A form of
Deconstruction, which has apparently become a rising fad in
flash games.
A deconstruction game is a game that deconstructs aspects of
Video Games in general. At the minimum, it takes one aspect, and blows it up to such
ridiculously exaggerated proportions that it simply becomes laughable, as if to make a point that "You can't make a game based just on this!" or with some,
"If you enjoy games because of this one reason then you are an idiot!"
In order to qualify, a single part of the game at the minimum must take at least one single trope, mechanic, or gimmick, and either explore it exhaustively to the possible point of
Mind Screw, or play it far too simple and flat to be taken seriously. Typically they rely heavily on their nature as a parody to be entertaining, but on rare occasions they're fun to play as well. They often make use of
Playing The Player.
Examples:
Action Adventure
- Shadow Of The Colossus: Boss Battles. The game is almost nothing but boss fights, and what little bit of plot the game has makes most players question whether they're really doing the right thing by killing them.
Adventure Game
- Harvester: A deconstruction of Evil is Cool and Videogame Cruelty Potential, not through heavy-handed Videogame Cruelty Punishment, but through a heavy-handed ending that asks, What the Hell, Player?
- META: Amateur adventure game design.
- Flower, Sun and Rain: Sidequests, convenient puzzles, event flags and adventure game mechanics in general. The game, and often even the characters, will deliberately waste your time while your actual mission is to stop a terrorist from blowing up a plane. No one's really clear on why you need to solve math puzzles at every turn, either, but they seem to accept it as normal. In the end, your reward is mostly mockery.
First-Person Shooter
Interactive Fiction
Platform Game
- I Wanna Be The Guy: Difficulty / Unfair deaths
- You Have to Burn the Rope: Portal. The game consists of a short hallway which serves as a tutorial, a boss fight, and a catchy theme song that plays over the credits. The song mocks the short length of the game, including suggesting that you just try playing it over again. There is no story given outside this, and there are only two characters (the player character and boss). And the theme song is longer than the game itself.
- Arguably a failure, as it misses one important part of Portal — the part after the furnace where the game stops telling you what to do.
- You Only Live Once
: Platformers in the vein of Mario.
- Level Up: Leveling up in games.
- Sonic the Hedgehog OmoChao Edition: Stop Helping Me! (This game actually has added challenge — you have to avoid everything that triggers Omochao's comments as much as possible for Rank Inflation, and for Speed Run enthusiasts, there's the fact that the timer won't freeze whenever Omochao speaks.)
Role-Playing Game
Simulation Game
- Desert Bus, from Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors: Simulation Games. The simulation aspect is carried so far that the game is somehow less fun than it would be to actually drive a bus through a desert.
Stealth-Based Game
Survival Horror
- Nanashi no Game uses the cursed, nameless game to deconstruct RPGs. There's no battles to win, levels to grind or heroics to engage in — you just walk around, talk to people and collect hidden items that must be found to reach the good ending.
Web Games
