Curiosities of the Modern Age: V

"Turn it up - Bring Da Void!"

This is some great, horrifying art right here

THE VOID BRINGER

(Furillo Productions, 2022)

Okaaaaaaay, now where do I start with this one? There are ‘Curiosities of the Modern Age’ and then there’s this game. Maybe begin by introducing those who are responsible for “The Void Bringer – The Backrooms: Level 711” to give it its full hatstand title. It’s Furillo of course, whose unhinged products never fail to bemuse, and frankly I live for ‘em.

Into The Black Hole we go. Hope we get to chat to Vincent

Quick run-down of their Spectral wares? Well why not. Do it in the form of a badly-metered poem or song? Absolutely. Break it down now.

“2 fine young chaps, Iadvd and Molomazo

One day thought up the thing we know as Furillo.

They couldn’t half make nice graphical creations

And no-one could say they lacked imagination.

So they made a space game called Federation Z

Which had plenty of space, and was sick in the head.

Flappy Clive soon followed, a tribute quite silly,

Which Sir C. liked even more than Jet Set F****ing Willy.

Their shining moment came with Doom Of The Pond

Of which the Crash boys were deeply fond,

And they gave it a Smash for its looks and its sounds

Even though you got killed every couple of rounds.

Next came Yopparai Sarariiman, the strangest of things,

Sounds like he’s from Japanese Lord Of The Rings.

Then Fed Underwater dragged us into the deep,

With plenty of dad jokes designed to make you weep.

A shooter called Deva was next in the list,

Where you tried not to get your chakras in a twist.

Then The Void Bringer appeared, for better or worse,

Which I promise I’ll get back to right after this verse.

Wallachia’s Demons brought platformy fare,

A Hammer of Horror for the brave to bear.

Dark Veil and Javi vs. Parrish were adventurey romps if you missed ‘em,

Short but sweet usages of the MuCho system.

Then Area 51 took us to the land of New Mexico

To battle green aliens and boldly to go.

The last to date was Pirate Captain Creed

Which I’ve never played but looks decent indeed.

So hail to those fine furry Furillo fellows!

May they only get crazier and never ever mellow.

Their games are always odd but never boring,

And they clearly are very good with the drawing.

Let them continue their ascent to godness

As what would life be without its share of oddness?”

Well that’ll be divisive but I had a few spare minutes to amuse myself, so there you go. Let’s check out The Void Bringer then. After the optical illusion style loading screen, we get a big screen of text which reminds me a little of some of Philip K. Dick’s short sci-fi stories, or maybe the best short story of all time, “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream” by Harlan Ellison. It’s quite creepy really, and a weird kind of atmosphere is duly generated. Next a huge gob harangues you, like getting far too close to an angry Mick Jagger. And then an ugly marionette’s head has its twopenneth as well. It’s all quite unsettling actually, which is a great achievement. Have a read of it on the screenshot probably, there’s not much point me repeating it here, lazy boy that I am.

Don't think this requires a caption actually...

So it transpires that you’re stuck in the back rooms and must urgently return to the front rooms. I guess maybe the sun was coming in too strong and it was getting a bit much? Or maybe your back rooms are pretty much junk rooms and you don’t want your family seeing that you’re a messy slob. It’s kind of a studenty type of problem I’m thinking. Anyhow, in order to go from back to front, you have to beat the stuffing out of a total of 5 other people who are stuck in the same back rooms as you, squatters probably.

This remaster of Crazy Caverns kicks ass

Your opponents are Yoshimitsu, Jun, Ryu, Squirtle and Sephiroth. Sorry, that’s the wrong piece of paper. They’re actually Saru (an educated ape), Rika (a lady explorer researching almond water (stay with me)), Xags (a 10,000 year old A.I.), Zoom (a retired superhero from Earth), Jane (a soldierette serving in Guyana) and ZZ80 (a neural network descended from the Z80, who looks like Billie Eilish). The randomness of these protagonists cannot be understated.

Hell is just full of scary Geisha dolls. Gibber...

