Nothing is certain but death and taxes. I find a glaring error with the long standing supposed truism. It misses a key component of our humanity that brings infinite joy to our collected gaggle of peoples – farts. Farts are hilarious. Now you know the whole truth.
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Yet, farts find little footing in gaming. I think I heard one during the credits of Halo 2, but that was my soul being torn out of my eye sockets. Well, brothers and sisters, I have found the fart Mecca of gaming – Xbox Live’s Indie Channel. I was horrified and pleased at the search results on the Indie Channel for the term “fart.” I knew someone had to man this task – catalogue, consider, and provide commentary on every fart-related title on the Indie Channel. My walkabout begins now.
Rating System:
Putrid – A top-notch fart game; not only sets the industry standard in both design and
mechanics, it displays successful risk-taking and insight into the genre.
Grody – An above average contender – sound from top to bottom, yet falls short of greatness
due to lack of fart funniness.
Fusty – M’eh. It’s fart game, and it works like a fart game should.
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Stinky – Yeah, it should stink on some level, but it stinks on a level that isn’t ironically funny.
Fragrant – What the hell? The train to “I’m Gonna Try-Ville” pulled out no one bothered to
board. Lacks any redeeming fart-related quality and may please your grandmother if
she aimlessly meanders through your gaming session.
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I present to you, good reader, five fart-related games.
- Avatar Fart (80 Microsoft Points)
The good folks over at Dwarf Biter have jacked the matrix and given your avatar the ability to fart. It’s like I’m looking into a mirror that is looking into a mirror that is looking into a mirror with gas. Avatar Fart offers three game modes:
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Single Player – Your avatar (in my case a bald-guy with a rad “I Pity the Fool” shirt) fills the screen with noxious, green gasses as the player hits and releases the buttons on a timer. Press and release properly – farts occur, green smoke billows, and the fart meter goes up. Mistime the button pressing and farts still happen, but the fart meter dips. Fill the fart meter – level up! Then do it all again!
Multiplayer – Same as a single player, but there are two of you for extra farting hilarity. Shockingly, I had no one to play multiplayer with so I took out my extra controller, put it on a beanbag chair, and used my foot as the second player. I’m not much on bravado, but I whooped my foot’s ass.
Free Fart – Button-mash until your hands bleed in stigmata-like fashion from the realization that you are playing a game with a free fart mode.
The most striking element of Avatar Fart is the lovely young-lady on the “cover.” I like to think she is dating someone on the development team because it just seems against the laws of physics, and well, freakin’ A good for that guy.
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Avatar Fart – Final Rating: Fusty – it gives what it advertises, but the world can be blown out in several areas. I will gladly up this rating to Putrid if someone can confirm a member of the dev team is dating the lovely lass on the cover or at least stood within bad-touch distance in an elevator.
2. BugO StinkO: Pull My Feeler (80 Microsoft Points)
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Someone at Takimchu Games really gave a rat’s ass when they made BugO StinkO. It’s really a game. Ants, cockroaches, levels, jumping, enemies, farts, fans, food, spitting – BugO StinkO has got it all. BugO StinkO does for bug related farting games what Super Mario Brothers did for platformers. If Mario had been a cockroach you could not distinguish these games. (Ok, maybe Luigi would need to be a fire ant and Bullet Bill would have to be a bunch of bananas, but otherwise it’s a match).
BugO StinkO is wacky 2D platformer that requires precise jumps, ammo/inventory management (farts and food), as well as light puzzle solving (fart into a series of fans that turn your fart into essentially the Blaster Launcher from XCom: UFO Defense). I met my end several times during the “toot-tourial,” but I left with a firm understanding of the mechanics. While the myriad of fart games on the market stick with the mechanic of farting in the direction of an enemy for utter destruction, BugO StinkO layers in elements of silent but deadly, spitting, and lighting farts over its 32 levels. Again, this is a REAL game.
BugO StinkO – Final Rating: I have never been so torn in my fart-related gaming criticism. So, I’m taking the coward’s way out and giving you two ratings:
Fusty – If you’re a fan of the genre this is an ok, pretty-good entry. (The cliché gods just vomited).
