| 1 | %% Administrivia/ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them. |
| 2 | %% "X is this" and "X and Y" etc. are not context. Examples must explain ''how'' they're fit the trope. |
| 3 | %% |
| 4 | |
| 5 | Return to [[QuirkyWork main]]. |
| 6 | |
| 7 | [[foldercontrol]] |
| 8 | |
| 9 | ---- |
| 10 | !!North America |
| 11 | [[folder:Canada]] |
| 12 | * ''VideoGame/ASuperMarioThing'', a wicket made in the form of the LetsPlay/{{raocow}}-centric ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' ROM Hack. This was a collaborative effort by the members of the [[http://talkhaus.raocow.com/ TalkHaus]] community (being said French-Canadian [=LPer's=] forum), and managed to totally baffle a Japanese {{Lets Play}}er, [[http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm15837620 Ryuu.]] |
| 13 | * ''VideoGame/{{Jazzpunk}}'' takes place in a 1950s pop-art reimagining of {{Cyberpunk}} where all the human characters are shaped like restroom sign icons and it just gets weirder from there. It's a comedy game, in the sense that the comedy is the main attraction; there's very little gameplay beyond walking around and interacting with things to make silly (and often quite surreal) stuff happen. |
| 14 | * ''VideoGame/{{Maize}}'' has the player attempting to solve puzzles on an abandoned research facility surrounded by idiotic sentient corn, the result of a misinterpreted research request by the U.S Government, with the begrudging help of a Russian animate teddy bear. And by no means does the weirdness end there. |
| 15 | [[/folder]] |
| 16 | |
| 17 | [[folder:USA]] |
| 18 | * Some of [[Creator/{{Atari}} Atari Corp.'s]] games (particularly under Jack Tramiel's leadership) definitely qualify as [=WATs=] ('''W'''eird '''A'''tari '''T'''hings?). Two of the most notable are ''Ninja Golf'' for the Platform/{{Atari 7800}}, which combines golf with a side-scrolling fighting game, and ''Kung Food'' for the Platform/AtariLynx, where the player is a miniaturized scientist who must battle mutant vegetables in his refrigerator. |
| 19 | * ''Videogame/BarkleyShutUpAndJamGaiden'' is an exaggerated take on unconventional basketball-themed things from the 90s (such as ''VideoGame/NBAJam'', ''VideoGame/ShaqFu'' and most importantly, ''Film/SpaceJam'', with [[https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1865298-how-charles-barkley-became-the-face-of-a-cult-classic-adventure-video-game one of the creators summing up with]] "It’s just sort of like we said, “Well, what if all these things are serious?”) while blending in increasingly more absurd elements (JRPG cliches, fantasy tabletop gaming, otaku culture, internet forum discourse) in an experience that can be summed up as an acid trip on a basketball court. |
| 20 | * ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot'': A mutated marsupial regularly battles a MadScientist with help from a floating wooden mask and collects peaches called Wumpa Fruit. Said marsupial also [[GoKartingWithBowser invites said scientist to kart racing tournaments]] and has a ChildProdigy sister and a friend who is an Expy of [[{{Creator/MrT}} Mr. T]]! |
| 21 | * The flash game ''[[http://www.kongregate.com/games/GregAnims/death-dice-overdose Death Dice Overdose]]'' as a bizarre and trippy western video game. |
| 22 | * ''VideoGame/EarthwormJim'' is another fine example of a WHAT (Weird Humorous American Thing). It's about an earthworm wearing PoweredArmor who battles against lethal foes such as [[FeatheredFiend Psy-Crow (a galactic bounty hunter crow)]], [[CatsAreMean Evil the Cat]], [[EvilGenius Professor Monkey-For-A-Head]] and his close associate Monkey Professor-For-A-Head, and of course the [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen Evil Queen]] Pulsating, Bloated, Festering, Sweaty, Pus-filled, Malformed [[BigCreepyCrawlies Slug-For-A-Butt]]. |
| 23 | * ''VideoGame/{{Flower}}'' definitely belongs here since it's a game about opening flowers and the inability to lose. |
| 24 | * ''VideoGame/{{Insaniquarium}}'', where you raise fish in your own fish tank! Fish that... ''poop money?'' Which are also preyed upon by random aliens that occasionally warp inside your tank. Which you fight off using a laser gun. Yep, ''Insaniquarium'' is a WHAT alright. |
| 25 | * ''VisualNovel/ILoveYouColonelSanders'': A ''visual novel'' with ''romance elements'' and ''set in an anime high school scenario'' with all the expected archetypes, that is ''officially licensed by KFC''. It doesn't get any quirkier than this. |
| 26 | * Creator/LucasArts had many WHAT (emphasis on "humorous") cases, including ''Videogame/DayOfTheTentacle'', the ''Videogame/MonkeyIsland'' series, ''Videogame/ZombiesAteMyNeighbors'' and ''Videogame/Afterlife1996'' - [[https://www.pressreader.com/uk/retro-gamer/20190321/281655371400344 the lead designer for the last said]] his idea only flew because Lucasarts was "a rather experimental studio at the time", explaining so many quirky games. |
| 27 | * ''VideoGame/NaziZombies'': Four [[SociopathicSoldier crazed soldiers]] fight against zombies in Germany, Japan, USSR, the Arctic, Shangri la, the moon, and post apocalyptic Earth. |
| 28 | %%* The somewhat strange ''VideoGame/NeverwinterNights'' module ''Resurrection Gone Wrong''. |
| 29 | * ''VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies'' has you defending your house from a zombie invasion headed by a zombie MadScientist in a mech. Your allies are a bunch of sapient plants that spit EdibleAmmunition and a crazy man with a pan on his head. [[VideoGame/PlantsVsZombies2ItsAboutTime The sequel]] makes things even weirder by introducing TimeTravel to the mix. |
| 30 | * Though the ''VideoGame/SaintsRow'' series started out as a standard [[VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto GTA]] [[FollowTheLeader clone]], it slowly worked its way to WHAT territory with each subsequent game. By the [[VideoGame/SaintsRowIV fourth game]] you're firing a gun that shoots {{dubstep}} at people in TheFifties while preparing to [[spoiler:kill an evil alien overlord who blew up the Earth]]. And that's not even 1/4th of it. |
| 31 | * Parodied in ''VideoGame/TheSimpsonsGame''. ''Big Super Happy Fun Fun Game'' is a stage built entirely from references to ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'', ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'', and ''VideoGame/KatamariDamacy'', while also using series gags like Mr. Sparkle. Furthered when every character explicitly notes it as being in Japan, much to Homer's frustration. |
| 32 | -->"Okay, so we're in Japan. But I'm not eating any sushi, unless it's covered in chocolate and there's no sushi in it!" |
| 33 | * ''VideoGame/TheSims'': Creator Creator/WillWright deliberately went for this approach. Instead of tying it down to a specific {{Eagleland}} setting, he went for a RetroUniverse inspired by American [[DomCom domestic sitcoms]] from TheFifties through TheNineties, as that was a portrayal of America that would be immediately recognizable as such to Americans while still remaining universal enough that it wouldn't seem utterly foreign to players in other countries. In practice, this means a setting that resembles StepfordSuburbia to the point where a number of critics felt that Wright must have had some satirical intent with the game. Add on the cartoonish, stylized look of the Sims, the [[SpeakingSimlish gibberish language they speak]] (again designed to be as universal as possible), a recurring preset family being named the {{Goth}}s and having a creepy atmosphere to them to match, and the addition of things like aliens, vampires, and witches in the {{expansion|Pack}}s, and you've got yourself a WHAT. |
| 34 | ** In ''VideoGame/TheSims4'', your Sims can ''react'' to a WHAT. The ''City Living'' expansion added, among other things, a public access station (listed on the main page under Live-Action TV) to the television lineup, which can cause your Sims to get a Playful moodlet called "Public Access Weirdness" upon watching the strange content that is broadcast from that station. |
| 35 | -->"Was that [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext a guy in a bear suit giving a speech about the benefits of pescetarianism]]?" |
| 36 | * ''VideoGame/SquirrelStapler'' is a HorrorComedy game where you need to hunt squirrels and staple them to your "wife" (actually a dismembered corpse) to make her beautiful again. If you kill too many squirrels you get to meet [[spoiler:God]], who is a giant squirrel head with bizarre appendages and an exposed brain. |
| 37 | * ''VideoGame/TheStanleyParable'' initially appears to have a coherent narrative about a man named Stanley investigating the mysterious disappearance of his co-workers. However, the story only continues in this way if you follow the Narrator's attempts to {{Railroad|ing}} you into a specific path, and any attempt to disobey will cause the story to go completely OffTheRails. Possible endings include things like Stanley becoming a famous author after writing a book about going up and down in an elevator too many times; or Stanley being transported to another dimension where there are nothing but buttons to press; or Stanley spending his entire life watching footage of silly birds with a bucket that may or may not be an evil entity in disguise. |
| 38 | * ''VideoGame/ToeJamAndEarl'', proving quirky music-based games (in this case, about funky aliens who crash-land on Earth and try to pick their instruments while facing all sorts of weird adversaries, including Santa Claus!) are not exclusive to the Japanese. |
| 39 | * ''VideoGame/TossTheTurtle''. Get a turtle, a cannon, your Gun Of Choice, and add several crazy things like smoking French phoenix-like birds, bananas who can shoryuken the shit out of you, and angry ground creatures with a tenuous hold on their sanity, all for the purpose of getting cash, and you got something that is a grade-A '''WHAT'''. |
| 40 | * ''{{VideoGame/Tyrian}}'' stars at a rather serious tone, as in having the protagonists' family killed as retaliation for betraying a terraforming MegaCorp, and slowly turns the silliness switch to about just enough to reveal the ManBehindTheMan as a cult of free-range ''fruit and ale'' worshippers. Sentient ones, at that. And its god, who is also made of such stuff. Not even the main character has the patience to deal with this kind of '''WHAT'''. |
| 41 | * ''VideoGame/VegetableGame''. As far as we can tell, it's about a crudely-drawn bear hugging escalatingly bad people, from "Jaywalker" up to "UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler". No vegetables involved at all. Also, the game repeatedly tells you not to play it. |
