Mighty Jill Off

Mighty Jill Off
Title screen for Mighty Jill Off.
Developer(s)	Anna Anthropy
Publisher(s)	Independent
Designer(s)	Anna Anthropy
Platform(s)	Windows
Release	2008
Genre(s)	Platform
Mode(s)	Single-player

Mighty Jill Off is a 2D platform indie freeware video game. It was released in 2008 by an independent video game designer who goes under the handle of Anna Anthropy. It stars a submissive named Jill, who has a boot fetish. She is forced to climb up the tower after her Queen kicks her down it for, in her words, being a "greedy slut." The gameplay requires Jill to jump and glide through obstacles, and is noted for its high level of difficulty. Jill has infinite lives, allowing players to keep playing from the various checkpoint. It serves as an homage to the 1986 arcade game Mighty Bomb Jack. She was featured in the 2010 platform game, Super Meat Boy, a game also noted for its high level of difficulty.

Gameplay and scenario

Gameplay in Mighty Jill Off, depicting Jill mid-jump.

Mighty Jill Off incorporates several BDSM themes into it. It stars a masochistic lesbian named Jill who has a boot fetish. She is kicked to the bottom of her Queen's tower for acting like, in the Queen's words, a "greedy slut." Jill attempts to climb back up the tower and return to her Queen. Once she does so, she is given affection from her Queen, only to be be told to do it again after being constricted and have a ball gag inserted into her mouth.

Some of Mighty Jill Off's gameplay is lifted from the 1986 arcade game Mighty Bomb Jack, such as the jumping mechanics, as a tribute to it. Players can control Jill in three ways - moving, jumping, and gliding. Players must utilize all three of of her abilities to get through the game. For example, in the gameplay image to the left, she must glide through a series of spikes slowly, accomplished by tapping the jump button numerous times while in the air. There are three types of obstacles - spikes, fire, and spiders, the latter often moving to attack Jill when she comes close. Touching these things will kill Jill instantly, forcing her to start at the most recent checkpoint, typically defined by a change in room. Jill has infinite lives, allowing players to die as many times as they like without having to start the game over. The game length is estimated at 10-20 minutes for a player's first time through.

Development

Mighty Jill Off was designed by Anna Anthropy, also known as Auntie Pixelante, who implemented perversion, lesbians, and BDSM themes due to her affiliation with all three of these concepts. It was released in 2008, and was also designed by James Harvey and Andrew Toups, who provided the artwork and music for the game respectively. She designed Mighty Jill Off to feature "dykes and perverts" due to a lack of "real dyke characters" and "dyke desires," arguing that while "supposed dykes" are seen in commercials, these characters are "written and drawn by men." As a result, she feels that "they don't look like us, they don’t express themselves like us, they don’t lust like us." In implementing BDSM themes into the game, Anna describes the challenges to players who lead Jill through the game as being similar to those of a top who leads the bottom through a scene.

Follow-ups

A harder version, entitled Mighty Jill Off - Jill Off Harder Edition, was released some time after the original version. Anna described it as being similar in execution to Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, which was notably more difficult than its predecessor, Super Mario Bros. She made it with the intention of reusing assets from the original game such as sprites and backgrounds, but making sure that none of the challenges are recycled. She also made it as a result of Jill Off being compared to the notably difficult freeware game I Wanna Be the Guy. She also made a follow-up called Jill Off with One Hand, which features "OneSwitch" gameplay, a type of gameplay requiring only one button, often for the sake of the disabled. where players cannot move left or right, and can simply jump to stay alive as long as possible. It was created over the course of Buy Nothing Day, where she rationalized that it made more sense to create rather than consume on this day. It was also made preceding an interview with a mobile games studio, figuring that it would work well on cell phones. The protagonist Jill was featured in the 2010 platform game Super Meat Boy, which featured several characters from games, many of which are noted for their intense difficulty.

Art design

The developers held a contest for people to contribute fan art for the game; the five winners won hand-made Mighty Jill Off activity books, which included activities such as creating make-out partners for a group of repulsive, tongue-waggling oafs, as well as writing a poem for the game's Queen. He scanned one of the books and posted it online, allowing others to contribute and send in their drawings. The book features several BDSM-related themes.

Reception and promotion

File:Mighty Jill Off BDSM.png

A cutscene from Mighty Jill Off, demonstrating both the Dom/sub relationship between Jill and the Queen as well as Jill's bootfetish.

Mighty Jill Off has received positive reception, in particular for its difficult gameplay. Retronauts editor Jess Ragan gave note to Anna for understanding the quality of its inspiration, Mighty Bomb Jack. 1UP.com listed Mighty Jill Off as one of their favorite independently-developed freeware games in 2009. Gamasutra listed it as one of their runner-ups for the top five best indie games of 2008. On two separate occasions, IndieGames.com listed Mighty Jill Off as "game picks;" first for the original version, and the follow-up to it, Mighty Jill Off - Jill Off Harder Edition, the latter described as a "delight." GamesRadar's Nathan Meuiner listed it as one of the "most ruthlessly punishing indie games," commenting that the difficulty level may make players question whether the "pain of a million deaths is worth the pleasure awaiting" players. James DeRosa did a similar list, though limiting it to games referenced in Super Meat Boy. He included Mighty Jill Off in this list, giving credit to Anna for coining the genre "masocore."

It has also received praise for its insight into BDSM and the Dom/sub relationship. Rock Paper Shotgun's Kieron Gillen called it an "interesting examination of the master/slave relationship, with her in the domme position," though he called his words "art wank." He comments that a common thing to say about people who play certain games, particularly difficult games, one has to be a masochist. However, he adds that Mighty Jill Off demonstrates that the characters are masochistic as well. He compared the Dom/sub relationship to the player/game designer relationship, pointing out how similar to how the Queen makes Jill go through these ordeals, the game designer makes a game for the player to go through. Another Rock Paper Shotgun editor named Alec Meer described it as a "wry, subversive examination of why videogame protagonists put themselves through a torturous amount of struggle to reach their objectives." Bitmob's James DeRosa praised her for implementing elements and ideas that most games do not cover, describing it as a "hypersexualized, bondage-themed platformer" which Anna uses to explore the "power dynamics of sexuality and the hegemony of male and female sex roles in video games -- as well as the significance of difficulty and reward as a design method."