You now have to face them in combat over five different rounds of varying strangeness, a bit like It’s A Knockout used to be before it got cancelled because everyone involved in it was well dodgy. These rounds come up in a random order, but I’ll tackle them in the order they came up for me the last time I played it, which I’m sure you needed to know.

Round 1 – “Energy Up”. Remember that fairly short-lived Saturday night family TV show “Hole In The Wall” with the varnished Dale Winton? Apologies to any non-UK readers, but you can be glad you didn’t have to see it. A person would have to run around throwing themselves through said holes in said walls as they came towards them, otherwise the wall would smush them flat. This is like a spacey version of that - you have to guide your ship through the one character hole as it travels upwards. This would be easy, only I’m sure they’ve nobbled the controls so that you have to press your keys about five times as often as usual to move your craft even one space. While your opponent sails through untroubled. Didn’t like this one much if I'm honest, it’s not fair, moan, groan…

Watch Billie Eilish get battered by a monkey. The Void Bringer!

Round 2 – “Doppelgangers”. Back to more mundane territory now, this is pretty much a simple game of Pairs. The various players’ ugly mugs appear when the cards are turned over, and you have to use “the power of the mind” to remember where their mates are positioned. Like an intergalactic version of the game you used to play with your nan. Strangely, the computer is terrible at this game, so must be going senile. You could, nay should, win it comfortably.

Let's hope TV in the dystopian post-apocalyptic future is as random as this

Round 3 – “The Labyrinth”. You move your little U.D.G. around as fast as you can, gradually uncovering bits of a maze, or labyrinth if you’re being posh, which was previously engulfed in darkness. Try to uncover more than your opponent does and beat their score, then you win. This game features power-ups and almond water, as all the best games do, and is quite well balanced. You can win it if you concentrate, but start slacking and your intergalactic bottom will be handed to you.

Bowlhead Jane is not amused. You can stick your stinkin' almond water!

Round 4 – “The Sun Eater”. Not that permanently half-dressed lady who sang “So Macho” before attaching herself to Simon Cowell (urgh). No, rather you’re back in your spaceship and must zap the various suns which appear before your opponent does, all the while trying to avoid getting sucked into black holes. This is another winnable affair as your opponent tends to be pretty handy, and the ‘getting sucked into the black holes’ bit works pretty well, giving you a realistic sucking sensation. Stop that. Sometimes your cross-hair is too small for shooting the bigger suns for some reason, which is a bit rum but no doubt there’s a reason for it.

This DLC for Future Games is quite decent actually

Round 5 – “The Duel”. This is a colourful little number with you on one side of the screen and your enemy on the other. You ride in a cute li’l ship, firing blocks at them and trying to avoid their blocks being fired at you. You can’t see your bullets on your own side, only on theirs. Weird, but quite fun and again, one you can win after a few tries.

So whoever wins the most rounds wins overall, then it’s on to the next opponent, with the difficulty level increased accordingly. If you’ve got the patience to get through all five, then the comfy couch in the front room is yours! Oh and if you lose, the game takes great delight in informing you that you’re going to be dissected slowly and painfully for being such a useless tosser. Seriously Furillos, this is some sick s**t.

"Game very much Over man, Game very much Over"

Actually it should definitely be mentioned that you can play this game with two players, which I haven’t tried, but I can imagine it would make for a lively experience, especially if you’re both completely hammered at the time. “Haha, you got dissected slowly and painfully! Ner ner!” I can see how that could be fun.

Let’s judge them there aesthetics. The graphics? Well there’s some great stuff scattered around the game generally, and the Furillos never disappoint in this area, although the actual game sprites are small and largely functional. Colours are used crazily, which is what we like and the sound is decent, as a spooky little tune plays throughout proceedings.

Look, it's Yopparai Sarariiman. Translates to "Drunk Japanese Businessmen"

So this one has been a hugely entertaining Curiosity I have to say. What it lacks in arcade quality it gains in overall presentation and atmosphere, and is nothing but fun to have a go of. I’d like to see Crash review this one actually, see what they make of it, but for now I’m off to enjoy some delicious almond water before I get dissected slowly and painfully. Goodnight!