Preview: Revenge of the Sunfish 2

By: Derek Yu

On: September 7th, 2013

Revenge of the Sunfish was a delightful find in 2008. Equal parts horror and humor, it’s a bizarre, genre-blending game that reminds me vaguely of both WarioWare and the cult classic PS1 title LSD. Five years later, JinxTengu is following up Sunfish with a sequel that looks much more ambitious but lacking none of the crude charm and aggressiveness that made the original so enjoyable to play.

According to this interview with JinxTengu, the game is slated for an October release on PC, with iPhone and Android to follow. A $5 price tag is probable.

Pasta Master

By: Derek Yu

On: September 9th, 2008

JinxTengu’s Pasta Master (aka Paster Master, aka Mr. Pasta) is kind of the gaming equivalent of that scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark where people’s faces melt off. Yes, that one. Except it makes a lot less sense.

In the game, you play Mr. Mingo, an amateur magician and pasta restauranteur. Things are going well for him until demons from hell turn a bowl of his pasta into an inter-dimensional gateway. Now, disembodied and pissed off, Mr. Mingo must use his magic hat to drive back the demons and rescue his restaurant from “the clutches of evil incarnate,” aka Evil Boris! Oooookay!

As an arena shoot ‘em up, Pasta Master isn’t particularly unique with regards to game mechanics… but then again, it doesn’t really have to be. Use the arrow keys to move and aim/shoot with the mouse (no WASD controls, unfortunately). The number in the lower-right corner signifies the strength of your beams, and it depletes when you’re shooting (and charges when you’re not). There are two power-ups you can collect in the game – a bottle of ketchup that destroys all the enemies on the screen, and a protective bubble that’s good for one hit.

Yeah, this is a challenging and bizarre game that offers probably the most frightening food-based horror since Burgertime. I like that it genuinely gets scarier the further you get into the game. If there’s a Hell, it looks like this. That fire and brimstone stuff is just weak in comparison.

Note: This is the first of JinxTengu’s games that he has personally rated 5 stars.

(Thanks, Etienne!)

TIGdb: Entry for Pasta Master

Revenge of the Sunfish

By: Derek Yu

On: March 28th, 2008

I love the idea that there are these rogue game developers out there, working silently in their homes after dark, and using The Games Factory/MMF to make crude, bizarre, amazing B-Games just because they get a kick out of it. I also love that, thanks to the internet, I can find out about these games and then expose you to them (against your will)!

JinxTengu’s Revenge of the Sunfish (20 Mb, direct download) is a frightening, psychedelic experience that assaults your sense of good taste with its “terrible” graphics, grating sounds, jarring transitions, and lack of consistent game rules. Gross-out humor and ultraviolence abound, albeit in a cartoonish form. But the game is also strangely playable, which is, I believe, the hallmark of great B-Games (like Sexy Hiking, for example).

JinxTengu (real name: Jacob Buczynski) has a whole page of out-of-this-world games waiting for you to explore. The games are all quite varied. So if you find Revenge of the Sunfish too unintelligible, maybe try Seismic Death… a simple top-down shooter that lets you dig through walls.

Be sure to pick up cncs32.dll and put it in your “Windows/System32” folder if you’re having trouble running the games.

(Thanks a bunch, wourme!)