“NOT! A SpeedRunner’s Tool” by PurrSum.
“Explore a short platformer game as a tester, find out [what is] going wrong, and fix it. On your way, you will get several new game mechanics that might even replace your regular movement, and maybe even help in the future. Or not.”
Sometimes the rough edges of a jam entry are exactly the things that make it special. “NOT! A SpeedRunner’s Tool” is such a game. What starts of as a simple platformer game with a hook mechanic and a somewhat unreliable narrator, quickly becomes a wild mix of game ideas. That way, a charming story unfolds about a developer who cannot execute their own ideas in a flawless manner, but instead gets drowned in their own creativity and curiosity.
You will encounter five little prototypes, as you progress in the ‘broken’ game: The already mentioned platformer, a point and click hidden object concept, a puzzle stage inside a role-playing game, a short interactive novel episode and a boss fight. Slowly you will realize what exactly the reason for this mess actually is. In the end, “NOT! A SpeedRunner’s Tool” can be easily described as a metagame about the struggles of game development, disguised as a wild genre mashup. [PLAY]
