What is This Thing?
| What is This Thing? | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | DJ Yoshiman |
| Announce Date | April 8th, 2010 |
| Release Date | October 2010 |
| Genre | Platform |
| Players | 1 |
| Input | Keyboard |
| Medium | Multimedia Fusion 2 |
| Platform | Windows |
| Status | Released |
What is This Thing? is a highly unconventional platform game made by DJ Yoshiman and first submitted for Nintendo Community Fangame Convention 2010. Only one episode has been produced thus far, but DJ Yoshiman says that more episodes will be made in the future, which will be based on following year's events, as the game progresses through chronologically.
Story
The game begins with Mario having memories of Luigi and Peach suffering some abstract form of calamity. Mario then boards an airship and engages in revenge battle with a mutant Bowser. After Bowser becomes enraged, Kamek bursts through the room's window and proceeds to launch a very powerful attack at Mario. Before it can reach a cowering Mario, he is digitally teleported to a scene of fragments, featuring screens from Paper Mario World, Super Mario Storm, and other classic MFGG games. The rest of the cut-scene involves an explanation (though somewhat vague) of what's happening, followed by the symbolic creation of Bowser Tech, and then MFGG. The server manager who explains things informs Mario that in order to reach the individual that teleported Mario, he must go through the entire history of MFGG and advance the time in various ways.
Gameplay
For the first part of episode 1, people were distraught by the inability to recognize what to do during the battle with Bowser. This was caused by a design error; DJ Yoshiman meant to signal the flashing "#2" text bubble as "Button 2," (control being the default button 2 in Clickteam games) but rather, it seemed to state in other minds that you had to press the literal "2" button on your keyboard.
What is This Thing? has gameplay in each episode that is relevant to the time period its episode takes place in. Therefore, the first two episodes use the default Clickteam engine, which was popular at the time. Obviously later episodes will rely on more advanced engines and programs that were made more popular within those particular years. Each episode will contain objectives or minigames that help advance time.
Reception
WiTT met with mixed reactions. The average score for the game was lower than quite a few considerably lower-profile games. These low scores are mostly due to the fact the majority of the people playing the game had little or no knowledge of the numerous obscure references that appear in the game. Among those familiar with the themes presented in the game, reviewers were generally impressed with DJ Yoshiman's high-quality original music and remixes, and enjoyed some of the tributes to the past, while frequently complaining about the game's slow start.