| 42 | * ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'' ''definitely'' counts as a WHAT on the lighter routes. The first NPC you meet is a malicious, sentient ''flower''. From there, notable [=NPCs=] include a pair of Creator/AbbottAndCostello-esque human skeletons, a fish-woman who acts like a living ''shonen'' anime stereotype, and a TinCanRobot who hosts game shows, cooking shows, and even does opera. And that's without getting into the background cast, whose designs lean even more abstract (there's one family composed of sentient piles of snow). When the spider girl who grinds her non-sentient brethren into "spider cider" to use in her cooking is one of the most ''normal'' characters you meet--one of the nicer ones, even--you know you're in for a ride. |
| 43 | ** The {{Elseworld}} spin-off ''VideoGame/{{Deltarune}}'' is a bit more serious than ''Undertale'', but every bit as weird. In your quest, you meet such strange characters as a hot-heated delinquent lizard-girl who eats chalk and [[MetaGuy frequently comments on the weirder aspects of your adventure]], an evil King's [[MinionWithAnFInEvil goofy, incompetent,]] AffablyEvil [[OverlordJr son]] who rides around on a bicycle with burning matches strapped to it because he's too young to ride a motorcycle, a chef who spins around while speaking in a terrible Italian accent, and a computer who manifests as a [[CloudCuckoolander sassy, eccentric]] [[GodSaveUsFromTheQueen evil queen]] of CyberSpace. You also get tasked with designing "A Machine to Thrash Your Own Ass", and have the opportunity to make it look like a duck (which becomes a moot point when the bad guys blow it up because "your machine sucked"). |
| 44 | * ''[[Website/GaiaOnline zOMG!]]'' is a game that [[EverythingTryingToKillYou has you fight, among other things, gift boxes, lawn gnomes, jackets that behave like wolves, and cyborg alien rodents.]] Your weapons are rings, which have effects such as launching beehives, wrapping the monsters in duct tape, and covering yourself or an ally in cooking spray. Pop-culture references abound. And the game takes place on a WorldOfWeirdness as it is. |
| 45 | [[/folder]] |
| 46 | |
| 47 | !!South America |
| 48 | [[folder:Chile]] |
| 49 | * ''VideoGame/ZenoClash'' is a Wichet (as in, '''W'''eird '''Ch'''ilean '''T'''hing). Anything else from ACE Team, like the ''VideoGame/RockOfAges'' series, ''VideoGame/TheDeadlyTowerOfMonsters'' and ''VideoGame/TheEternalCylinder'' also qualify (okay, except for ''VideoGame/BatmanDoom''). They're to Chile as Creator/{{Cactus}} is to Sweden. |
| 50 | [[/folder]] |
| 51 | |
| 52 | !!Asia |
| 53 | [[folder:Japan]] |
| 54 | * ''Franchise/AceAttorney'' owes its success to lots of curious people wondering what the hell the Japanese were thinking making a game based entirely around wacky, over-the-top lawyers. The [[{{Woolseyism}} excellent localization]] helped, too. In Japan it's not seen as so odd because it's [[RealityIsUnrealistic pretty true]] to the Japanese Court system. |
| 55 | * ''VideoGame/AkaSeka'' is an OtomeGame that requires players to have solid knowledge of a ''wide'' span of Japanese history, reaching as early as Yayoi-Asuka period and as recent as Meiji-Shōwa period, to fully enjoy. Other than that, the game also makes frequent use of poetry and wordplay, which makes it even more difficult for people whose first language is not Japanese. It's not as popular as its SpiritualPredecessor ''VideoGame/OneHundredSleepingPrincesAndTheKingdomOfDreams'' not without a reason. |
| 56 | * ''VideoGame/ArmJoe'' ([[http://www.lesmisgame.com/arm_joe.html Link here]]), a freeware 2D fighting game based on ''Literature/LesMiserables''. It has, in addition to the standard cast of characters; [=PonPon=], a Mini-Cooper driving rabbit from another dimension; Robo-Jean, a robotic duplicate of Jean Valjean, who shoots lasers out of his chest, fires rocket punches, and attacks with lightning bolts; and the AnthropomorphicPersonification of the concept of Judgment. |
| 57 | * ''VideoGame/ArcanaHeart'', one of the few [[BishoujoSeries cute-schoolgirl]] fighters that plays well as a game, and the ''only one ever'' that made it to American consoles. |
| 58 | * While the ''VideoGame/BangaiO'' series itself qualifies, its first installment is the best example. The [[HumongousMecha giant robot]] action may not be nonsensical, but the plot, characters and dialogue certainly are. |
| 59 | * ''VideoGame/{{Baroque}}'' is an exercise in "What The Hell?", it's a bizarre and disturbing Sci-fantasy horror game where you're encouraged to keep dying as you enter a terrifying tower in a post-apocalypse world. |
| 60 | * ''VideoGame/TheBattleCats'' could definitely be considered one of these, as it stars a group of [[CatsAreMean adorable yet evil mutant cats]] trying to take over the world... [[VillainProtagonist and you're going to lead them to victory.]] The various enemies, stage names, and [[ExcusePlot plot developments]] are no less weird. |
| 61 | * ''Bein Panzer'' (aka Kouashi Kikou Shidan: Bein Panzer) is an odd (especially for its time) alternate history RealTimeStrategy Playstation 1 game with economic/military development - where in World War 2, humanity has a space elevator between Earth and Mars as well as factions that are analogues to real-life countries. The war will be fought using tanks with legs among other DieselPunk oddities. |
| 62 | * ''Bishi Bashi Special'' is one of those surreal, SuperDeformed cutesy variety games that'd in the '90s would be odd in any place other than Japan. |
| 63 | * The entire ''VideoGame/{{Bomberman}}'' franchise. To recap: An absurdly cute robot [[StuffBlowingUp with more than enough explosives to make even the]] ''Series/MythBusters'' [[StuffBlowingUp squeal with joy]] saving the world (or the universe) on a regular basis. Enemies include: homicidal balloons, giant coins that can phase through walls, your evil twin, ''[[Characters/SuperMarioBrosWarioAndCompany Wario]]'', a ''different'' evil twin, a furry BDSM mistress with a giant robot that shoots eye lasers, ''entire teams made up of evil twins'', a bodybuilder with CoolShades, and what some may argue is you in the future. This isn't even ''touching'' Multiplayer, by the way. |
| 64 | * ''VideoGame/BunnyMustDie'', a game where you play a PlayboyBunny cursed with cat ears who can manipulate time, who fights such enemies as a photorealistic picture of a cat and an expy of Dracula that spouts [[IntentionalEngrishForFunny Zero Wing quotes]] and inflicts instant death by flashing you. Those are just some of the named characters, never mind some of the mooks. |
| 65 | * ''Creator/{{Cave}}'' is notorious for bizarre and creative fantasy settings: |
| 66 | ** ''VideoGame/DeathSmiles'' casts you as one of four ElegantGothicLolita girls pitted against such bosses as a giant that apparently was BuriedAlive except for his face, a living tree that flings smiling apples at you, a ''giant cow''... more mundane enemies include bipedal sheep with pitchforks and at one point what appears to be ballroom dancers. |
| 67 | ** ''VideoGame/{{Mushihimesama}}'' (literally "Bug Princess") has you play as a princess riding a giant beetle, fighting hordes of various giant (literal) bugs, trying to reach and talk to the bug god. [[EverythingTryingToKillYou And plants are trying to kill you too for some reason.]] |
| 68 | * ''VideoGame/ChibiRobo''. ''VideoGame/GiFTPiA''. Let's face it. ALL of skip Ltd.'s games fall under this trope. It's most telling when they use the popular idea of a CrossOver video game to make ''VideoGame/CaptainRainbow'', about the title character and his SecretIdentity Nick helping second-rate Nintendo characters get their wishes granted. |
| 69 | * ''VideoGame/ChoAniki'' is a ShootEmUp game famous for its [[ManlyGay comically exaggerated]] [[HoYay homoerotic overtones]]. Incidentally, there's also a Japanese meme centered around muscular gay porn star Billy Herrington, a.k.a. Aniki. Viral videos derived from this meme commonly use footage of overtly homoerotic wrestling, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTr7jing36U such as in this one]]. |
| 70 | * ''VideoGame/ChoChabudaiGaeshi'' by Creator/{{Taito}}. It's a [[FlippingTheTable table-flipping game]]. Yes, you read that right. The game gives you several scenarios that allow you to unleash your rage through the therapeutic nature of table-flipping. At least, it's therapeutic if you're Japanese. Everyone else is just confused at the premise and gameplay. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sA1JmFg_s8A And it got a sequel]]... |
| 71 | * ''VideoGame/{{Chulip}}''. One LetsPlay thread author even prefaces his introduction to the game as "Violently Japanese". The object of the game? To work up the nerve to confess to your crush by kissing as many things as possible. |
| 72 | * An oft-overlooked WJT (and WAT) is Sega's ''VideoGame/CrazyTaxi'', where you control one of four cab drivers, driving as recklessly and crazily as possible to deliver people to their destinations to rack up cash. No rules whatsoever, so you can jump off ramps, go underwater and do all sorts of weird shit, hopefully delivering the passenger before the timer runs out. And the "Crazy Box" mode has you doing things like popping balloons and knocking over giant bowling pins with your cab. |
| 73 | * ''VisualNovel/{{Crimsoness}}'', a short, weird, angry, Japanese indie game...because it's ''VideoGame/{{OMGWTFOTL}}'' [[JustForFun/RecycledInSpace IN MS PAINT!]] |
| 74 | * ''VideoGame/CrossEdge'' definitely qualifies, as it's a MassiveMultiplayerCrossover featuring the likes of a few of the other quirky games listed here. |
| 75 | * ''VideoGame/DeaeTonosamaAppareIchiban'' is a Widget (WJT, Weird Japanese Thing) top-down action game in which a Japanese UpperClassTwit inexplicably teams up with a French UpperClassTwit can be possessed by their powerful BaraGenre fathers to indulge in MachoCamp and take on UsefulNotes/TokugawaIeyasu and UsefulNotes/OdaNobunaga, or rather [=YEAH=]yasu and [=NO=]bunaga, with the latter turned into a cyborg and relocated to Mars. This is only the start of the insanity. |
| 76 | * ''VideoGame/{{Dokuro}}'' is a FracturedFairyTale platform puzzle game where a little skeleton pities the princess kidnapped by the resident DarkLord, so he goes to lead her out of captivity (hindered by the fact that he's invisible to her as a skeleton and only appears when he takes a potion that makes him into a prince). |
| 77 | * ''[[VideoGame/DonPachi DoDonPachi DaiFukkatsu]]'''s console-exclusive Arrange B mode is this for [[ScoringPoints scoring system]] buffs. Enemies that change bullet patterns and point values as the player plays more, lots of {{Smart Bomb}}ing (even moreso than most Creator/EightingRaizing games), enough bomb recharging to make the announcer ask "Are you ready?" [[RepetitiveAudioGlitch over and over]], among other things that break many established shmup conventions. |
