I Wanna Be The Guy is a game so hard it
borders on is outright masochism – hilarious, frustrating, glitchy masochism. One brave man, known only as Cloud8745, recorded himself playing the entire game, and documented his descent from frustration into incoherent gibbering madness. To get a feel for IWBTG, you may wish to start at the notorious
Ghosts & Goblins section, which is particularly difficult, or, if you'd like a taste of its depraved sense of humor,
this is among the game's funniest rooms. (The punchline comes
two minutes later, but you can only truly appreciate it by watching Cloud struggle through it over and over again – generally, IWBTG gets funnier the longer you watch it be played.) If you'd like to watch the whole thing, there's
[more inside]
posted by Rory Marinich
on Feb 20, 2013 -
50 comments
La-Mulana is a Japanese homebrew game, with English translation available, for Windows that exhaustively replicates the experience of playing on an
MSX home computer, a machine not sold in the U.S. but was contemporary with the likes of the Commodore 64 and Amiga in other markets. (Fun fact: the "MS" in MSX stands for Microsoft!) Although it looks very much like retro warez, La-Mulana is freeware. It is also notoriously long and difficult, with a character who controls like old-school Castlevania, enemies that will frequently knock you around like a rag doll, puzzles of amazing deviousness, and traps that think nothing of walling up a player without escape, or forever restricting access to certain powerups.
That said, the game does have charm, and is basically a love letter to the MSX hardware. Those who want to see it without beating their hands bloody against the keyboard can watch
a guy play through the whole game in 85 installments, cursing at it all along the way.
posted by JHarris
on Jun 4, 2007 -
14 comments