Joke game

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A joke game is a game which is intentionally made with poor production values. Notable traits of a joke game include horrible graphics, either simplistic or nonexistent gameplay, bizarre custom-made music and inane writing/grammar.

The first person to overtly create such a joke game was Mz_Weird, as dreiW_zM, with his joke company DA BOMB!! PRODUCTIONS. This group released DA BOMB!!!!!! and USUK on an unsuspecting public in the fall of 2000. Since then, others have made deliberate joke games; Inuchance started the trend of doing them in the DoZ with his entry "Exploration" in winter of 2000, and did several others for many more competitions.

Games created by DA BOMB!! PRODUCTIONS suddenly started resembling full-fledged games; these improving entries would come out every Day of Zeux, starting with Summer Dualstream Day of Zeux 2001 and Bloodthirsty Plantz!!!, followed by Final Fantasy XXX and ending with Castlevania: Drum Solo of Discombobulation. These entries still included most of the tenets of a joke game, but attention was actually paid to the gameplay.

Usually these games are made just because, but sometimes they are made to make a point. For instance, Esdemo1 created CAMEO to make fun of T-Bone6 for basing his game's appeal heavily on having a high number of cameos, and Guy/cja made Guy Isn't Tractor Dregs to poke fun at asiekierka's MegaZeux games (especially Asie is Leaving).

Joke games show up often in Blitzkriegzeux competitions, almost as a necessity resulting from the short timeframe given to make a game.

MZXers have branched this tradition out into other areas, on occasion. The most notable case is MAGNET MOM, made for the November 2006 72HGDC.