At the annual "Famicase" exhibitions in Tokyo over the last decade, designers create and showcase absurd cover art for games that don't exist.
For the A Game By Its Cover game jam, developers go one step further and actually create games based on these improbable bits of cover art. This year's jam just wrapped up, and there are some neat submissions. My favorite? A pitch-perfect parody of the movie Speed called Terminus that couples its memetic humor with some engaging game design.
You control a speeding bus on one side of the screen and Keanu Reeves on the other, who walks hurriedly around the bus keeping passengers calm. It feels like Frogger meets Diner Dash. Beyond capturing the silliness and spectacle of 90's blockbusters, the game reduces Speed to its most essential elements: a bus, a bomb, and its beautiful stars making eyes at each other.
And it's just one of a whole slew of games based on absurd premises. Next, I think I'll try Danny Devito 2: The Danny Quests On.
