Humour is highly subjective, so we're quite willing to concede that you might – might – find Indiecalypse hilarious. We only wish we could say that you'll find it fun to play with the same level of confidence.
This bawdy adventure sees you taking control of three nerds as they bid to make a video game. It's a loose premise that sets up a string of knock-about cartoon set pieces, off-colour jokes, and quick fire mini-games that parody established indie titles and gaming classics. Early examples include nods to Enter The Gungeon, Super Punch-Out!!, and Papers, Please. 'Great,' you might be thinking. 'I love those games!' We do too. But Indiecalypse's tributes are shallow facsimiles of the real thing, calling to mind the cheap Flash games of yesteryear.
Many of them amount to little more than clunky QTE scenes, while ostensibly meatier shooter sections like the aforementioned Enter The Gungeon tribute possess precisely none of the pep or finesse of the source material. We suppose there's something to be said for the sheer breathless variety on offer here, but the general brevity becomes more a source of relief given how downright bad many of these games are.
Some provide nothing but frustration due to clunky movement, laggy controls or unhelpfully vague instructions. There's a Bit Trip-aping auto runner section that was genuinely difficult to get through because of poor performance, with a stuttering frame rate that made it tricky to see and react to the incoming rubbish bins and piles of poo in time.
Which brings us to the game's sense of humour. Like we said in the intro, we fully accept that humour is subjective. You might well find Indiecalypse's jokes about casual murder, abuse, obesity and vomiting amusingly dark and 'edgy'. All we can say is that we (or at least, this particular writer) did not. We found it to be painfully unfunny – not in an offensive way, but rather in a tiresomely puerile way.
We get it. The bar for entry is pretty low. Dropping multiple F-bombs and masturbation references in a video game is guaranteed to raise a few cheap laughs. And being cynical about the games industry and wider gaming culture – biting the hand that feeds, if you will – is all very daring. But Indiecalypse offers precious little insight into the indie development process it so casually dismisses, and even less wit.
There's some pleasure to be found in the game's crisp cartoon art style, and a certain level of flair to the animated interludes. But then you encounter an atrocious auto-save system and a couple of loading screen freezes, and you're back to being miserable. Indiecalypse just isn't any fun to play. Maybe the very act of making these gaming parodies play so badly is a deep meta joke in and of itself. In which case, you got us. But we think the real joke is on the person who drops good money on this game.
Comments 32
It's too close to home
And it's too near the bone
t.
a very intellectual reviewer.
It’s 2020 and games like this are still made. I swear I played more groundbreaking stuff on Newgrounds in 2005.
Not surprised at this score simply because the developers couldn't even get the name right. Obviously the natural portmanteau of "indie" and "apocalypse" is "indiepocalypse", yet for some reason they went with "Indiecalypse". I'm not even sure how to pronounce it, or how it is intended to be pronounced, but since in about fourteen minutes I'll have forgotten everything about this game, including having bothered with this comment, I'm not going to worry.
How can you just straight up use an art style like this? This is just Gravity Falls.
Heaven knows I'm miserable now, had my eye on this one.
This is one of the most scathing reviews I've ever seen here.
The very fact that the first screenshot shows they've censored swearing in their own games points out that they want to be seen as edgy and controversial but don't have the balls to even swear properly.
Take a number 2 or get off the pot, as it were.
And I've no problem with something being controversial, if there's an actual solid point that they're trying to make. But being controversial for the sake of it is the province of early teens.
It's 2020. If you still think (not-quite) swearing in a video game is brave and edgy, I feel sorry for you.
@JimmySpades
Agree 1million%. Grammatically, the game's name is an abortion. And probably underlines the general intelligence of the numpties behind this title.
This is absolutely hilarious, wowww dude out of all the games to turn out bad, of course it's THIS one LMAO
The fact that there's a Keep Calm poster in the first screenshot tells me this game still thinks it's the early 2010's when that was parodied everywhere.
What a bunch of nerds
Just makes me wish the AVGN games would hurry up and come to Switch.
The reviewers on this site have rated some bad games fairly well, so I'm actually impressed that a game was rated this badly. That's an accomplishment.
@Cool_Squirtle you know a site's reviews are useless when you have to commend them for being harsh once in a blue moon 😂
Looked like edgy trash, not surprised.
This game really deserves a Please-Stop out of 10
Looks about as edgy as an origami shuriken left out in the rain.
Amazing it got 3 points. I hate that it did Papers Please like that, that game is an absolute gem.
@durr
Conker's Bad Fur Day was funny, and also a great game.
This 3 out of 10 is not solely because the reviewer didn't get on with the humour, but mostly because it is a bad game.
Everyone else might be thin skinned in your eyes but at least they can understand why this game got a low score so they aren't stupid.
@Pablo17 It was dark when [he] drove the point home ...
@durr ok, to be fair, they listed Borderlands' Humor as a con so with that game, I understand that.
But this game isn't rated a 3 because of its just humor, [Borderlands still got an 8, which is still really good, and the humor wasn't listed as the only problem] it's because its a game that makes fun of indie games, yet is a bad game itself.
Humor is different for everyone, for example, I don't like the big bang theory, but you might. But people don't see a game's quailty in different ways. Their taste in Video Games are different, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the games they don't like are bad, and that doesn't mean that the genres they like always have good games.
If you're gonna call someone thin skinned, at least have an open mindset.
(Then again they rated The Outer Worlds for Switch an 8, so just go to better review sites.)
I completely agree with the reviewer. From the sound of it this game would be massively unappealing. No thank you!
I didn't even find masturbation jokes and endless f-bombs funny when I was in middle school, which is the age group I think that humor targets.
There are ways to make that kind of humor work, but not many.
But like the reviewer said, humor is subjective, you might enjoy it.
@durr well, it’s your loss of money
I'm not surprised, honestly. I thought this would've been a nice little "joke" purchase of sorts, but reading the review for this it seems that even jokes can't save it. takes Indiecalypse off of the Wishlist
@durr The difference with Conker's Bad Fur Day is that it still managed to play virtually just as fine as any 3D platformer back then (despite its clunkiness and cheap deaths in some areas) and its humor actually worked on many fronts. Compare all of that to Indiecalypse that "spoofs" other games for the sake of it without retaining the meat and potatoes of said taken material, as well as its humor crossing the line on many fronts to compare itself to Allen Gregory (which is probably the worst cartoon ever).
@nessisonett Like Fancy Pants?
Mate, you're about as edgy as a satsuma 😆
Think I'll pick this one up. Sounds great. Love wearing and masturbation.
@nessisonett Remember the Newgrounds April Fools joke when "Marty" took over and made atrocious games that replaced everything else? That is what I am reminded of when reading this review.
I just think the game looks like a painfully average switch e-shop garbage indie game.
What a heavenly way to die.
Hasnt anyone played Frankie goes to Holywood on the C64? Now that was a mashup of random games that had no point
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