Kusoge of the IF Comp - an IFDB Poll

by Molly
RSS Feed

From Hardcore Gaming 101:
"Kusoge" (糞ゲー, or クソゲー) is a Japanese compound word - "kuso", meaning "garbage, crap, shit", and "ge", short for "geemu", the Japanese pronounciation of the word "game". It means, quite literally, "shit game". [...] In the most general sense, a kusoge is simply a terrible game. But a specific culture has sprung up surrounding games like these, people that celebrate these games for their sub-par quality. Dubbed "kuso bunka" ("kuso culture"), it revels in mockery and silliness. In many ways, it's the equivalent of the B-grade (and below) movies featured on the likes of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

With that explanation in mind, what are your favorite kusoges of the IF Comp? (Spring Thing games are welcome, too.) I'm especially interested in titles that are bad in interesting, or at least endearing, ways.

View Comments (3) - Add a comment


The Lift, by Colin Capurso
3 votes
"Possibly I'm the only one with any affection for this game" [+]"Possibly I'm the only one with any affection for this game" --Molly... "Props for the cover art, though" [+]"Props for the cover art, though: As a fan of The Room, it's hard to resist the similarly-titled The Lift" ( - Full review) --Andrew Schultz... (No comment) [+](No comment) () --Sobol...

Vote for this game

The Chronicler, by John Evans
1 vote
"Crap Underimplemented Game is its genre, but it's doing some interesting stuff with its mechanics and it engaged me enough to finish it." [+]"Crap Underimplemented Game is its genre, but it's doing some interesting stuff with its mechanics and it engaged me enough to finish it." ( - Full review) --matt w (Matt Weiner)...

Vote for this game

The Epic Origins of CamelGirl!, by Brandi Wilcox
1 vote
"Wildly..." [+]"Wildly overambitious, buggy as heck, and in spite of the exclamation mark it turns out camel superpowers are pretty mundane..." --Emily Boegheim...

Vote for this game

Luster, by Jared Smith
1 vote
"First game I disassembled" [+]"First game I disassembled: I was more interested in What Happened Next than in some better games the comp had that year." () --Andrew Schultz...

Vote for this game

Is there another game that you think should be on this list? Just fill in the title of a game you'd like to vote for.
Game Title (or TUID or IFID):