Grody – I would go Putrid here, but I’m pulling a journalism-jock move and lowering the score one grade because they clearly tried while making this game. Trying hard is not cool in the world of jock-gaming journalism. Cool people don’t try.
3. Rocket Fart (80 Microsoft Points)
Ignatius has taken a tumble into the bowels (insert rimshot here X) of the volcano, Mount Boom. As it goes (how many times have we heard this one), falling into a lava-spewing volcano causes him to fart with such force that he is airborne – a Rocket Fart. Off-screen friends hurl food at the fart-floating Ignatius to power up his stomach capacity thus fueling his gas-filled survival maneuvers. Not only does he have to eat to generate gas to remain in the air and avoid the fiery depths of Mount Boom – he must also avoid fireballs that are going sideways across the volcano. While these sideways fireballs create a real danger for poor Ignatius, I also found them to break my willful suspension of disbelief –ok, fart to float and not plunge into a volcano, but sideways fireballs? Vertical movement, hello? It’s like Hamlet getting thwacked in the head with a boom-mic while delivering, “To be or not to be.” My immersion shattered upon the entrance of the first sideways fireball.
Rocket Fart – Final Rating: Grody – Rocket Fart, despite my person prejudice against sideways fireballs, is the fart game you are looking for when you type “fart” into the Indie Channel search engine. Anyone can pick up the controller, enjoy a level of success, see a pixilated butt, and get a solid guffaw. The gameplay is reminiscent of Space Invaders if it is flipped upside down, the aliens are replaced with lava, and you fart instead of fire a laser.
4. SSRGFM (Surround Sound RC Gopher Farting Masseuse) (80 Microsoft Points)
Ok, I’ll admit that I’ve been drinking and am a blathering idiot, but I ain’t making up the name of this game. SSRGFM is three games in one – please suffer through the next 37 seconds of reading:
SS –(Surround Sound) Maneuver a gopher around a virtual living room and fart. Depending on the position of the gopher within the room and duration of the fart you will notice the corresponding fart sounds properly located on your surround sound or headphones.
RGF (RC Gopher Farting) – Remember when you played Mario Party for the first time and your button mashing cousin with skid-marks who never played a game before whipped you silly? Yep, keep that in mind as you randomly jump your gopher around platforms and fart toward other gophers. Things and stuff happen, but I’m not sure why.
M (Masseuse) – Using up to four controllers, you determine their speed and power and place them on any unimaginable spot on your body for a massage. Meanwhile, Mrs. Gopher stands in creepy bedroom and stares at you. I know a new depth of shame.
SSRGFM – Final Rating: Fragrant– I’m one of the more upbeat members of Gen X, but SSRGFM made me want to thrust a sharp stick into my eye. Even as a parody of a parody, it’s not even ironically dumb.
5. Try Not to Fart (80 Microsoft Points)
George Orwell is joyfully trolling from the great beyond with this little ditty. Try Not to Fart, from our friends at Silver Dollar Games, pulled a total 1984 (at least as it relates to gas and social situations) and delivers a uproarious game that captures a very special moment in the human experience – trying not to fart in a social situation where it would be disastrous.
Try Not to Fart starts off with a gassy male-protag striking up some chitty-chat with a comely lady in a bar not unlike Cheers. As the bartender makes chaffing comments and observations over your conversation, the gas begins to build. Time a variety of finger-twisting button presses and releases to hold back the mounting assault. As the inevitable slips occur both the bartender and young-lady let loose a flurry of comments that I won’t spoil here (ok, minor spoiler: ladies don’t like farting on the first date). If you can pull off the veritable finger version of Twister, you can see this young lady through the first date and onto such occasions as dinner with her parents, first kiss, marriage, and even children. All the time, trying not fart.
Try Not to Fart – Final Rating: Putrid – Try Not to Fart is the Babe Ruth pointing to centerfield of fart games. Silver Dollar Games has taken entire human courtship ritual and boiled it down to several levels in which you exhaustedly try not to fart. They have left an indelible mark on the genre in the best way.