| 78 | * ''VideoGame/DoshinTheGiant'' probably qualifies, especially the sequel, where you must save Doshin by pissing on things, and running around the show floor of a business convention pissing ''floaty pink hearts at the booth babes''. |
| 79 | * ''VideoGame/DynamiteDux'' has two {{Funny Animal}}s setting off to rescue their owner from a weird-looking wizard named "Achacha" through a variety of strange and colorful landscapes, battling other animals along the way. |
| 80 | * ''VideoGame/DynamiteHeaddy'', a platform game framed as some sort of stage play starring a puppet who hurls his head at enemies, is definitely a widget, although some of the more aggressively widgety elements were excised in the North American and European localizations. |
| 81 | * ''VideoGame/EarthDefenseForce'' is a series of budget games about defending the Earth ([[TokyoIsTheCenterOfTheUniverse mostly in Japan]]) from an army of alien invaders. BigCreepyCrawlies, HumongousMecha, {{Kaiju}}, and [[StuffBlowingUp explosions]] [[SceneryGorn leveling city blocks]] ensue. |
| 82 | * ''VideoGame/EndlessOcean'', which embraces the player [[WideOpenSandbox doing things at his own leisure]] and does little to nothing to penalize him. It even got mocked by professional reviewers for not including such expected things as a life gauge, weapons, or a point. Comments directed at trailers for the franchise's third installment, ''VideoGame/EndlessOceanLuminous'', show that the series ''still'' hasn't escaped this, with frequent questions of what players ''do'' in the game. |
| 83 | ** The [=PS1=] game ''[[VideoGame/AquanautsHoliday Aquanaut's Holiday]]'' is something of a [[SpiritualSequel Spiritual Prequel]] to it, since it has you do pretty much the same thing, save that there's even less of a discernible plot (or point) beyond being told [[AllThereInTheManual in the manual]] that you're an ocean researcher/explorer who just saved the world's oceans, [[BusmansHoliday now you're on an ocean exploring holiday]]. |
| 84 | * [[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x50fyu_english-of-the-dead-trailer-japonai_videogames The trailer for "English of the Dead"]] pounds the fact that it's a WJT even further into our skulls. "Come on, friend! Write or I'll bite!" |
| 85 | ** Its predecessor, the ''VideoGame/TypingOfTheDead'' series, are just as WJT despite being in English in the first place. It's hard to pinpoint who the target demographics are- the game has the gore of the ''House of the Dead'' series and pretty much uses the same storyline, but instead of gunning down zombies, it's a keyboarding trainer that lets you kill zombies by the sheer power of ''typing words into a keyboard''. Additionally, the game isn't afraid to to throw cuss words in the player's general direction, and in the first game, the characters look ridiculous with a giant Platform/SegaDreamcast strapped to their back and a keyboard strapped to their front. |
| 86 | * The ''VideoGame/ExaPico'' series (which includes ''Ar Tonelico'') has weirdness from the "Installation" InnocentInnuendo that ''started'' in the first game to the crafting systems of the second game (you can make a bomb inspired by the {{tsundere}} trope) to the combat system of the third game (Reyvateils BattleStrip to power up their songs; no, it is no ClothingDamage). If it's any consolation, even the Japanese think ''[[VideoGame/ExaPico Ar Tonelico]]'' went a bit too far. Especially in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoODv8LVib8 this scene.]] |
| 87 | * ''VideoGame/GadgetPastAsFuture'', by Haruhiko Shono. It resembles ''VideoGame/{{Myst}}'', but without any real puzzles; you play a brainwashed secret agent in a nation resembling that from ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour'' and have to help a group of scientists gather a bunch of gizmos to build a spaceship to escape earth before a comet hits and [[GainaxEnding its ending redefines the meaning of not providing any fucking explanation for anything]]. |
| 88 | * ''VideoGame/GalGun'' is a series of RailShooter games where you have to fight off hordes of love potion-addled school-girls with a "Pheremone Gun" while trying to find true love. |
| 89 | * The ''VideoGame/GanbareGoemon'' (aka ''Mystical Ninja'') games started out as semi-serious JidaiGeki adventure-comedies, but got considerably weirder in the 1990s. One of the plots is preventing Japan from being Westernized by Admiral Perry who looks exactly like Hulk Hogan and all of his mooks are in bunny costumes. The two localized N64 games provide a good sample of its craziness. |
| 90 | * ''VideoGame/GitarooMan'' is another... ''interesting'' video game example. An ordinary boy named U-1 turns out to be TheChosenOne, and fights a series of enemies in order to save a distant planet from the BigBad... except he engages in [[MusicalAssassin musical battles]] armed with a high-tech "Gitaroo", and he faces a QuirkyMinibossSquad that includes a baby demon in a diaper, a ''parapara'' dancing UFO, and a jazz trumpeter in a bee costume. |
| 91 | * ''VideoGame/GourmetWarriors'' is a BeatEmUp... made by the creators of ''Cho Aniki''. It's one of the most surreal entries in the genre - The plot revolves around the heroes trying to save humanity from a food shortage after a criminal organization stole the entire world's supply of protein, and your enemies range from tofu-headed mutants to robotic moai heads and tiny liliputians who will cling on you to stomp on your skull. It's mostly an AffectionateParody of the various BeatEmUp games populating arcades at the time. |
| 92 | * ''VideoGame/GunNac'', Creator/{{Compile}}'s parody of their own past shooters. Its stages are based on the Japanese days of a week, with appropriate enemies. So the first stage, being the Moon stage, has you fighting robotic {{Moon Rabbit}}s that fire carrots at you. The second stage, being the Fire stage, puts you against giant match boxes and cigarette lighters. The third stage, being the Water stage, pits your ship against umbrellas and a giant mermaid. And so on... |
| 93 | * ''Harmful Park'' is a CuteEmUp (heck that entire genre is Widget!!) where you're flying a ship inside an AmusementParkOfDoom and shooting weaponized food products at things such as a flying blue whale. |
| 94 | * ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'' is about a human hunter-gatherer girl who goes to a high school for pigeons (and some assorted other birds), and discovers romance along the way. [[InterspeciesRomance With the birds]]. And then some [[ALoveToDismember disturbing]] endings start to show that things aren't as delightfully wacky as they seem, and the game begins to get [[CerebusRetcon very]], [[GenreShift very]] [[AfterTheEnd dark]]... |
| 95 | * ''VideoGame/{{Hellsinker}}'' is this with a healthy heaping of MindScrew. To further drive the point home, one of the main characters is a frail blind girl who uses a naked crystal fairy as a sword, while another is an artificial {{Hermaphrodite}} half god. [[spoiler: Also in one of the final battle's you fight a kitten together with the spirits of four dead children inside a computer system of some sort]]. And when it comes to the game mechanics the game pulls no punches, for example if you want a good score you have to utilize tactics [[ViolationOfCommonSense that would be downright suicidal in other games]]. |
| 96 | * ''Videogame/HongKong97'' is on a class all of its own: its creator intended to create the worst game ever as a mockery to the game industry. Thus he combined unfun gameplay (a repetitive and simple shoot 'em up starring a OneHitPointWonder) with a presentation both terrible (all sound is a ten second loop of a Chinese song, the graphics are lousy and full of gratuitous stock imagery) and tasteless (the story concerns a man ''intent on killing the entire population of China'', the game's only boss is a disembodieddecapitated flying head of the Chinese president with exposed entrails and blood dripping, the stock images include actual corpses from The Holocaust and the Bosnian genocide), in a full embodiment of Japanese weirdness. |
| 97 | * ''VideoGame/ImaginationRealityParadise'' ([[http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2009/03/freeware_game_pick_imagination.html Link here]]) is an amazingly random puzzle game with a lot of InterfaceScrew and perhaps some horror thrown in. Most definitely a WJT. |
| 98 | * ''[[http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/imsorry/imsorry.htm I'm Sorry]]'', a 1985 arcade MazeGame that is as weird as it is obscure. The game's title turns out to be a bilingual pun at the expense of Japan's former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, and enemies are SuperDeformed celebrities, like Music/MichaelJackson and Music/{{Madonna}}. |
| 99 | * ''VideoGame/IncredibleCrisis'' is about a family that has the worst day ever [[ASimplePlan trying to get home early for Grandma's birthday]]. You live through each family member's day (The father Taneo, mother Etsuko, son Tsuyoshi, and the daughter Ririka) and guide them through ridiculous scenarios by playing minigames, including, but not limited to, Taneo chased through office hallways by a giant globe, Etsuko fighting a twenty-story tall stuffed bear in a jet fighter, Tsuyoshi shrunk to the size of an insect and escaping a gigantic mantis, and Ririka riding a bicycle to escape from a giant wrecking ball. |
| 100 | * [[VideoGame/InisDSRhythmGames iNiS DS Rhythm Games]]: |
| 101 | ** ''VideoGame/OsuTatakaeOuendan'' and its sequel, a series of rhythm games where HotBlooded Japanese cheerleaders cheer on people doing tasks that range from ordinary (like a ''ronin'' student trying to get into a good college) to not-so-ordinary (like an ex-wrestler trying to show her mother-in-law she's got what it takes to run a traditional Japanese inn) to downright weird (like a {{salaryman}} growing to enormous size and saving his daughter from a giant mouse monster). |
| 102 | ** Even the Americanized version of ''Ouendan'', ''VideoGame/EliteBeatAgents'', still thrives on quite a bit of WJT-ness, going from stages where a teenage girl's date with her football-loving boyfriend is interrupted by an emergency babysitting job, to one where a meek taxi driver who literally goes crazy behind the wheel drives a woman in labor to the hospital, to one where a washed-up baseball player fights a giant lava monster at an amusement park. |
| 103 | * ''VideoGame/IrisuSyndrome'' is a Widget Game of the "OH GOD WHY" variety, a seemingly-innocent puzzle game with a dark side. |
