I've always liked the quirky little games on the Adult Swim site; Five Minutes to Kill Yourself was particularly delicious, with the devil in the details. They've got a new one up called "Orphan Feast," and while I have about a two-minute attention span for sidescrolling keyboard-based platformers, this one's worth noting, "being an odious tale of culinary perversion," for its stylistic elements.The setting is a delightfully grim Dickensian London, and you're some foul monster-faced hulking blackguard in a dirty cape. Your boss, Oliver Twisted, has just given you his four-step Modest Proposal for making a fortune -- collect orphans to make into delicious pies for sale. Armed with a pickaxe and a bag full of junk to throw -- skulls, rotten tomatoes and the like -- hit the depressing streets and fight overweight whores, bumbling bobbies and the Artful Dodger to collect jaundiced, saucer-eyed and chubby kids. You'll have to sock the kids one too before you can stash 'em, sometimes taking a sample bite out of one beforehand.
It's not a sophisticated game by any measure, but the macabre environment, fab animation and clever peripherals -- like your twitching black heart that measures your life points, or the darkly whimsical violin music -- that really create the experience. It's more than a little bit Lemony Snicket, which can only be a good thing.Check it out (and don't skip the opening sequence!) -- after a few minutes, I guarantee you can almost taste the mince pies. Mmm, children.
