BDSM Meets MBJ

Mighty Jill Off is an adorable little game from dessgeega which answers the question of "why do the protagonists of 8-bit video games seem so eager to go through a relentless barrage of bodily and mental harm" with a head-smackingly obvious answer: "because they're masochists, duh!"

Indeed, the game is most easily described as a BDSM-infused homage to Mighty Bomb Jack (from pre-Itagaki Tecmo) and its ilk.

BDSM? Mmm hmmm. The game's story concerns Jill, who is probably the first submissive character to demand the creation of some kind of plush toy. She's in a real boot-licker of a relationship with The Queen, who lives at the top of a spooky, trap filled tower. Of course, after getting booted down to the very bottom, Jill must leap all the way to the top in order to meet her Queen's welcome demands.

This is all conveyed to the player through a few charming stills at the beginning and end of the game, courtesy of aspiring artist James Harvey. The music, courtesy of Andrew Toups, was produced using a Moog Rogue synthesizer. It's the kind of music you can really twirl your mustache to, if you have one.

So, hey, that's all great, but what's it play like? Dessgeega herself stated over at the game's development thread (hosted at The Gamer's Quarter forum) that:

"for a while i've been complaining about the lack of adequate exploration of vertical space in platformers. so it's natural that my first platform game be pretty high-minded (despite its mind being in the gutter). "

On a basic level, Jill controls a lot like Bomb Jack - pressing the Z button results in a really ridiculously high jump, but you can tap the Z button at any time during that jump to immediately cue a descent. Once Jill starts falling, you can tap the Z button rapidly to slow her fall according to the situation.

There's a really wonderful focus of design evident throughout - the screen scrolls up the whole time, there's only one type of enemy, and two kinds of blocks: those that are dangerous and those that aren't. Dessgeega explores this limited design space thoroughly, however, and takes care not to overstay her welcome. I finished the entire game in about 12 minutes the first time through (the game displays your time for posterity after you finish), but the included readme file challenges you to finish in under 8.

Fun fact: the game was developed over a period of 7 weeks in Dessgeega's spare time - she's currently enrolled as a student at The Guildhall at SMU, a game design school more interested in teaching students how to be cogs in a huge machine than independent thinkers and artists. Of course, that just ended up fostering an even greater urge to create something unique:

(again from The Gamer's Quarter forum)
" i've been working on mighty jill off for the past two months in between my classes and classwork. this is as good as any a place to point out that this game was created entirely without input or resources from my school. i just sit through lectures about 200-person game teams and it makes me want to go and make a game with three people. "

Now that's indie! I've already linked to the game's homepage twice, but three ain't gonna kill me: download the game from here, it was made in Game Maker, and have a nice day.