Glum Buster

By: Paul Eres

On: April 27th, 2009

From almost out of nowhere, Glum Buster is released. CosMind spent about four years working on this game, with little hype — no trailers, not many previews. Only a few people even really knew about its existence, such as the IGF judges (it had been an entry) and the members of the small Game Maker community Eo (since he posted a small demo of it back in 2005 for other members there to be amazed at). But those people have been quietly looking forward to this game’s release for a long time. Accompanying its IGF entry description was a small rhyme and nothing else: “Cheer up, dear friend, or they may come. And take you where the glum is from.”

The game itself is a platformer with interesting environments, mechanics, and ideas — CosMind describes it as something from his daydreams, for ours. From the conversations I’ve had with him on the Eo forums, he has very strong and unique ideas about game design, so it’s not surprising that the game is fairly different from other platformers in its atmosphere and level designs.

I don’t want to say too much about the game because discovering it is part of the pleasure, but at the same time I want to express my enthusiasm for the game because so much care and work went into it and because it offers a unique play experience (the closest comparison is Seiklus, but comparing a game as unique as this to any other game feels wrong almost). The best moment for me was when, after the first few screen-size small stages, a large world opened up, and a grasshopper appeared that I could ride on, and I lost the ability to fly, and the sky went from its menacing red with many moons to a bright blue and a grassy castle, and I realized Glum Buster’s world was much bigger than I had ever imagined.