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I Wanna Be the Guy

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I Wanna Be The Guy: The Movie: The Game
Title screen of I Wanna Be the Guy, influenced by the title screen of Mega Man 2.
Developer(s)Michael "Kayin" O'Reilly
Publisher(s)Independent
Designer(s)Michael "Kayin" O'Reilly
EngineMMF2
Platform(s)Windows
ReleaseOctober 2007
Genre(s)Action-adventure
Mode(s)Single-player, boss rush

I Wanna Be the Guy: The Movie: The Game (IWBTG) is a 2D platform indie freeware video game. First released in October 2007 by Michael "Kayin" O'Reilly,[1] the game is not in active development, despite being listed as a beta. It is best known for its unusually difficult platforming elements, unorthodox level design and utilizing sound effects, characters and music from many other games.[2] The game was created with Multimedia Fusion 2.[3]

Plot

Like many traditional games that I Wanna Be the Guy parodies, the game's plot is straightforward and does not heavily impact gameplay. The player controls "The Kid", who is on a mission to become "The Guy". The entirety of the plot is given in a message during the opening credits, a parody of bad Japanese translations and broken English in early Nintendo Entertainment System games.[4]

Development

The game is an adventure platform game and designed in the style of 8-bit video games. The inspiration came from a challenging Japanese Flash game on 2channel called Jinsei Owata no Daibōken (人生ｵﾜﾀ＼(^o^)／の大冒険), which Kayin played and thought he could outdo in terms of difficulty.[3][5]

Gameplay

The player controls "The Kid". The controls are limited to left/right movement, jumping, double-jumping and shooting. IWBTG is made up of several stages split into many screens, which are mostly pastiches of Nintendo Entertainment System games, such as Tetris, Ghosts'n Goblins, The Legend of Zelda, Castlevania, Kirby, Mega Man and Metroid. At the end of each stage, a boss must be defeated to progress. The first seven bosses (Mike Tyson; Mecha Birdo; Dracula; Kraidgief [a parody of palette-hacked character glitches]; Mother Brain; Bowser, Wart and Dr. Wily in the Koopa Klown Kar; and a mix between the Mecha Dragon from Mega Man 2 and the Yellow Devil from Mega Man and Mega Man 3) are adapted from classic games, mostly platformers, but their behavior and appearance has been modified and enhanced for IWBTG. The final boss, The Guy, who is The Kid's father, is unique to IWBTG. The game parodies many 8-bit and 16-bit era video games, such as the frequent use of references and sound effects from the Super Nintendo game Mario Paint.

IWBTG is most famous for its difficulty.[6] Most of the landscape is engineered specifically to kill the player. Alongside a traditional range of recognizable dangers, such as spikes and pits, there are many less obvious threats as well, most of which are all but impossible to avoid without either previous knowledge or trial and error (such as Tetris pieces and "Delicious Fruit", which can fall downwards, upwards or sideways[3]). The Kid always dies with a single hit, at which point he explodes into a mass of blood. Although each death results in a "Game Over", the player is allowed an infinite number of attempts.[7] From the starting screen, there are four different ways to progress; all of them ultimately lead to the same warp screen which returns to the first screen. Thus, to complete the game, the first six bosses along each path must be defeated before the warp screen will allow the player to access the final area.

The game has four difficulty settings: "Medium", "Hard", "Very Hard" and "Impossible", with "Hard" considered to be the "normal difficulty". The only difference between difficulty settings is the number of save points available throughout the game, from 62, 41, 22 to none at all. Also, while playing on Medium mode, The Kid's hair has a pink bow in it, and any save points exclusive to Medium difficulty are labeled "WUSS" instead of "SAVE".

Spin-offs

I Wanna Save the Kids is the prequel to I Wanna Be the Guy. It features "The Kid" escorting children back to their home. On the way, The Kid has to save these kids and himself from various dangers, as well as bringing them to the next level. The game closely parallels the classic computer game Lemmings, while still maintaining the notorious difficulty of IWBTG. The game is no longer in development, although a demo is available.[8]

After the success of fighting game competitor Ari "Floe" Weintraub streaming his playthroughs of I Wanna Be the Guy and multiple fan spin-offs, Kayin announced another spin-off to IWBTG titled I Wanna Be the Guy: Gaiden. Planned as an episodic series, Gaiden has "The Lad" trying to find "The Kid" after his ascent to Guy-dom. The first act was first featured in the 2012 iteration of the Evolution Fighting Game Tournament with Floe playing.[9]

See also

References

  1. ^ IWBTG! A Very Hard Game About a Boy and 8-bit Masochism!
  2. ^ Boing Boing
  3. ^ a b c IWBTG! - Faq
  4. ^ The Independent Gaming Source
  5. ^ "shnsk". "The maker of Jinsei Owata no Daibōken receives a letter of thanks from the maker of IWBTG: 'Your game inspired me'" (『人生ｵﾜﾀ＼(^o^)／の大冒険』作者に『IWBTG』作者から感謝のメール「あなたのゲームにインスパイアされた」). getnews.jp. 5-13-2010
  6. ^ Review: I Wanna Be the Guy
  7. ^ How to play
  8. ^ Downloads
  9. ^ START GETTING WET, BOYS: GAIDEN IS COMING
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