratings to games that evince a well-developed vision that the creator clearly cared about and put a lot of heart into, as well as spending a lot of time fine-tuning all the small details. In other words, "srs business" games. This game seems to have been just made for fun, to provide some lol-worthy moments. Which is fine. It's just not what I would reward with a high rating.
And the timestamp style is a really lazy style for a review, but since it all ready had 5 properly written ones I didn't bother improving it. :P You should have seen the first version that was rejected.
Okay well look. I gave it 2/5 because I only give high ratings to games that evince a well-developed vision that the creator clearly cared about and put a lot of heart into, as well as spending a lot of time fine-tuning all the small details. In other words, "srs business" games. This game seems to have been just made for fun, to provide some lol-worthy moments. Which is fine. It's just not what I would reward with a high rating.
And the timestamp style is a really lazy style for a review, but since it all ready had 5 properly written ones I didn't bother improving it. :P You should have seen the first version that was rejected.
Lennon
88
Actually, I think that's what's so good about it. It can be pretty much whatever you want it to be.
I'd say that this game is very smart, for being so weird and easy.
It's like playing through a short movie, where in the end there is this final twist that makes you think.
And I honestly don't see this game as a "shot" at the RM community as a whole, but RPGs altogether.
Being that there are millions of generic fantasy blah blah games out there, and when a different and trippy one comes along its character(s) only wish it to be converted back to the generic fantasy like everything else.
I don't think that this game is a joke game.
To put it in a category along with Legendary Legend and the like is just wrong.
It's way too smart for that, and as easy and "out there" it may be, it deserves praise for its originality.
EDIT: Oh, and are the timestamps in the review random? Seems that way to press the "comedy review" forward.
It's like playing through a short movie, where in the end there is this final twist that makes you think.
And I honestly don't see this game as a "shot" at the RM community as a whole, but RPGs altogether.
Being that there are millions of generic fantasy blah blah games out there, and when a different and trippy one comes along its character(s) only wish it to be converted back to the generic fantasy like everything else.
I don't think that this game is a joke game.
To put it in a category along with Legendary Legend and the like is just wrong.
It's way too smart for that, and as easy and "out there" it may be, it deserves praise for its originality.
EDIT: Oh, and are the timestamps in the review random? Seems that way to press the "comedy review" forward.
Allow me to clearify, Jericho: A "joke game" is a game that doesn't know that GAMES are SERIOUS BUSINESS! Crap like that thinks games should be all "fun" and shit!
"Oh, look at me! I'm Mr. Funny Sillytimes! I'm going to piss all over the thing you devoted so much time to that it cost you your marriage, 'cus I think games should be FUN! LAWLERBALLZ!"
Well, fuck you, Captain Space Funeral, which I assume for no reason is the name of the game's creator! If you enjoyed any part of creating this game, you did it all wrong and you're destroying America!
-Tabris
"Oh, look at me! I'm Mr. Funny Sillytimes! I'm going to piss all over the thing you devoted so much time to that it cost you your marriage, 'cus I think games should be FUN! LAWLERBALLZ!"
Well, fuck you, Captain Space Funeral, which I assume for no reason is the name of the game's creator! If you enjoyed any part of creating this game, you did it all wrong and you're destroying America!
-Tabris
Jericho
52
author=Fallen-Griever
Of course this is a joke game, the whole point of this game is to make a single, very potent joke about how people focus too much on emulating commercial RPGs. People just refuse to believe that it is a joke game since the joke is on the RM* community at large.
EDIT: I don't see why he should be flamed because this is a decent review, despite the strange format. The reasons for the score come across clearly - you can't really critique the review all that much.
i thought any jab at the rm community was basically "be more creative and stop making anime derivative meuhrurhughm" but catmitts very clearly had other things in mind when making it than "gonna show them rpgmaker.net goofuses" and it shows ingame. Space funeral obviously isn't a game with a serious tone but I don't think that makes it a "joke game." Like, I don't know. What does that phrase even mean? Are all the Sam & Max games joke games as well?
Fidchell
6557
The best review from you thus far, Sir Gibmaker. Well said. How about some deserving games in the Featured section, hm?
Initially I thought the format of this review was just... weird and lazy (like Craze's), but it's actually fun to read while containing everything a review should contain.
Well... basically I'll say what I've said elsewhere... I don't think this is a joke game, and I understand that someone who perceives this game as nothing but a joke is not going to like it. Legendary Legends is a joke game. Chrono Trigger is a joke game. This isn't. The difference is somewhat subtle though.
And I don't get why you gave it a score but... not a score.
Well, I guess if you read the articles and reviews that praises this game you'll see why it was elected top X games of 2010.
And I don't get why you gave it a score but... not a score.
Well, I guess if you read the articles and reviews that praises this game you'll see why it was elected top X games of 2010.
Lennon
88
There's nothing wrong with his review, hell no, but you know what some people are like. It's easier to just prepare for a flame war than expect a sensible discussion.
Strangeluv
2787
Well I can understand why he didn't like the game. I definitely wouldn't call it a joke game, though.
