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Games Around the World (DS)

Status: Stopped playing - Something better came along
I started playing this game on Wednesday 14 June, 2023  //  I stopped playing this game on: Wednesday 14 June, 2023
Current opinion of this game
No comment, yet.

June 14, 2023 06:05:49 PM
I was expecting a collection of games from around the world (like, traditional folk games, or popular card/board games) but this collection of 17 minigames is...well, a collection of 17 random mini games that really have nothing much in common (sometimes there are shared mechanics, but not always) other than low production values, janky gameplay (in some of them), and weird/strange/unusual theming...

I played almost all of them and was surprised by how much variety there was - at first I thought they'd all be variations on whack-a-mole or target practice...but there's a quasi-endless runner, an arkanoid/breakout clone, a quasi-endless jumper (jump to next platform up, but avoid enemy and fish spitball), and a few more. TO be fair, many are variations on whack-a-mole...

As I'm playing the collection I'm thinking - wow, collecting a bunch of small mini-games might be a really good way to get a very large team of students to work on a single game together. Each mini-game would have to be super well executed and can be done in relative isolation from other teams, but the collection would have to be cool - with some overarching theme/reason to bring them all together (not like this game, which is basically a jukebox selector).

Even the production values on these games is low (even for the time the game was made, to be fair) - and looking at the list of credits I see about 6 different people listed (2 of which are audio), so - a small team indeed! I wonder how long they had to make the game, six months?

I'm not a fan of people making fun of "bad games" because they're bad - generally in my experience it's just a series of problems usually relating to not enough time, budget, or experience. No one sets out really to make a bad game (on purpose). Ok, I'm sure there are exceptions, but for commercial release - especially in a physical format - that just seems like a bad business decision. So, is this collection "bad"? Yes - BUT...the but being, I have no idea how much time, money, etc. they had to make the game...


 
kudos for original design to Rodrigo Barria