| 104 | * The ''VideoGame/JapanWorldCup'' series. Non-interactive horse races. Only most of the contestants aren't horses. Mounts include an elephant, a seal, a panda, a two-person horse costume and so on. Jockeys employ various techniques to boost their mount or hamper enemies, from dancing naked to rocket jumping. Each game is stranger than the last, and each one only gets weirder the longer you watch. The upright sideways running horse is probably the second most normal thing you'll see: |
| 105 | ** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POQIH5KyUjI Japan World Cup]] |
| 106 | ** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2HOdLeUC0E Japan World Cup 2]] |
| 107 | ** [[https://youtu.be/1TtWfK4_7WY Japan World Cup 3]] |
| 108 | * ''VideoGame/KatamariDamacy'' is a big blatant WJT, with its genre-busting gameplay (rolling around a ball to collect random items and make it as big as possible) and odd assortment of characters (such as the hammy and self-important King of All Cosmos). Namco is aware enough of this trope that the later games intentionally play up the weirdness. |
| 109 | ** ''VideoGame/NobyNobyBoy'', by the same designer, involves a weird snake-like creature known as "BOY" trying to stretch himself as far as possible in bizarre, randomly-generated landscapes. |
| 110 | ** ''VideoGame/{{Wattam}}'' is another game from the designer of ''Katamari Damacy'', featuring various anthropomorphic objects interacting with each other. |
| 111 | ** And ''VideoGame/MuscleMarch'', from the same company. Best described as ''Follow the Leader'' [[WatchItStoned on drugs]]. |
| 112 | ** Namco churns out games like these every now and then. Look up ''Taiko No Tatsujin'' and ''Panic Park''. |
| 113 | * ''VideoGame/KeioFlyingSquadron'', a CuteEmUp set in 19th-century Japan with zany anachronisms. Amazingly, both games in the series were translated into English. |
| 114 | * ''VideoGame/{{Kirby}}''. The game about a [[BigEater constantly]] [[BlackHoleBelly hungry]] pink puffball living in a dream land full of happy people, sentient trees, insane walruses, chef potatoes, and... [[NightmareFuel horrifying]] [[EldritchAbomination world-destroying monstrosities]]? |
| 115 | * ''VideoGame/{{Kuukiyomi}}'' is a ''VideoGame/WarioWare''-like mobile phone and Platform/NintendoDSI game by G-Mode, where the player character is put into certain situations and they must decide how they will act both in private and in public. Since there's nothing right or wrong in this game (only score system, judging how considerate you are in situations), players can do anything from something mundane to hilariously bizarre. Most of the situations are realistic, while others aren't. There are a lot of Japanese cultural references, [[ShoutOut shout-outs]] (such as the recurring orphans who look like [[Anime/GraveOfTheFireflies Seita and Setsuko]], ''Franchise/TheMatrix'', etc.) and humor in the series, though some people may not understand them and don't know whether their in-game actions are correct. Fortunately, the developers manage to downplay this by adding a subtitle in some situations (such as adding "In Tokyo" and "In Osaka" for those who don't understand Japanese culture, etc.) and adding a CulturalTranslation such as remodeling the ghost in the English version. And yes, this game has 3 remakes for Platform/NintendoSwitch, which all of three are often streamed by famous Virtual Youtubers and made it overseas. |
| 116 | * ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'' has the small town of Termina, which is a '''weird''' place to be in because of what happens there between the citizens of the town. A few random examples of what happens in the game include: |
| 117 | ** Blowing a bubble at the imp who stole your Ocarina to make him drop it, which then turns into a set of ''tubas'' because your [[ForcedTransformation forcefully transformed]] form is too small to play the Ocarina. |
| 118 | ** Learning the other half of a lullaby from a baby so that you can get a giant invisible stone man to go to sleep and roll out of the way and stop breathing an icy wind. |
| 119 | ** Using different magical masks to become an entire musical quartet, and thus make someone cry, who is DrunkOnMilk. |
| 120 | ** Racing a creepy beaver with Kaleidoscope eyes so he'll give you his most prized possession: [[CommonplaceRare an empty bottle]]. |
| 121 | * While each plot of the ''VideoGame/LikeADragon'' games is a dark action-packed crime drama, the side missions that take place outside the main story (known as substories) put our protagonists in some outrageous and embarrassing roles, such as a film director, a model, a music video star or Santa, and constantly get dragged into a fight with men with rather unusual tastes (yakuza roleplaying as babies?). They can learn moves from witnessing a panty thief or a traffic accident, and many brutal moves and weapons, such as a MagicalGirl toy wand are pure slapstick. And they also can stand their own against tigers and bears. |
| 122 | * ''VideoGame/LindaCube'' is the result of when a company got sick of making generic titles inspired by ''Franchise/DragonQuest'' and decided to do whatever they wanted. It features three separate story scenarios with the same setup and mostly the same cast of characters, but in each scenario the characters' personalities and roles can change drastically. You can expect to see a violently {{Tsundere}} co-protagonist, an EvilTwin who works for a pharmaceutical company that makes its employees wear Santa outfits, a MadScientist who ''very'' strongly resembles UsefulNotes/AdolfHitler, a clone girl who can shapeshift into a laser-shooting bug-like creature, a man who has his wife fused into his chest, and much more. |
| 123 | * ''VideoGame/LSDDreamEmulator'' has become a cult-classic in the west for its ''what the fuckery''. The game is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: A first-person game where you explore a nightmarish [[AmazingTechnicolorWorld brightly colored]] AcidTripDimension. There is no objective, no quests, no ''enemies''. You just wander around and enjoy the randomly generated scenery that steadily gets weirder until you quit the game, or your ''brain quits on you''. If you regardless keep soldiering on, eventually ''the game quits on itself''. Actually, this is a result of the game (intentionally) causing the textures to become increasingly corrupted as the it goes on to the point where it can't handle it anymore. This isn't the only game by the creator, but we'd be here all day. Go to Creator/OsamuSato for those. |
| 124 | ** His other games are no better. Try ''VideoGame/EasternMindTheLostSoulsOfTongNou'' and its sequel ''VideoGame/ChuTeng''. Like ''Namu Amida Butsu Uetna'' below, this is due to the game containing references to Japanese religions like Shintoism and Japanese Buddhism, combined with a heaping dose of Osamu Sato trademark acid-inspired graphics. |
| 125 | * ''VideoGame/{{maimai}}'' from 2012 is notable for having an arcade cabinet that looks like a ''washing machine'', even as {{Rhythm Game}}s that don't simulate any sort of non-game musical activity have been around since the late 90's and 2000's. Not only do you have to hit buttons placed around the circular screen, you also have to slide your hands across the screen for some notes. The game as a whole feels less like "just another hands-based music game" and more like doing dancing/choreography with your hands; cabinets in some regions feature mounted cameras too, just to further encourage players to look cool when they play. |
| 126 | * In a somewhat retroactive way, Capcom's Japanese branch believes that the ''Franchise/MegaMan'' franchise is one of these and [[ValuesDissonance doesn't appeal as much to international audiences]], as it was meant [[AnimationAgeGhetto to be geared towards children]] in the first place. Naturally, the [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff international]] [[PeripheryDemographic fandom]] isn't amused. |
| 127 | * ''VideoGame/MetalWolfChaos''. A game where you play as the [[OurPresidentsAreDifferent President of the United States of America]], behind the cockpit of a HumongousMecha, as he launches a one-man counteroffensive to take back America, city by city, from his [[PresidentEvil Vice President]] Richard Hawk, confident that he can win because he is [[PatrioticFervor The President of the GREAT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!]] He does by destroying everything in sight with '''[[HotBlooded BURNING AMERICAN FREEDOM!!!]]''' And America [[NoExportForYou didn't get this game for years]], since {{Creator/SEGA}} claimed it impossible to export until 2018 (thanks to Creator/DevolverDigital). |
| 128 | * ''VideoGame/MisterMosquito'' is weird in the sense that you play a mosquito. And you must suck the blood of the family whose home you just invaded. As you progress in the game, things get more surreal. Has to be played to be believed. And like ''Cho Chabudai Gaeshi'' above, it too got a sequel... |
| 129 | * ''VideoGame/MonsterParty'' features the most bizarre assortment of EverythingTryingToKillYou, including enemies such as disembodied pairs of legs, LivingClothes, and a SequentialBoss that starts as a shrimp and turns into an onion ring and then a kebab. Some of the strange enemies were originally going to be references to movie monsters which got replaced at the last minute, and at least one was an obscure cultural reference, but many straight-up lack an explanation no matter how much you try to find one. Bandai never released the game in Japan; it sold poorly in America, probably on account of its awful gameplay mechanics. To quote WebVideo/JonTron: "Excuse me sir, but is that a well with eggplant moons shooting plates at me? Liek..."]] |
| 130 | * The ''VideoGame/{{MOTHER}}'' series is an odd case - the West interprets it quite clearly as a WJT series, yet it was originally designed to be viewed as an American-style series from a Japanese perspective. [[VideoGame/EarthBoundBeginnings The first game]]'s weirdness isn't particularly Japanese, but then [[VideoGame/EarthBound1994 the]] [[VideoGame/MOTHER3 sequels]] became DenserAndWackier. |
| 131 | * ''VideoGame/NamuAmidaButsuUtena'': Being a game about Japanese Buddhism, it's two widget-isms for the price of one: culture and ''religion''. The game even features Buddhist figures obscure to even Japanese people who don't have extensive background or research in Buddhism, for instance the Eight Offerings in the Diamond Realm. |
| 132 | * ''VideoGame/{{Neptunia}}'' is an Eastern RPG series in which [[MoeAnthropomorphism moe girls]] are various video game consoles[-[[note]]the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, and the scrapped Sega Neptune[[/note]]-] fighting the UsefulNotes/ConsoleWars, as envisioned by Creator/{{Sega}}, Idea Factory and Compile Heart. They get stronger the more market share they earn for the console they represent. The antagonists are based on concepts and internet social phenomena, including [[DigitalPiracyIsEvil software piracy]]. |
