This week I have curated for you a pair of Free To Play games that are about as opposite as could possibly be.
The first game is a fan-made dating sim (sorta) featuring the cast of long-running webcomic Jerkcity. Jerkcity is, by all counts, the most impenetrable online comic out there. Started in 1998 (and I started reading it daily shortly thereafter), it follows (sorta) the goings-on and happenings of a series of characters in a story (sorta) told out of order. It is all at once angry, dumb, nerdy, homoerotic, homophobic, confused, and drunk. They’ve released a handful of very odd books, host the menu of an apparently oblivious Jamaican restaurant in south Florida, and one time sent me a pamphlet on how to operate my frog (sorta).
One of their superfans, a young lady who goes by the Twitter handle @dickmissiles, developed this game, JERKDATE 2K15 THE JERKENING. One part homage, three parts cribbing from another dating sim (sorta), and piles of unlicensed music come together to bring this hot mess straight to your fat face. This is the single most M-rated, not-under-any-circumstances safe for work game out there. This game will not be for everyone. But since it’s for me and FTPF here at GameGravy is my pet project, I will put up whatever I well please – at least before my editor takes it down.
It’s a big download, but it’s right here – JERKDATE 2K15 THE JERKENING.
The second game, well… isn’t as irrelevant and bonkers. Baku, a city in Azerbaijan, is host of the 2015 Europe Games – a sort of Eastern European knockoff Olympics that is run by the Azerbaijani president for life, Ilham Aliyev. As presidents-for-life go, he’s pretty standard fare; locking up journalists, activists, and lawyers who speak out or oppose him. In Real Baku 2015, you, the player, get to step into the shoes of one of these “athletes” and participate in the games! It’s a depressing, lo-fi take on introducing more human suffering to you, ever since you sat through most of Hotel Rwanda a few years back.
It’s a website game, complete with slacktivism petition you can sign and then feel better about as you drink your Starbucks.
Told ya these games are complete opposites. Go get ’em, tiger – unless you’re at work, seriously do not play JERKDATE at work.
