It has taken me A WHILE, but we are finally at the end of this BAD journey. First by sharing some ideas, then by actually submitting games, and finally by putting my through this gruelling experience and playing and reviewing every single entry. Good think I didn’t promise to do the VN version too… it would have been too much!
As expected, some of us didn’t follow the rules and got disqualified because their entries were not only not bad, they were really good! Many edged the line between bad and good, with quite a few entries that were entertaining even though they were still pretty bad. And a few that were really bad.
So let’s quickly go back through the entries and see how bad (or not they were). They are only categorised, not ranked.
D-Tier: AKA the disqualified entries
- 'Steading of the Hill Giant Chief , by Mike Russo
- Coca-Cola Presents:
Fuck Capitalism Jam 2032 , by PRINCESS INTERNET CAFé - I PROMISE I AM WORKING ON THE GAME by… me.
- Keep Queuing , by Kastel
- Floaters , by Maliface
- Grocery Quest, by Morbid Crow
- WINCHESTER by catsket
- Country Song Ghostwriting Simulator, by Deadnettle Games
- I am oblivious to the fact that my best friend is a vampire, by zorkie
- A Colorful World, by ActiveDayDreamer
- The Worst Visual Novel Ever by PyrrhaIphis
C-Tier : Cut-Rate
- the village tour, by Tabitha
- Stairs, by Hochimo
- BEER, by Max Fog
- venice vacation , by Tabitha
- T-Shirt Aisle, by Tom Dunn
- ohhh dear, by Junias Toothgale
- mall_walk, by graymeditation
B-Tier: Yeah… that’s bad
- time for bed, by nl1234
- The Simuloid Affair: Infinite Possibilities, by C.E.J. Pacian
- Work In Progress, by Hidnook
- bump , by Tabitha
- COLOSSAL CURSEHEAD by prevtenet
- Cool as a Cucumber, by Natasha Luna
- Method in My Madness by Max Fog
- Cloak of Cleansing, by Zac Marino
- the CHRONICLES of YORLANDIA: part One: The calm before THE STORM, by Hanon Ondricek
- stage fright, by Griffin Raynor
- the 500 rooms by… me
A-Tier: Atrocious
- COD Version 2: The Terribly Faulty Extended Game: the game that changed the world (but extended!!) , by Max Fog
- Wedding Party, by stiggzz22
- Why? or also known as Untitled, by Rylie Eric
- GUT THE MOVIE 2: GUT vs. TER THE TWOVIES, by Coral Nulla
- Stealth Adventure (Really Bad IF Jam) by 8fyos99
and finally…
S-TIER: Skin-crawling
THE ENTRIES THAT MADE ME WANT TO THROW MY LAPTOP AWAY
- You’re the Judge Now, Dog!, by Andrew Schultz
- The World’s Most Annoying Game, by climbingstars
- Terrence, by Zach Valence
(lol, one of each type of IF: choice, parser, VN)
So what did we learn?
Bad games come in different shapes and form. There are some objective elements that make a game bad, like broken links, bugs, undefined commands, inaccessible interfaces… But at the end of the day, it still ends up being pretty subjective. What I found funny or entertaining wasn’t to the taste of others. What some people thought was pretty cool, others really didn’t like it AT ALL.
So yeah. 25% disqualifications, 3 games REALLY BAD.
We’ll be back in a few months to hopefully decrease the first, and increase the second.
(NO RAGRETS!)