| 133 | * The premise of the "Neo-Atlas" games has you exploring Earth by sailing and removing the FogOfWar surrounding much of the world. But if you don't like the layout of the world that turn, you can reject it and re-explore the area to see if the geography has changed! You can also accept rumours and make them true, such as there being men with faces in their bellies in what approximates to Africa (or is actually Africa depending on what you accept). Also some of the sidequests are...interesting. Such as a rescue of people from India who were kidnapped by bloody-mouthed oni, turns out the oni were just taking the humans for a vacation and introducing strawberries to humanity (the "blood" on the oni's mouth turned out to be strawberry jam). |
| 134 | * ''VideoGame/NezumiMan'' is gameplay-wise a ''VideoGame/MegaManClassic'' clone, but includes a sentient fridge, a kangaroo, and a dragon cosplayer among its bosses. Oh, and nearly everyone is a SuperDeformed ''rat''. |
| 135 | * ''VideoGame/NightsIntoDreams'': Some of the weirdness comes from the fact it's about dreams, of course, but you can bet if it had been made in the West they wouldn't have gone half as weird, no matter what the subject matter demanded. Plus, the western-marketed sequel is considerably more generic. |
| 136 | * ''VideoGame/NinjaBaseballBatMan'' is, oddly enough, both a WJT and a WHAT. It's an Irem arcade game, but [[http://www.ninjabaseballbatman.com/The_HISTORY_of_NBBM.html the very premise is from an American.]] As for what the game's actually about? If the awesomely absurd title doesn't make it clear enough, WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd [[http://cinemassacre.com/2011/07/29/ninja-baseball-batman/ sums it up nicely.]] |
| 137 | * ''VideoGame/NoOneCanStopMrDomino'' involves an anthropomorphic suicidal domino as he races across an oddball mix of obstacle courses while laying down dominoes. |
| 138 | * ''VideoGame/{{Okami}}'' is arguably a strong example of this, given it is ''heavily'' reliant on Myth/JapaneseMythology, with an incredible number of references to its source material backing the claim up. Despite the very real threat constantly present in the plot, it is not afraid of, and in fact ''gladly'', embraces every single chance of humor it can afford, which are aplenty. This game is just as humorous as it is epic; it was actually quite-well received by Westerners due to its extremely appealing visuals, SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic and compelling characters, story and system--it was in fact quite a lot LESS well-received in its home country, largely in part due to the fact that the Japanese didn't find their own mythos so interesting. |
| 139 | * ''VideoGame/OnePieceMansion'' was a quirky puzzle game where you managed an apartment full of cartoony tenants who were either extremely annoying or heartwarming, so you would shift their rooms to keep morale up while dealing with the local mob. |
| 140 | * ''VideoGame/PanzerFront bis''[='=]s story mode, if the bizarre cutscenes, and that one level where you fight a [[spoiler:demon Tiger tank]], are any indications. |
| 141 | * ''VideoGame/ParappaTheRapper'' and its spinoff ''VideoGame/UmJammerLammy'' are Widget games. Everyone in the game is literally 2-dimensional, as in flat like paper. Compared to the plot of the games, that's the least weird part: |
| 142 | ** In the first game, the eponymous rapping dog tries to impress his crush, an anthropomorphic flower-girl, by learning karate, getting his driver's license, taking a part-time job in a flea market, and learning how to bake a cake... all done through the medium of rap battles. Then in the sequel, Parappa uses rap battles to save his town from a super-villain that wants to turn all food into noodles. |
| 143 | ** In ''VideoGame/UmJammerLammy'', a guitar-playing goat-girl tries to put together a show for her band, but keeps getting sidetracked by various strange events, like having to put out a fire, being MistakenForPregnant after stuffing her face with pizza, and having to fight her way out of ''Hell'' while having a near-death experience (which was {{bowdlerise}}d in the US version into getting stranded on a deserted island). Lammy also uses music to deal with her problems, in her case by playing rock guitar on everything from a fire hose to napping babies. |
| 144 | * The ''VideoGame/{{Parodius}}'' series, which plays like the Gradius games, except nowhere in the Gradius series can you play as a torpedo-riding PlayboyBunny who blasts a fifty-foot tall Vegas showgirl while dodging incoming fire from giant penguins. |
| 145 | * ''VideoGame/PartTimeUFO'' is about a sentient UFO crashing to Earth and using its giant, verastile claw for... working mundane part time jobs to get home. Jobs it can take up include replacing a broken statue at a museum, building the world's biggest pancake stack, working on a fishing boat, and even helping a group of cheerleaders form the perfect pyramid. The better and more efficient it gets, the more galactic currency it gets paid to spend on cool costumes. |
| 146 | * ''VideoGame/{{Patapon}}'' is about a tribe of eyeballs-on-stickleg warriors who essentially believe the player is their god on account of the player possessing a drum. They wish for the player to guide them to Earthend so they may gaze upon "IT" and know eternal contentment, but they don't even know what IT is. [[spoiler: Everyone not a Patapon is convinced that gazing upon IT will bring the world to an end.]] |
| 147 | * ''VideoGame/PokemonConquest'' in a nutshell. Take ''VideoGame/NobunagasAmbition'', a game about [[JidaiGeki one of the most violent, tumultuous periods in Japan's history]], [[JustForFun/XMeetsY then put]] Franchise/{{Pokemon}} in it. |
| 148 | * ''VideoGame/PoleNoDaibouken'' is probably one of the weirdest Mario-style games ever. It stars a cowboy with shades as he battles evil deer-men, lions that can go [[Anime/DragonBallZ Super Saiyan]], volcanoes that launch random debris, giant snakes, squids, penguins, aliens, numerous messed up gags and eventually some unholy mashup of a lion, a snake, a squid, a giant bear and a frigging chihuahua. All the while, a baffled narrator points out the various strange events that happen to Pole, many of which subvert traditional video game tropes. |
| 149 | * ''VideoGame/PopNMusic'' would lose half its charm without its silly cast of characters, including but not limited to: the rabbit- and cat-like mascots, a CuteWitch who can turn her broom into a guitar, a girl who continuously runs left really fast as if hopped up on sugar, an angel disguised as a HotLibrarian, and a DJ who occasionally communicates with some sort of devilish spirit. And on top of that, the multicolored notes all have eyes and are called "Pop-kuns." |
| 150 | * The ''VideoGame/PowerInstinct'' series has, in addition to a retinue of SeriousBusiness martial artists typical for the FightingGame genre, not one, not two, but ''three'' [[NeverMessWithGranny little old ladies]], a perverted old man, a hulking amazon (well, RealityIsUnrealistic; fighting game women tend to look like slender beauties, not wrestlers), a MagicalGirl, her {{Stripperific}} roller-blading alter-ego, a man in a dog suit (really!), a fat kid wearing nothing but a giant bib and has his... [[FanDisservice objects show when knocked into the air...]] well, rest assured that's not all. A usual fighting game might have [[JokeCharacter one such character just for laughs]]. But these weirdoes are what ''Power Instinct'' is really about. |
| 151 | * ''VideoGame/PrincessTomatoInTheSaladKingdom'' is an AdventureGame where a cucumber hero and his kid persimmon sidekick SaveThePrincess of a kingdom of AnthropomorphicFood and battle with farmers in games of RockPaperScissors. |
| 152 | * ''Project Rub'' (aka ''VideoGame/FeelTheMagic: XY/XX'') is absolutely mindboggling. At one point you have to get some goldfish out of a man's stomach, at another you follow a helicopter on a unicycle, and at another you dance with a girl at a campsite (incorporating the fire into your moves), and at yet another you have to bowl a man rolled into a ball at some people waiting for a bus. As you can probably guess, those who do buy the game are in for a real treat. |
| 153 | ** Also see ''VideoGame/TheRubRabbits'', the sequel/prequel, in which you [[MeetCute meet your true love]], [[FirstGuyWins win her over]], [[ProtectionMission defend her from other suitors]] (who dance, or parachute from the sky), and [[StalkerWithACrush fend off the advances of a perky schoolgirl]]. You do this by running up the down escalator while dodging sumo wrestlers, paddling a log across a giant-crocodile-infested sea, eating delicious cakes (and avoiding the bad ones) while tied to a chair, closing the rapid-fire pop-ups on her computer, doing aromatherapy to help her do yoga, and fighting a mecha-bear. |
| 154 | * ''VideoGame/PuLiRuLa'', a totally bizarre arcade BeatEmUp by Creator/{{Taito}}. The characters are kids with magic sticks who turn the weird-looking enemies into animals, with things getting weirder in level 3. |
| 155 | * ''VideoGame/PuyoPuyo'': You fight such characters as a dancing fish man, an effeminate skeleton, a half-demon boy who has an obsession with bugs, and ''{{Satan}} himself'' by eliminating cute little blobs on a puzzle screen. That isn't even getting into many moments within the games that [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext aren't even explainable by context]] (for example, Schezo having a wedding cake all for himself in a cave in a cutscene in ''[[VideoGame/PuyoPuyo20thAnniversary 20th Anniversary]]'' when [[SweetTooth Lemres]] notices the cake. Why Schezo is in a cave with a cake and why it's a wedding cake are never explained). Very Japanese games indeed. |
| 156 | * ''VideoGame/RakugakiShowTime'' is a whimsical dodgeball FightingGame hybrid where a young child has created a world out of their scribbling artwork. |
| 157 | * ''VisualNovel/{{Rewrite}}'' isn't as extreme as some examples but it is definitely quite surreal. You play a young man who goes on various strange quests as part of your school's occult research club. |
| 158 | * ''VideoGame/RibbitKing'' is a game in which a rabbit-like alien named Scooter has to save his planet from certain doom by competing in a Frolf tournament. Frolf is a sport not unlike golf, only instead of using a ball and a club, you use a frog and a catapult. The objective is to get your frog into the hole while using "gimmicks" around the courses such as rain clouds, snakes, spider webs, and bubbles to increase your score. Your opponents include a rock monster, a wind-up penguin robot, a woozy princess with a fish on her head, and a group of small plant people. Also, your teacher is a talking picnic basket. |
