Darunia-Saria 2012

From Mario Fan Games Galaxy Wiki
Darunia-Saria 2012
DS2012.png
Developer(s) VinnyVideo
Announce Date August 31, 2009
Release Date November 6, 2012
Genre Minigames
Players 1
Input Standard keyboard
Medium Game Maker 8
Platform Windows
Status Complete

Darunia-Saria 2012, also known as Affordable Care Act: The Game, is VinnyVideo's sequel to Darunia-Saria 2008. D-S 2012 parodies the absurdities of the 2012 U.S. presidential election, just as D-S 2008 addressed Election 2008. VinnyVideo first started planning this game in 2009 but had also warned that there was no guarantee that this game would ever exist.

Story

In the original prototype of the story, Bowser had gotten tired of trying to influence the world by kidnapping the Princess, so he decided to run for president under the fictitious Neo-Whig Party. His campaign will take him to fundraisers, debates, and other public appearances.

In the released version of the game, there appears to be no story at all, and the minigames take place for no obvious reason, except to poke fun at the election process and the candidates.

It is unclear whether the unseen Pidgit, who is often portrayed as the mastermind behind every villain's evil scheme in VinnyVideo games, plays a role in the game's backstory.

Game Design

As with the original D-S 2008, the levels invoke the tough issues that pop up in debates and town halls - in this case, healthcare, foreign policy, and recurring jokes about Mitt Romney's dog Seamus.

All three minigames last indefinitely, and the longer you survive, the higher your final score will be. In each game, the enemies and obstacles grow faster and more aggressive as time goes on.

In the Hospital minigame, Saria must fend off the perils of the modern American healthcare system - staying healthy while remaining solvent! This concept was originally planned for the first D-S 2008.

In Iraq, the objective is to battle an endless stream of Al-Qaeda terrorists using Thwomps. This game was the culmination of an old concept originally known as Thwomped!!.

In Mitt's Dog, the player must drive to Canada with a dog atop the roof, alluding to the oft-repeated story about Mitt Romney's dog Seamus. Your goal is to drive as long as possible while avoiding collisions with donkeys and accidental splashdowns. This was Vinny's first attempt at making a procedurally-generated platform level - most of the level is randomly generated. In the original build of the game, this level was incomplete, but Vinny actually finished it in May 2021 - nine years after the election was in full swing.

Improvements since 2008

Despite its edgy wit and creative use of music, VinnyVideo's 2008 election game received mostly negative reviews, citing its inherently glitchy engine and the needless muddling of elements from Mario, Zelda, and Donkey Kong games. VinnyVideo planned to make the 2012 game clearer by removing some of the needless abstraction and making the sequence of events easier to understand.

D-S 2012 uses a more original art style, as all characters were drawn by hand, scanned in, colored, and edited into Game Maker sprite format. As an artist of unremarkable ability, Vinny found this to be a time-consuming process, contributing to the game's relative scarcity of content. The game uses higher quality Ogg Vorbis music instead of MIDIs, although one recurring motif returns - the use of the Croatian national anthem for the game's title screen.

D-S 2012 earned surprisingly little attention from the MFGG community, perhaps in part because of its late release. However, the few users who played the game seemed to enjoy it, especially the Healthcare level.

References in Other Games

D-S 2012 is the first game on MFGG with a fully functional Stop 'n' Swop system, and playing this game unlocks one of the "DLC" levels added to Cheerwine Deluxe 3 in 2021.

The Mario Paint level in Aventura de Luigi includes a "campaign sign" marked, "Saria-Darunia 2012." One of the hidden levels in Revenge of the Walrus also pays tribute to this game.

While this game is not based on D-S 2012, Supernova's Super Mario - Turd Feast series has frequently alluded to the election.

A 2016 campaign?

Vinny wanted to make a game based on the 2016 presidential election. While Vinny started a sequel called Groose-Strich 2016, he didn't have the time and motivation to finish it, as finishing Cheerwine Deluxe 3 and starting grad school occupied much of his time. He didn't actually finish Groose-Strich 2016 until 2021 - updating a bunch of old games was one of Vinny's pandemic projects.

Links

Games Developed by VinnyVideo
Full Games
Mini Games
Joke Games
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