Grab your thick rimmed hipster glasses, put on your unbranded super skinny jeans, and start playing the latest unplugged album from the underground sensation “The Tartan Jumpsuit Exchange”… We have an indie game gracing our fair company. The game in question is Obsessive Collecting Disorder, a neat little platformer on the Xbox Indie Market.
In the video gaming world, there is an epidemic sweeping the nation. It can affect anyone at any time. From Italian plumbers, anthropomorphic blue hedgehogs, and even vampire hunters, who thrive on looking for cooked poultry embedded in thousand year old walls. This epidemic is known as Obsessive Collecting Disorder. Such symptoms include chronic kleptomania, the urge to headbutt bricks for coins, and even jumping on other people to gain some sort of accumulated score.
Now, Craperture Science (not to be affiliated with the psychotic company run by a demonic A.I.) has created a seven stage program to study and record the effects of this disorder. It is your job to complete each stage, collecting every coin in each room in the fastest time possible. How could anyone not love a concept like that? Taking a satirical look at the platforming world, or any concept in general, if done well, can be a great idea in my opinion.
The controls and gameplay are both simple but a lot of fun. Jumping and running feels responsive in this game, and trying to complete every level in the quickest time possible offers an entertaining challenge, made all the more bearable by the fact you respawn almost instantly upon death, a la Super Meat Boy.
No faffing about in this game with game over screens or lengthy restarting procedures. There’s testing to be done, Craperture can’t afford to mess around when a cure for OCD is needed as soon as possible.
For an indie game on the Xbox market place, it’s very enjoyable. Usually 70 games are spouted every week, and they’re usually hastily made, dreary, or just plain bad. But when the planets align behind a blue moon, you find hidden gems which surprise you with it’s simple but effective charm. And OCD has done that very well. I highly recommend this game
Platform Xbox Live Arcade
Developed by Super Smith Bros
Price 80 MS Points
For more info visit @supersmithbros