KEYBOARD DRUMSET FUCKING WEREWOLF

November 5, 2011 2:59 PM

cactus (aka Jonatan Söderström) is a prolific independent videogame developer. His games are known for playing against genre expectations and their surreal storytelling qualities (as in David Lynch surreal). His latest effort (a collaboration with his brother and FUCKING WEREWOLF ASSO) is called KEYBOARD DRUMSET FUCKING WEREWOLF. It's about an eskimo that that turns into a werewolf and the events that follow. Sound weird? It is. Available in pc and mac flavours.
posted by pancreas (22 comments total)

All i can say for sure is that that program does something, and makes me push buttons.
posted by cmoj at 3:25 PM on November 5, 2011

um...yeah. ok. i think.
posted by Thorzdad at 3:38 PM on November 5, 2011

I don't mind the art or music but the gameplay is terrible.
posted by clockworkjoe at 3:39 PM on November 5, 2011

wait. you found gameplay???
posted by Thorzdad at 3:40 PM on November 5, 2011

It flakes out for me on the third level, but I love everything about it.
posted by to sir with millipedes at 3:42 PM on November 5, 2011

@Thorzdad wait. you didn't???
posted by pancreas at 3:44 PM on November 5, 2011

I love Cactus. I love this. Thanks.
posted by byanyothername at 3:47 PM on November 5, 2011

Aggressively bad, and badly made.

#1 First stage is meaningless - falling allows you to get "10/10" mcmuffins, and getting 60/10 means nothing whilst climbing - oh.. am I supposed to be impressed by the critic of the hollow centre of Being that is modern computer games? Oh.. wait. I'm not 15. I know this.
#2 Second stage has no bearing on the first, and is a button mash. Gee. Zzzz...
#3 Riiiiight. So instead of eating people, we're doing a "saw move" over their corpses to move on? Way to stop that entire shock value through... eh.. dodging boxes and buzz-sawing corpses.


And... we're done. The "music" by that point was enough, as was the shitty coding / responsiveness.

The music was aggressively crap. I'm not sure what we're supposed to get out of this other than "Gee, what fucking idiots we are for engaging with this". If you want to critique the modern games industry, top tip: It. Is. Beyond. Pastiche. [looking at you EA].

Oh, and if you're going to do a tribute to CGA, then fucking stick to the palette, talentless wankers.
posted by Cheradine Zakalwe at 5:01 PM on November 5, 2011

ohh man

looking at the manual i am really hoping these are not intentional typos because that would be really unpleasantly contrived, i have seen cactus do that shit before but he is not an english speaker so i was ok with it

playing it:

i will always be around/just sounds so gay and then it crashed, thank you computer

i am willing to forgive a lot b/c mondo medicals/agency but i am really hoping this is mostly this "werewolf" guy's doing
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 5:15 PM on November 5, 2011

impressively crap
posted by jet_manifesto at 5:16 PM on November 5, 2011

If you want a genuine old skool indy dev, then try out Jeff Minter who has more talent in his right testicle than these chumps.

No really. He does. And his code isn't crap, and he knows how to make responsive controls.
posted by Cheradine Zakalwe at 5:16 PM on November 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

also everything slowed way down after i closed it out so maybe there's some kind of glitch there
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 5:20 PM on November 5, 2011

How about if everyone stops naming things with 3 or 4 random nouns to signify how edgy *or something) they are? It’s really not the height of cleverness that some seem to think it is.
posted by bongo_x at 5:58 PM on November 5, 2011

@This, of course, alludes to you

FUCKING WEREWOLF ASSO was responsible for the music and graphics, just so you know, so at a guess cactus would have done the scripting and at a guess, game design.
posted by pancreas at 6:16 PM on November 5, 2011

Well I thought it was good, thanks pancreas
posted by Hoopo at 7:03 PM on November 5, 2011

am I supposed to be impressed by the critic of the hollow centre of Being that is modern computer games?

No, you're confusing this with Jason Rohrer style "Indie Games." This is a game about a guy in a hoodie and no pants who turns into a werewolf and goes on a quest to build a gun out of bones to fight a giant cyborg unicorn while ghosts sing to him. This is another thing completely.
posted by byanyothername at 7:07 PM on November 5, 2011 [2 favorites]

well i mean even if cactus did the scripting, "just sounds so gay"? （　｀_ゝ´）

No, you're confusing this with Jason Rohrer style "Indie Games." This is a game about a guy in a hoodie and no pants who turns into a werewolf and goes on a quest to build a gun out of bones to fight a giant cyborg unicorn while ghosts sing to him. This is another thing completely.

if i were feeling uncharitable i would ask where the ninja zombies come in
posted by This, of course, alludes to you at 7:57 PM on November 5, 2011

well i mean even if cactus did the scripting, "just sounds so gay"?

Maybe I don't get your meaning but it seems to be the lyrics to the song that's playing.
posted by Hoopo at 8:08 PM on November 5, 2011

BTW the one for mac works fine, I encountered no problems with the controls but I'm not sure the controls are all that important. This seems to be more about style and concept than anything else and I thought it was pretty cool in that regard.

Oh.. wait. I'm not 15.

I wouldn't have guessed if you hadn't said something.
posted by Hoopo at 11:47 AM on November 6, 2011

Asså......
posted by beerbajay at 2:50 AM on November 7, 2011

I thought it was pretty cool in terms of aesthetics. I like that the gameplay matches up with the music in terms of pace and what you're doing (like the breakdown occurring when you have to mash z and x to transform).

The play portion of it isn't very fun, however, and allows almost no room for error, but I also think the irritating gameplay is intentional. I probably would stick with it to finish it if I wasn't getting tired of the song by the third attempt.

Also, I don't think this is a critique of modern gaming, or even a critique of anything.
posted by codacorolla at 8:35 AM on November 7, 2011

Here's the whole game. For those who are interested, but don't feel like playing through.
posted by codacorolla at 8:39 AM on November 7, 2011