| 159 | * ''VideoGame/RoseAndCamellia'' and its sequel, two Flash games about [[CatFight noblewomen bitch-slapping]] each other. One Internet commentator described it as "Creator/JaneAusten's VideoGame/PunchOut" |
| 160 | * ''VideoGame/RhythmHeaven'', otherwise known as ''Rhythm Tengoku'', which is a minigame collection like ''VideoGame/WarioWare'', except weirder, more musical and more Japanese. In fact, ''Rhythm Heaven'' and ''VideoGame/WarioWare'' are both made by the same studio, and it shows. And there's a factory that makes ''literal'' widgets. |
| 161 | * The localization of ''VideoGame/SamuraiZombieNation'' changed the player character, tasked with defending the United States from an EldritchAbomination, from a floating tengu mask into a floating samurai head, disguising its WJT-ness not one bit. |
| 162 | * Creator/{{Enix}}'s ''Segare Ijiri'' is a sentence-constructing platformer game full of SurrealHumor. It's about an arrow-headed boy named Segare, who lives in a strange world, falls in love with and wants to meet the arrow-headed girl from another planet. Segare has to find various objects and construct many words and sentences so his giraffe-headed mother's neck becomes taller and she'll give you some useful companions to reach certain places that cannot be accessed alone. The outcome animations of constructed words and sentences are all hilarious and some of them cross with Japanese {{pun}}s, [[FreudWasRight dirty joke]] subtexts, and ToiletHumour. This game [[NoExportForYou hasn't been released overseas]] due to its Japanese-exclusive puns. |
| 163 | * ''VideoGame/SilhouetteMirage'' is an action-platformer full of oddness as your character Shyna uses parasites and dual aspects that depend on which direction she faces, in order to affect enemies that are either "silhouette" or "mirage". |
| 164 | * ''VideoGame/SinAndPunishment: Successor To The Earth'' for the N64. Since it arrived here, albeit seven years late, it should qualify. [[VideoGame/SinAndPunishmentStarSuccessor Its sequel]] (which did make the jump to American shores), somewhat less so. |
| 165 | * ''VideoGame/SocksTheCatRocksTheHill'' is a 1994 Japanese game where you play as President Clinton's cat. Enemies include giant, bipedal rats in green trench coats, the democratic donkey, the republican elephant, and caricatures of republicans. |
| 166 | * ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'', a game series where you play as a [[MascotWithAttitude hardcore]] blue hedgehog with SuperSpeed, who must foil the evil plans of an egg-shaped mad scientist resembling [[NoCelebritiesWereHarmed the late Teddy Roosevelt]] (who tends to trap small animals inside his robot soldiers). All while frequently running through [[ThemeParkLandscape loop-de-loops]]. Some of the said hedgehog's friends include a two-tailed fox and a red echidna that can glide. As Sonic was intentionally modeled after cartoon characters from UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfAnimation to endear him to a Western audience, this essentially qualifies the series as being either an American-styled WJT or a WAT by Japanese developers. Of course, much like its [[Franchise/SuperMarioBros rival franchise]], its popularity ([[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff outside of Japanese borders]]) has helped people get used to it to this day. |
| 167 | * ''VideoGame/SpaceHarrier''. You play as some guy with sunglasses and a red jacket with a two-in-one energy blaster and rocket engine, flying down endless plains of checkerboard environments with environmental obstacles like trees, mushrooms, and polyhedrons in your way, while all manners of ships, stone faces, cyclops mammoths, and the like try to kill you. For the bonus stages, you hop on your companion dragon and try to ram into trees for bonus points. |
| 168 | * ''Franchise/{{Splatoon}}'' is an arena-based ThirdPersonShooter game where teenage anthropomorphic cephalopods capable of VoluntaryShapeshifting join up after school with their FamilyFriendlyFirearms to fight in ink-soaked battles at the local mall or scrapyard and work part-time jobs at a cannery to shoot ProudWarriorRace salmon who use kitchenware as weapons. You in particular also assist in protecting the surface world as part of a secret militia partially-run by popular celebrities, fighting against sentient octopus tentacles with [[Franchise/DoctorWho Dalek]]-like weapons and millennia-old AI created by the {{precursors}}. The precursors are humans by the way, since this is all taking place long AfterTheEnd. |
| 169 | * Creator/Suda51 is rather famous for directing many games that could fit into this category. |
| 170 | ** ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'' features an upside down boss battle and a boss battle using gimps as baseballs among other things. The game centers around a guy who bought a lightsaber on eBay. Other examples include and old granny with a shopping-cart-slash-WaveMotionGun, a CombatPragmatist mailman-slash-superhero-dressed-faux-NiceGuy who attacks via CallingYourAttacks, including frickin' laser beams [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything from his crotch,]] a [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot korean punk-rock scientist using an earthquake-generating-machine-with-a-BRAIN-for-a-CPU,]] a JerkJock with his 24 identical-looking cheerleaders and their HumongousMecha... The list goes just goes ''on'', and these are only the bosses; there's enough dysfunction in the main characters themselves and the series' weird and quirky humor to make it qualify for this trope. |
| 171 | ** ''VideoGame/Killer7''. Full of MindScrew moments, having even a very unorthodox gameplay, surreal graphics and sound, and being gratuitously violent and depraved. These aspects have made the game very niche, though not without a CultClassic status. |
| 172 | ** ''VideoGame/KillerIsDead'' had a hit-man with a gun for his arm and doubles as a giggolo to beautiful women, while fighting monsters along with occasional odd-ball encounters such as finding Juliet from the game below being trapped inside a barrel. |
| 173 | ** ''VideoGame/LollipopChainsaw'' seems to be a serious WJT contender. Considering how you kill zombies with a chainsaw-toting cheerleader and have ''rainbows'' coming out of them... |
| 174 | * ''VideoGame/SuperGaldelicHour'' seems to be a recreation of some kind of game show, but it's hard to be sure when one of the events is Butt Sumo, and all the contestants are voluptuous women in skimpy animal costumes. [[http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpl-v6ZJQic It really has to be seen to be believed]]. |
| 175 | * ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'': This is a game series in which you play as an Italian plumber and have to repeatedly rescue a princess from an evil turtle-dragon, while fighting off his armies of walking mushrooms, talking bombs, and bumper-car-like turtles. To help in your quests, you get such things as leaves that turn into raccoon-suits which give you flight, flowers that shoot fire balls, mushrooms that make you grow, and an ExtremeOmnivore dinosaur that you can ride. You could put just about ''anything'' in a Mario game and it wouldn't seem out of place. The reason such weirdness doesn't really get addressed by fans all that often is because 1) At the time the original was made, video games rarely made sense to begin with, and 2) Although the former is no longer the case today its long-standing popularity has gotten people used to it. |
| 176 | ** ''VideoGame/MarioVsDonkeyKong'' was developed by the Redmond, Washington-based Nintendo Software Technology Corporation, making it an example of a WHAT sub-series to the above. The games involve Mario facing Donkey Kong after the latter wants some of the Mini-Mario toys the former produced. |
| 177 | ** ''VideoGame/MarioKart7'' was partially developed by Nintendo EAD in Japan and partially by the Austin, Texas-based Retro Studios, making it both a WJT and a WHAT. |
| 178 | ** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosWonder'' is already being called ''[[FanNickname Super Mario Acid Trip]]'', and it's not hard to see why, given that the Wonder Flower the game is centered around distorts reality even more than the usual Mario game, to the point where Elephant Mario looks ''normal'' in comparison. Basically, think ''Mario'' meets ''Literature/AliceInWonderland'' with all the quirkiness added up and multiplied by three. |
| 179 | --->'''Talking Flower:''' That [sleeping] Goomba looks so serene. ''(Elephant Mario sends Goomba flying)'' [[SeenItAll ...Well then.]] |
| 180 | * ''VideoGame/TailOfTheSun'' - You lead a tribe of cavemen in building a tower out of mammoth tusks tall enough to reach the sun. |
| 181 | * [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGbkLG1b8WA While reviewing]] ''Creator/{{Taito}} Legends'', Webvideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd made sure to highlight games that were "Taito as fuck": |
| 182 | ** ''Videogame/SpaceInvaders '95: Attack of the Lunar Loonies'' is a version of the company's best known arcade with the weirdest graphics it can place, including characters resembling [[TalkingPoo living poop]] (named "Toilet", no less). |
| 183 | ** ''Plump Plop'' is ''VideoGame/{{Arkanoid}}'', only the characters are a couple "shooting" their child at aliens. |
| 184 | ** ''VideoGame/TheNewZealandStory'', following a kiwi bird trying to rescue his family from a sea lion, in the most bizarre levels possible - including a boss fight against a frozen whale that is fought from within its stomach, and a BonusLevelOfHeaven from which the kiwi must escape following certain death conditions. |
| 185 | ** ''VideoGame/TheNinjaKids'', which as the AVGN summed up, is "The [[VideoGame/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtlesTheArcadeGame TMNT arcade]], but starring ''Sesame Street'' puppets who cut people in half and fight motherfucking Satan - sorry, "''The'' Satan"". |
| 186 | ** ''VideoGame/{{Growl}}'', which along with supposedly being in the early 20th century [[AnachronismStew while featuring modern weaponry]], illustrates our GiantSpaceFleaOutOfNowhere page because after the whole game being about fighting poachers, the final boss turns into an alien millipede! |
| 187 | ** ''VideoGame/ViolenceFight'', which is a slightly traditional fighting game aside from moments such as fighting a tiger, and the fact very Japanese {{Written Sound Effect}}s emerge after hits. But the weirdness doubles considering the over-the-top character biographies and the BlindIdiotTranslation ("Lick Joe", "Sammy You", "Score a Point Over"). |
