Parody

Jason Nelson has made games that are weird, laden with text, and obsequiously obsequious obsequity. They are enjoyable if you're into that. His latest isn't so heavy on the light gameplay but it does lampoon the joys of Christmas well enough. You roll a slot machine, lining up modular bits of text that combine to tell a funny and dynamic story. Certain combinations yield secret videos similar to videos hidden in his other stuff.

Rohrer's Passage has always polarized gamers; either you appreciated its attempt to elevate the medium past primal urges or you thought it was pretentious fluff. Developer Lurk falls into the latter camp, and did the most indie thing you could do in response: make a parody game poking fun at it. While Rohrer's piece is heartfelt and earnest, Lurk's anti-Passage is absurd and nihilistic -- and elicits a chuckle or two as well. While he claims that games can never be art he inexplicably made a game that would qualify as such, albeit in a satirical Dadaist sort of way. If you've ever participated in one of those "iz gaimz aart" arguments in a forum (or here!) it'll whack your funny bone.

No, you aren't going crazy. Yes, that picture is accurate. That is Mario, and he is indeed fighting an MS Paint shit monster. I should add that a MIDI rendition of The Phantom Menace battle music is played throughout this scenario. I should also add that this boss fight is broken and obtuse, and so far I can't figure out how to pass it. I think this segment encapsulates the experience of Mario's Adventure for me, and is pretty fucking hilarious. Super Marco (Mario's autistic cousin) is also entertaining in the same MST3K kind of way, and is tantamount to playing a platformer made by Andy Warhol circa 1986. Today is an exploration of amateur design, a meditation on the earnest and unintended Shit Games out there.

From the maker of ROM Check Fail comes a parody of Little Big Planet that subverts the gameplay as well as the nameplay -- like a lit'ol something I did when I was high.

I nominate Edmund McMillan as the Aleister Crowley of games. The man is a master of molesting fine sensibilities, using a yoga that combines gameplay with warped aesthetics. His meditation on human sexuality turned genitalia into projectile-lobbing warships, his platformers delightfully revel in needless violence with a twist of the absurd, like the eskimo-skinning revenge of Clubby the Seal.
He also turns around and does totally whimsical, non-offensive work, like Gish or Aether which evokes the pure spirituality of dreams. I can only conclude that his aim is throw conflicting symbols of obscenity and friendliness, gameplay and absurd aesthetics, to tease a fraction of the audience into premature ejaculightenment -- and Meat Boy continues the tradition.

Fraid is a quick parodic riff on Jonathan Blow's brilliant Braid. It features completely impenetrable "puzzles" that you essentially "solve" by doing random things until something happens, along with vaporous story text with the illusory feeling of literary depth but that ultimately means nothing.

It's short -- five, ten minutes at most -- and far from deep, but a cute little goof from our own Patrick Dugan.

It's a World of Warcraft screenshot, right? Well, no -- it's a screenshot from WTF?!, a Flash-based sidescroller parodying WoW. And it's note-perfect, too -- every interface element and the backgrounds and characters look like they're ripped straight from Azeroth.

Syobon Action hates you. You’ll find this out the hard way: every jump, platform, mushroom, pipe... even the cloud in the background is out there to kill you. In time you will hate Syobon Action. And that’s why you’ll love it so much.