Blogs In Search Of A 'B Game'

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2009/12/03/in-search-of-a-b-game/

 

Most of the indy games you seem to play...

 

EDF. EDF. EDF.

Provided me and the partner with hours and hours of co op fun.

never did complete the last 3 levels on the hardest difficulty tho

 

Typing of the Dead, surely.

 

IT Came From The Desert, on the Amiga.

http://www.lemonamiga.com/?mainurl=http://www.lemonamiga.com/reviews/view.php?id=202

A game that is based on a B movie style and it worked really well.

 

I'll plus one for Typing of the Dead. It shouldn't work... but it just does.

When it was first released, Serious Sam may have been considered a B-Game. It was priced straight to the budget-bin, developed by a Croatian team no-one had ever heard of and had absolutely zero marketing money behind it. It's stupid, over-the-top, only appeals to your inner-five-year-old, but actually was brilliant cool to play.

Maybe we're thinking about this the wrong way. Perhaps the B-Games of today are things like Off-Road Velociraptor Safari or Da Blob. Very few B-Movies of today are classics like Evil Dead, and I think the same can be said of B-Games. There are probably loads, but like B-Movies, most are total dross.

 

I think that the problem with these bad games is that the "charm" has a whole lot more obstacles. The main thing is that many of these problems like broken controls, bad ai, etc. It's a lot more frustrating to play a game rather than to watch a movie, especially since you can't get a game over on a movie.

 

Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick? (well it's got the Bruce Campbell cameo).

edit: Bulletwitch, shouldn't work but I found it strangely playable (and re-playable).

edit 2: Two Worlds: buggy as hell & the wildlife will kill you more often than the bandits at the lower levels, but once I got sufficiently leveled up it did start getting enjoyable (this isn't PJS either, I borrowed it before my friend ebayed it).

 

There is bad, there is so bad it's good, and then there is Mega Shark Vs Giant Octopus.

 

Whenever I think of what could be classed as a 'B Game' the 1st thing that pops into my mind are great games that stayed under the radar, such as 'No one lives forever' or 'Behond Good & Evil'.

The traditional sense of a 'B Movie', in my opinion, just doesn't translate to the gaming world. Any game which is budgeted, badly scripted and with dreadful voice actors just isn't fun, at all. Any game which tends to full under that catagory will be getting reviews of 30% or under will simply not be entertaining. Where as a B movie, alot of the time (though occationally crap) will still be entertaining.

It's like trying to translate a word or phrase into several different languages. What one person may view as a particular meaning, someone else may view the same word or phrase completely differently. And I think that same concept happens between the genres of movies & games.

 

Hi, I work at Canalside Studios and we have just created a 'B Movie' themed twin stick shooter.

It is set to be released on Xbox Live Indie Games sometime in the near future. We are just adding the finishing touches.

If you would like to know more about the game check out the website http://canalsidestudios.com/missingreel/

If anyone is a creators club member they can also play test our game. More information can be found here http://forums.xna.com/forums/t/40309.aspx

Also feel free to have a look at our other game Yo-Ho Kablammo http://canalsidestudios.com/yoho/ which is available on Xbox Live Arcade now!

 

Hmm ... are you saying your game is so bad it's good and falls into the category that the OP was originally asking about?

 

No its just that the OP didn't class one of the games as a good B Movie game because it was a AAA title, ours isn't They also asked if anyone knew of any B Movie games and ours is based on the same theme.

Its more of a 'B Movie' theme we were going for rather than it being so bad its good.

 

Does Peter Jackson's Bad Taste count as a B movie?

 

Yeah, Bulletwitch was an odd one. Pretty good for a blast.

 

I'd be shocked to hear anyone thinking it could be classed as anything else.

 

I see what you mean when I check out the aliens in your game:

http://canalsidestudios.com/missingreel/screenshots/originals/Mr Xbox-6.png

Looks like fun! Will you be releasing it on Steam?

 

I was asking myself the very same thing this week

ofc, my definition of a "B game" would be that of an "underground" game or some kind of stuff like that.

like back in the 80's with the cult films (last house on the left, necRomantic, pink flamingos, etc...), you know, stuff that mainstream studios just couldnt distribute or something

 

Embarrassingly... I really loved Army of Two (on the x-box admittedly and in coop) but I think I ended up playing it through about 4-5 times with different friends. It's a game that has some really bad lines and questionable plot but it's really kinda funny and enjoyable because of this... it's not a long game though, ~6hrs I think I managed once or twice, so it kind of sticks to that theory.

 

How about Counter-strike: Condition Zero/deleted scenes? Most of us have it on steam already i guess, and it's a fun walkthrough to see some of the ideas valve?/sierra?/cliffe?? had to take the superpopular cs to the next level, but it never made it to the shelves.