| 188 | * ''VideoGame/TengaiMakyou: Far East of Eden'', a series of comedic role-playing games that spoofed the everloving hell out of [[ThirtySecondsOverTokyo Western misconceptions of Japanese culture]] (and [[EagleLand vice-versa]], in the fourth game). |
| 189 | * ''VideoGame/TenkomoriShooting'' (1998, Namco) is all about "{{shoot|EmUp}}ing", but is a minigame compilation and WJT. Little easy on the 'weird', but hey, it's about [[SillySimian monkeys]] doing minigames to rescue their friends; that's as weird as it needs to be! |
| 190 | * ''VideoGame/TheatrhythmFinalFantasy'', an entry in the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' series contained within the ''VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy'' universe, has been described as ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' meets ''VideoGame/EliteBeatAgents''. To restate for candidacy, it's a JapaneseRolePlayingGame anthology fused with a RhythmGame (similar to that of ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution'' or ''VideoGame/GuitarHero'', with wildly varying graphics (from ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsCoded''-style chibis, to eight- and sixteen-bit graphics - Platform/NintendoEntertainmentSystem[=/=]Platform/GameBoy[=/=]Platform/SuperNintendoEntertainmentSystem[=/=]Platform/GameBoyColor-era - to fully rendered CGI (same quality as the [=PS1/PS3=] or the Xbox 360), and it's in the same series as a ''FIGHTING GAME.'' Oh, and it's on the Platform/Nintendo3DS, so it's all in stereoscopic 3D. |
| 191 | * ''VideoGame/TokyoMirageSessionsFE'', in sharp contrast to the HeroicFantasy StrategyRPG of ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' and [[AfterTheEnd Post-Apocalyptic]] ScienceFantasy CrapsackWorld of ''Franchise/ShinMegamiTensei'', is unrelentingly silly and lighthearted, featuring a group of Totally18 [[TeenIdol Teen Idols]] gifted with the power to fight demons from the ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' franchise harnessing the power of creative talent, singing and dancing to save the day from the creatures -- and yes, you defeat the final boss with a sing-along. [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/FireEmblemRecurringCharacters Tiki]] is [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking also a vocaloid here, too]]. [[https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/06/tokyo_mirage_sessions_fe_switched_development_direction_after_six_months This was apparently because]] of the fact that Creator/{{Atlus}} and Creator/IntelligentSystems -- due to their games likely being on different ends of the SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism -- couldn't agree on what direction the game was supposed to take, so compromised by taking an unrelentingly silly approach to both games while acting as a love letter to both series. |
| 192 | * ''VideoGame/TimeGal'' has you play as a 16-year-old girl named Reika Kirishima, who goes through time battling (among other things) dinosaurs, cavemen, {{pirates}}, and rogue motorcyclists. Quoth [[WebVideo/{{Retsupurae}} Slow]][[{{LetsPlay/Slowbeef}} beef]] in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXuauClk_E0&t=3m25s this]] {{MST}}: |
| 193 | --> '''Slowbeef:''' Wow, this could not be any more Japanese. |
| 194 | * ''VideoGame/ToukenRanbu'' – Bad guys with no clearly defined identity, goal or operation time-travel to the past to change historical events for no reason so you turn a bunch of real swords owned by historical figures into an army of dashing men to fight them off. |
| 195 | * ''VideoGame/TrioThePunch'' is a bizarre BeatEmUp where, among other weird things, the continue screen shows a statue that suddenly acquires a clown mask, a defenseless turtle turns into a human boss, you and your weapons turn into pink sheep after defeating a pink sheep, Colonel Sanders turns into a purple bird, and "WEEBLES FALL DOWN!" |
| 196 | * ''VideoGame/UmiharaKawase'' is a game where you control a schoolgirl using a lure on rubber line to maneuver through {{Bizarrchitecture}} stages with multiple pathways, and avoiding various species of aquatic life, including fish with legs. |
| 197 | * ''Under The Skin'', from Capcom has an AlienInvasion is happening where prankster aliens are trying to drive people, including [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil3 Jill Valentine and Nemesis]], bonkers in a competition of who can be the best prankster. |
| 198 | * ''VideoGame/VibRibbon'' - You control a rabbit wandering across a mobius strip dodging random obstacles that appear in time with the music. Oh, and despite being made in the late 90's, everything is using [[VectorGame vector graphics]] like it's the early 80's. And you can make your own levels by putting in your own [=CDs=]. It's proof positive that [=WJTs=] and minimalism are quite happy together. |
| 199 | * ''VideoGame/ViolentStorm'' is a pastiche of Post-Apoc locales with post-apoc punks and all kinds of weirdness culminating in a boss battle with a [[Manga/{{Akira}} pre-fetus Tetsuo]] expy. And his bodyguard gives [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI KEFKA]] a run for his money on the ridiculous-looking bishie clown angle, looking like an effeminate [[Franchise/StreetFighter Blanka]]. There's also a ShoutOut to ''VideoGame/ChoAniki'' with Julius the bodybuilder, possibly the funniest 'stampeding fat guy' enemy type ever created, the lollypops (yes that's their name. Like [[VideoGame/FinalFight Andore]], they come in regular and Jr. varieties), a Ninja Turtle expy in Sledge, a train conductor with a gigantic ticket puncher, and cameos by a few of the programmers who can be beaten up and knocked off the stage. And on said train stage, there's a momma pig with little baby pigs walking around. The baby pigs can be [[ImprovisedWeapon picked up]], and when thrown become FOOTBALLS. (the American kind) |
| 200 | ** ''VideoGame/BattleCircuit'' is a lesser widget entry than the above, focusing more on anime/game references than the weirdness, though the final boss and Dr.Saturn more than make up for it. And one of the characters is a little girl riding a pink ostrich wearing an eyepatch. The ostrich, not the girl. And the ostrich is MALE. Also for no apparent reason one of the bosses is an Elvis impersonator. |
| 201 | * Vivarium, Inc. developed two different widget games, both based around voice technology: |
| 202 | ** The first was ''VideoGame/{{Seaman}}'' on the Platform/SegaDreamcast, a virtual pet starring a man-headed fish/frog creature who posed intellectual questions to the player. |
| 203 | ** The other was ''VideoGame/{{Odama}}'' on the Platform/NintendoGameCube, a combination of military warfare and pinball. |
| 204 | * Namco's ''VideoGame/WagyanLand'', a PlatformGame where you fight with projectile katakana and bosses try to defeat you with [[ParlorGames shiritori]]. |
| 205 | * ''Videogame/WarioWare'': This is probably Nintendo's weirdest series, and that is saying a lot. Wario decides to make money off video games, but since he's too lazy to program a full-size game he just makes a bunch of minigames and sticks them together. He also invites his friends and neighbors to help, which include a moped-riding GoGetterGirl with [[NewJobsAsThePlotDemands way too many part-time jobs]], a MadScientist and his ChildProdigy IdolSinger granddaughter, a karaoke-singing robot, a [[FunnyAnimal talking dog and cat]] who run a taxi service that sometimes takes them into ''outer space'', and a DeadpanSnarker CuteWitch who lives alone in a haunted house with her imp sidekick. Not to mention the games themselves are very weird, ranging from solving puzzles to playing mini-versions of old Nintendo games to doing mundane stuff like applying eyedrops. |
| 206 | * ''VideoGame/WorkTimeFun'' puts the W in WJT, being a collection of mini-games representing bizarre low-paying part-time jobs you have to take on, including counting eggs in a factory and completing a RibbonCuttingCeremony while drunk. Note also what the game itself becomes [[FunWithAcronyms as an acronym]]. |
| 207 | * ''VideoGame/YumeNikki'', an indie game about journeying through the [[SurrealHorror surreal nightmares]] of a {{Hikikomori}}, is one great big horror-fueled widget. |
| 208 | * ''VideoGame/ZunzunkyouNoYabou'' have you playing as a sentient Jizo statue who battles Disco dans, dancing Indian ladies who turns into animated skeletons, andromorphic pandas, businessmen in suits, a Chinese chef who attacks you with flung dumplings and an obese Captain America-lookalike before you fight a gigantic FloatingEye... to spread the words of enlightenment from Buddha to the world. It...MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext. |
| 209 | [[/folder]] |
| 210 | |
| 211 | [[folder:Korea]] |
| 212 | * ''VideoGame/BoongGaBoongGa'', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejZVgu3QuHY as seen here]]. [[AssShove Shoving your finger up someone's ass]]? Someone in South Korea made an arcade game out of it. The fact that [[RealSongThemeTune they stole the theme song of]] ''Series/TheAddamsFamily'' to use in the game's level select screen and that it dispensed gold-plated plastic feces-shaped key chains as prizes only added to the weirdness factor. |
| 213 | * The ''VideoGame/{{DJMAX}}'' series has a Weird Korean Thing in the ''NB Ranger'' series of music videos, which consist of ''Franchise/{{Power Ranger|s}}'' lookalikes opposing love by ''beating up couples on dates.'' |
| 214 | * ''VideoGame/PumpItUp'' is a pretty straightforward, if [[NintendoHard cruel]], dance game, except for the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vculzgKQoQA frequently]] ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkZcwjFx4YY bizarre]]'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNNnxyAt3ps background videos]] accompanying most songs. |
| 215 | [[/folder]] |
| 216 | |
| 217 | !!Oceania |
| 218 | [[folder:Australia]] |
| 219 | * ''VideoGame/GolfStory'' is an ActionRPG about golf, and contains weirdness like crocodiles, angry geese, and a Frisbee golf gang. |
| 220 | * ''VideoGame/RabbitRush'' ([[http://www.rabbit-rush.com/ Link here]]) is a rather upbeat STANZA game about breeding a massive army of rabbits to conquer far-off lands. It plays like a mouse-controlled [[ShootEmUp Shmup]]. [[spoiler: ...At least, it does until the game sends you a [[InterfaceScrew fake]] Platform/{{Steam}} [[InterfaceScrew message]], telling you to [[SchmuckBait investigate a certain cheat code]]. Doing so "crashes" the game, revealing that it's really a ShowWithinAShow of a much more complicated story.]] |
| 221 | [[/folder]] |
| 222 | |
| 223 | !!Europe |
| 224 | [[folder:Belgium]] |
