If you haven’t played Rag Doll Kung Fu, you really should.
Not that it’s the greatest game ever made, and the controls (dragging the rag doll character around) can be infuriating. Yet it has some strong things going for it: a unique lo-fi aesthetic with deliberately unconvincing cut-scenes, and low-budget but super-cool 2d graphics. And it’s being distributed online via Steam for $15.
Gamasutra has an interview with Mark Healey, the Rag Doll Kung Fu developer. (Registration required.)
GS: So we’re talking a zero budget for the cut scenes?
MH: Yeah, basically. We ended up spending about fifty pounds for some plastic swords and headbands. We borrowed a video camera and just improvised. It was just a couple a friends who decided to make a stupid kung-fu film. There was never any plan. It’s amazing it came out as well as it did.
I think the big news is that Rag Doll Kung Fu really hits the sweet spot as an indie game: It was developed on a small budget, it is cheap, and at the same time it has a specific feel, a lo-fi aesthetic that you can not get from big budget titles. This is the kind of indie game we have been waiting for for a long time.
Yeah, I did that interview. I think the most significant thing about it is the sense of autuerism, and I wonder if its a coincidence that about a month after our conversation Mark decided to quit lionhead and “do the autuer thing with some friends” as he put it.