Devolver Bootleg is a compilation of various games, developed by Doinksoft, published by Devolver Digital and released on June 10th, 2019 on PC, at the same moment than his surprise-reveal during the 2019 E3 conference of the label.
The game presents itself as a poorly-made PC launcher that allows you to play to eight games, who are "demake" versions of already existent titles published by Devolver (as a way to mock the bootleg versions of video games made by pirates), with a pretty ugly art style, fake names who try to stay close to the original names of the games copied (here, parodied) and grammar errors. For the rest, each game in the compilation have the same gameplay that the one copied.
Tropes present in Devolver Bootleg:
- Advertisement Game: The main purpose of Bootleg is to get people interested in the eight games it parodies.
- Competitive Multiplayer: Pikuniku Ball-Stars and Super Absolver Mini Turbo Fighting Championship are exclusively this, with no single-player mode.
- Parody: The entire compilation is a parody of video game bootlegs and each one is a parody of a title that have been published by Devolver Digital:
- Enter the Gun Dungeon is a parody of Enter the Gungeon.
- Hotline Milwaukee is one for Hotline Miami.
- Ape Out Jr. parodies Ape Out.
- Shootyboots is a copy of Downwell.
- Luftrousers 3 is a parody of Luftrausers.
- Absolver (also named "Super Absolver Mini Turbo Fighting Championship") copies... well, Absolver.
- Cat Game (also named "Catsylvania") parodies Gato Roboto.note
- Pikuniku Ball-Stars is a copy of Pikuniku.note
- Shout-Out: There's a little bit and they're pretty transparent:
- Ape Out Jr. makes one to Donkey Kong Junior, using the "Jr" and the same art style.
- Cat Game makes one to Castlevania, by its alternate title ("Catsylvania") and by the fact that it's literally Castlevania but with a cat.
- Stylistic Suck: The games are intentionally made with bad graphics and repetitive music. You can also spot grammar errors here and there ("Devolver" is named "Devolber" then "Devolvor", the parody of "Luftrausers" is named "Luftrousers"...).
- Video Game Demake: All of the games in the collection are "demake" versions of other games, with a preference for 8-bit art styles.
...And yes, the typos in the above were intentional.