| 225 | * ''VideoGame/{{OFF}}'' is a WTF freeware game about a baseball player who wants to exorcise [[BedsheetGhost Bedsheet Ghosts]] from {{Wackyland}}. [[spoiler: Up until the halfway mark of Zone 3 where it takes a very dark turn.]] |
| 226 | [[/folder]] |
| 227 | |
| 228 | [[folder:Denmark]] |
| 229 | * ''VideoGame/AHatInTime'' follows the adventures of a time-travelling alien who lands on a planet and has to get back home. Said planet is divided into: an island town full of identical, [[ReallySevenHundredYearsOld possibly immortal]] Mafia who can't cook; a pair of competing birds, one a DJ penguin from the moon and one a... strange orange "bird" that keeps making films centered around trains; a creepy forest with death-seeking fire spirits and a {{yandere}} who thinks being a queen instead of a princess makes her less beautiful; and a gigantic mountain range with an oversized birdhouse, a lava structure that resembles a cake, and an interdimensional bell. It is partly a throwback to old collectathons of the Nintendo 64 era, which may explain some of the weirdness. |
| 230 | [[/folder]] |
| 231 | |
| 232 | [[folder:Finland]] |
| 233 | * ''VideoGame/MySummerCar'' is supposed to be a car-building simulation, but the creator's insistence on Hideo Kojima-esque realism, CreatorProvincialism, and strange sense of humour led to the game being most well-known for its depiction of ordinary life in 90s-era rural Finland, which comes off as pretty hilarious for both Finns and non-Finns, for completely different reasons. |
| 234 | [[/folder]] |
| 235 | |
| 236 | [[folder:France]] |
| 237 | * ''VideoGame/TheBizarreAdventuresOfWoodruffAndTheSchnibble'', a French point'n'click with bizarre humor. |
| 238 | ** Ditto the ''VideoGame/{{Gobliiins}}'' series, its [[SpiritualSuccessor Spiritual Predecessor]]. |
| 239 | ** Also ''VideoGame/{{Inca}}'' by the same developer, Coktel Vision, involving Incas and Conquistadors battling each other [[JustForFun/RecycledInSpace in space]]. |
| 240 | * The French role-playing game ''VideoGame/BoundByFlame'' isn't especially bizarre but it is also a strong contender for the [[DarkerAndEdgier darkest western RPG]] ever to see commercial release, quite a step outside the norm in overseas markets. |
| 241 | * ''[[https://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/dogolrax Dogolrax]]'' is a side-scrolling action-adventure game inspired by ''VideoGame/AnotherWorld'', where we play as some guy stranded on a remote planet. He will be involved in a random and confusing plot about alien priestesses and monks creating an army of mutants to invade Earth (or something like that), that boils down to lots of minigames and the graphic style changing every few screens, with areas (apparently dreams of some sort) looking like shadow theater or 8-bit games; there's lots of disgusting creatures ([[AliensSpeakingEnglish sentient]] or not), a vagina-shaped elevator, the hero at one point dies and is reborn for no apparent reason, and there's a bunch of {{animesque}} girls that clash greatly with everything else. It's not terribly good, but it's the thought that counts. And apparently it is the successor of the devs' earlier adventure game ''[[https://www.mobygames.com/game/temple-of-dogolrak Temple of Dogolrak]]'' (with a "K"), still full of random [[SexSells anime girls]]. |
| 242 | * Right off the bat, the title hero of Ubisoft's ''VideoGame/{{Rayman}}'' is a guy with [[FloatingLimbs no arms, legs or neck]] who throws his fists at enemies and uses his hair to fly. How surreal the world around him gets depends on the game. It can range from [[VideoGame/Rayman2TheGreatEscape dark yet whimsical]] to a flat-out [[VideoGame/RaymanOrigins Saturday Morning cartoon]]. |
| 243 | [[/folder]] |
| 244 | |
| 245 | [[folder:Germany]] |
| 246 | * The ''[[VideoGame/EdnaAndHarveyTheBreakout Edna & Harvey]]'' [[VideoGame/EdnaAndHarveyHarveysNewEyes franchise]] are a rare example of a PEGS, since both games are [[PointAndClickGame point-and-click adventure games]] in which you play insane female protagonists. |
| 247 | [[/folder]] |
| 248 | |
| 249 | [[folder:Hungary]] |
| 250 | * ''VideoGame/ThreeDirtyDwarves'' is a weird Hungarian thing. You control three dwarves who [[IKnowMaddenKombat use sport gears as weapons and armors]]. Enemies include naked ninjas, an entire gym which attack by throwing can of steroids, and a blue troll covered by junkyard dogs biting his body. The backgrounds and the animated intro also have a distinct EasternEuropeanAnimation style. |
| 251 | [[/folder]] |
| 252 | |
| 253 | [[folder:Poland]] |
| 254 | * ''VideoGame/OhSirTheInsultSimulator'' is technically a weird Polish thing who're trying to appeal to those who're into the weird British thing that's Monty ''Python''. Got a sequel called ''Oh, Sir! Hollywood Roast'' |
| 255 | [[/folder]] |
| 256 | |
| 257 | [[folder:Sweden]] |
| 258 | %%* Swedish examples of just...''what the fuck'': |
| 259 | %%** ''VideoGame/MondoMedicals'' |
| 260 | %%** ''VideoGame/MondoAgency''. |
| 261 | %%** Also, [[http://cactusquid.com/games.htm the rest]] of Creator/{{cactus}}'s games. ''They're all weird.'' |
| 262 | * ''Dubbelmoral!'' for Macintosh, a freeware game from 1990, has you play a Lund University student who sneaks out of his study to binge-drink and flirt with girls at the quadrennial Lundkarnevalen (Lund Carnival), and must return home before his mom finds him missing and attacks him with a FryingPanOfDoom and cement meatballs. Along the way, he must also dodge the University police, falling tree branches that [[DifficultyByAcceleration increase in speed and frequency with the player's score]], fellow drunkards throwing bottles, and the [[DeanBitterman Rector Magnificus]], along with periodically relieving himself at the Urinoar(urinal). |
| 263 | * ''VideoGame/GardenGnomeCarnage''. The premise: You're a garden gnome tied to a building on wheels, and you're trying to hold off elves from dropping Christmas presents into the chimney (because gnomes hate holidays) by swinging into them and dropping bricks on them, in addition to the occasional air strike. Oh, and this game was made by Creator/DanielRemar (of ''VideoGame/{{Iji}}'' and ''VideoGame/HeroCore'' fame). |
| 264 | * ''VideoGame/{{Magicka}} starts'' off tame enough, you play as generic wizards in a generic fantasy settings helping a generic kingdom. Of course, then are things such as a your mentor; a vampire pretending not to be a vampire, the wooden horses, multiple references, parodies of game mechanics like sidequests, and the first expansion removes you from the generic setting and places the wizards and monster into [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar Vietnam]]. |
| 265 | [[/folder]] |
| 266 | |
| 267 | [[folder:Switzerland]] |
| 268 | * ''[[VideoGame/PlugAndPlay Plug & Play]]'' ([[http://store.steampowered.com/app/353560/ Link here]]). Here's WebVideo/{{Markiplier}}'s [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx7zbzaxK-Q playthrough of the game]]. It certainly begs the question of ''what did I just play again?''. Eventually received a sequel called ''Kids'', which while is still weird, has a clearer narrative about bullying, peer pressure and... childbirth? |
| 269 | [[/folder]] |
| 270 | |
| 271 | [[folder:United Kingdom]] |
| 272 | * ''VideoGame/AlfredChicken'' works his way through ''really'' weird levels, meets giant talking flowers, and saves his eggnapped friends from the evil Meka-Chickens. |
| 273 | %%* Anything by Jeff Minter qualifies. Among them are "Attack of the Mutant Camels" and "Hover Bovver". |
| 274 | * ''VideoGame/{{Lemmings}}'' combines colourful graphics, mind-bending puzzles, and [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath grisly, relentless death]] of cutesy creatures if the player doesn't do things right. |
| 275 | * ''VideoGame/LittleBigPlanet'' is definitely a Wabbit. Ignoring the fact that the levels take place on a world made from people's dreams, the characters include a cardboard Creator/LeonardoDaVinci wearing 3D glasses, a sexy nurse with an apple for a head and a depressed, cowardly calendar ... whose facial expressions are drawn in ink but can change. |
| 276 | * ''VideoGame/ManicMiner'' is a straight enough platformer, albeit with some rather bizarre enemies. The sequel ''VideoGame/JetSetWilly'' takes it up to eleven with some outright trippy level designs, obstacles and enemies. |
| 277 | * ''VideoGame/{{Putty}}'' is a British game that shows that Japan has no monopoly on {{Platform Game}}s with colorful, cheerfully outlandish environments. This is the kind of game where punching enemies turns them into babies that have to be absorbed before they explode and a cat laughs at you. |
| 278 | * Creator/{{Rare}} has its fair share of Wabbits (Weird British Things), such as ''VideoGame/BlastCorps'' (a game about destroying all sorts of buildings with one ludicrous ExcusePlot about a runaway nuclear missile carrier) and ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay'' (a cutesy CollectAThonPlatformer twisted into something both stranger and very family-unfriendly). One of their earliest "games", ''Taboo: The Sixth Sense'', is a digital tarot deck for the NES. |
| 279 | * ''VideoGame/RockStarAteMyHamster'' is an example of a Wabbit. It's a BritishRockstar management simulator, with all the insanity that implies. |
| 280 | * ''VideoGame/SkoolDaze'' and its sequel ''VideoGame/BackToSkool'' aren't exactly ''weird'', at least in the goal you have to accomplish (steal your bad report card in the first game, replace it with a forgery in the second), but the route there certainly is. The games, being steeped in the atmosphere of TheGoodOldBritishComp, certainly give them a distinctively British flavour. |
| 281 | * ''VideoGame/{{Worms}}'' is WarHasNeverBeenSoMuchFun taken to ridiculous extremes: the combatants are homicidal annelids, and the weaponry often goes to unexpected things such as Sheep and Banana Bombs. |
| 282 | * Creator/{{Llamasoft}} have had this as their M.O. since the early 1980s. Titles like Attack of the Mutant Camels, Sheep In Space, Llamatron: 2112, Space Giraffe and Moose Life (all of which are psychedelic shoot-em-ups, of all things) should give you an idea of what you're getting into. |
| 283 | [[/folder]] |
| 284 | |
| 285 | !!Unsorted |
| 286 | The origin countries of these games are unknown. If you do know, do move them to the relevant folder, thanks. |
| 287 | |
| 288 | [[folder:Unsorted]] |
| 289 | * ''Carrots and Cream'': A game that tries to tell an abstract story about some guy being obsessed with carrots and cream, and a worm eating through the carrots and eventually meeting a grisly death? Those who've played it are baffled by it. |
| 290 | [[/folder]] |
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/context.php
FollowingContext QuirkyWork / VideoGames
Go To
- Show Spoilers
- Night Vision
- Sticky Header
- Wide Load
