Jank game recommendations - Love 'em even though they suck. Weird in the good way, but you never pay full price.

[Jack Of Owls]

Had to chuckle when I saw the trailer for Devil Spire and the digitized goat bleating of one of the monsters (it was a lil midget of a monster that seemed derived from a goat so at least it was appropo). Graphics took me back a bit to Ken's Labyrinth, which I never played because I was already by then a Doom/Duke3D snob.

Can't personally recall any professionally produced game that had overt jank, though if we get into Modder's Domain I can come up with a million of 'em.

 

[Jack Slash]

Even more importantly, Hammerfight was part of the emerging Russian indie scene back in 2008, when it won a few awards on the Independent Games Festival.

I wonder if they're still getting paid for the sales of their game given the whole Russia embargo thing. Hammerfight is pretty damned fun. I got it as part of a Humble Bundle ages ago. Got the bundle for something else, but ended up spending a good chunk of time with Hammerfight.

In an interview from a year ago, the developer Konstantin Koshutin said this:

"We are low on time, yet Highfleet is being sold well so we are good on funds to keep going."

So I think he is secure on the payment front. There are ways for Russian businessmen to receive payments from their publishers/distributors abroad, like establishing a legal entity in Cyprus or making a new business account in a Kazakh bank, to name a couple. He probably figured something out.

 

[Beastro]

Shankarum is a hilarious little Indian game. Looking at Mandy's play of it I wouldn't wanna try it myself.

Gameplay seems to revolve around qhat would be considered exploiting a poorly implemented skill with how the game centers around the possession ability in order to stay alive:

 

[CryptRat]

This one is fun (don't get fooled by the plateforming controls it's much more of a traditional adventure game than a plateformer but overall the puzzles are quite easy so even people who hate adventure games can probably play it).

 

[Fedora Master]

Dark Souls as filtered through the drunken mind of SDG

 

[Falksi]

Objectively nowhere near a top 10 game but I can't help myself. Ne plus ultra amongst weird titles I love.

This is jank? It makes most AAA titles look like Beta versions

 

[deama]

There's giants citizen kabuto from a long time ago now:


Heavy metal fakk 2 I always thought was a bit janky.

Evil Islands I quite like, at least he first half of it.

and the Earth Defence force games generally have a lot of jank:

 

[HumanTotemPole]

Objectively nowhere near a top 10 game but I can't help myself. Ne plus ultra amongst weird titles I love.

This is jank? It makes most AAA titles look like Beta versions

Normies tend to squeal about the english translation but I've always loved the off-kilter dialogue and flavour text. Memorable and a big part of why the setting feels so novel even if I doubt it was entirely intentional.

It's the levels and the encounter design that show the seams for me.

Levels are all very strong thematically but tend to be quite short even with Streum On's now well recognised talent for conveying a sense of scale. Compare something like Wurster Corps with some of the Necromunda levels to get a sense of what I mean.

Encounter design remains Streum On's biggest problem and it's at its most barebones here. Little more than limitless waves of enemies spawning into defined map areas with a few more static spawns of special enemies like the Gunships or Snipers. Has a knock on-effect on other systems e.g. minimal resource management other than your health bar. The studio has it in them to make an objectively all-time great FPS but they're just not quite able to put it all together. Rambled about it in the Necromunda thread a while back.

 

[Fargus]

Goldenland 2
Konung games
Spells of Gold

Not really good games but strangely enjoyable ones.

Spells of Gold is a simplistic hack'n'slash and kike simulator where you travel across the realm broken into floating island-fragments through portals, buying and selling wares for profit, completing jobs and earning reputation in the guild of your choice.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

This was the first game that I'm aware of that was made by the developers of "My Time at Portia". It's part MineCraft, you can make your own guns and swords, you can make vehicles, and even build your own colony. Apparently it's now free as well!



It looks like RimWorld, but it's actually a CRPG with a really odd character system. You can also farm, build your base, and so on. There's teleports to various locations that you can unlock. Towns to visit. Lots of interesting stuff.

 

[Morenatsu.]

LEGO ROCK RAIDERS

 

[NecroLord]

You ever played Line of Sight: Vietnam?
Janky, low budget Vietnam War fun...

 

[Wirdschowerdn]

Not sure if jank, but you should play it anyway.