Video Game / Corn Kidz 64

Seve on the left, Alexis on the right

Corn Kidz 64 is a 3D Collect-a-Thon Platformer created by Bogosoft and released in 2023. A Nintendo Switch port released on April 19th, 2024.

Seve, local one-horned goat teen, keeps having the same dream every night, and his friend Alexis is determined to break him out of it and hone his "corn powers".

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Tropes present in this game include:

• Action Bomb: Bombybeaks are flying bomb-birds that Seve can grab and launch at his enemies. Unusually, they're rather docile, only becoming explosive once Seve grabs them.
• Advancing Boss of Doom: A giant Socks With Shoes serves as the last major obstacle of the Tower level, where it'll punt Seve off the tower if it catches him.
• Arc Villain: Owlloh is the main enemy of Wolloh's Hollow, and while he doesn't directly antagonize the Corn Kidz until Seve enters his tree, he does oppress the rest of the town and his fellow owls' poor bowel control will harm Seve nonetheless.
• Brutal Bonus Level: The Tower of Anxiety, a level described by Alexis as "looking like the feeling you get when you're about to throw up". Not only is this Tower much trickier than the first one, it also has to be cleared in one life.
• The Cameo: A portrait of Sybil from Pseudoregalia appears in the secret post-game level. Interacting with it causes Seve to express wishing he'd end up in a dream realm with her instead of Alexis.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Alexis is pretty out there mentally, based on her interactions with Seve. She does give him sound advice when he needs it, though.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Dying will just send Seve back to the last checkpoint portal with half his HP. Not so much for the Tower of Anxiety, where Seve will have to start over if he dies.
• Dream Land: The entire game takes place in a dream Seve is having and Alexis is somehow part of.
• Fantastic Racism: The owls controlling Wolloh's Hollow treat the pigs who originally lived there as second-class citizens, enforcing all sorts of absurd laws.
• Gainax Ending: After climbing the top of the Tower, Alexis reveals that Seve's nacho dreams are a trap by the Devil to control him through his own desires and to use him in dark sacrificial rituals involving horse latex and jello, and that further exposure to the nacho dreams would diminish his corn powers. Alexis then sends him home, denying him of his nachos. If the player manages to beat the secret post-game level, Seve is greeted by Dog God who praises him for beating everything and rewards him with a Grilled Cheese instead.
• Goomba Springboard: Seve's headbutt jump works on enemies, letting him chain buttjumps across rows of enemies.
• Heart Container: Seve can get an extra hit point by collecting 5 bottle caps in Wolloh's Hollow and bringing them to a merchant. Another health upgrade exists in a secret post-game area.
• invokedIn Memoriam: The credits end with a memoriam for Keddums, Bogosoft's real-life cat.
• Magic Mirror: Breaking a mirror transports Seve to a bonus challenge that he can complete for some XP.
• Marathon Level: The tower is a fairly large linear level to the top and requires some good platforming skills. Although there are plenty of checkpoints, quitting the game means that you have to climb it all over again.
• No Fair Cheating: There are platforms that normally require some puzzle solving or tricky platforming to reach, but are not very high up compared to the rest of the level. Therefore, one might try to just drop to these from a higher platform - however, if you try that, you will be warped to the last checkpoint instead.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: Seve suffers fall damage proportional to the height he fell from, and using his ground pound will not affect it whatsoever. Warping to a checkpoint portal mid-fall, however, will deposit Seve at the checkpoint and he'll only take 1 damage from it, regardless of the fall distance.
• Oxygen Meter: Seve has a fairly generous one that drains when underwater or in toxic fumes. "Toxic fumes" includes the smoke from broken vending machines.
• Punny Name: Seve and Alexis are Corn Kidz... in the sense that they're one-horned (unicorn) goats.
• Retraux: Tons of care was put into making the visual style look as accurate to the Nintendo 64 as possible, right down to the base resolution and texture style.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Seve makes it up the Tower, but never gets the dream nachos he wanted, because Alexis has them and is keeping them to herself.
• Shout-Out: One area has a portrait of Sybil that Seve will comment on.
• invokedSpiritual Sequel: Bogosoft describes the game as being the "belated follow-up to ancient indie game Lyle in Cube Sector" and shares much of the character and sound design style with said game.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Mayor Wolloh is so spineless that he's actually upset about Seve causing trouble for the owls and tells him to leave, even though Owlloh turned him into a giant sausage and left him hanging from a tree.
• Use Your Head: Seve's main mobility tool is his headbutt, which he can perform in midair to bounce off of enemies (called "buttjumping" by the game), slam into a wall to activate jump pads with, or after getting the drill power-up, tunnel through dirt.
• Visual Pun: At the start of Wolloh's Hollow, Owlloh has turned Mayor Wolloh into a giant sausage. After killing Owlloh, the curse is lifted, revealing Wolloh to be a cowardly sycophant who bends over backwards for the owls... in other words, a big weenie
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Seve and Alexis are prone to bickering (Seve more so than Alexis), but both are still good friends.
• Wall Jump: Seve has a wall jump that gives him great vertical mobility, but unlike most examples, he can only wall jump once per jump. A few segments of the game have wall jump pads that refresh Seve's wall jump.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Owlloh is driven away from the Hollow and into his tree lair by public domain music.