Premise

In this blog, I will play, listen to, or view every piece of media produced by Kimberly Kubus, also known as Kim Okkerstrom and Sparlaticus. Kubus is the self-styled inventor of the wheel, the king of good stuff, and the daddy of spiritual jazz.

Kimberly Kubus is best known for his Game Maker games, which are typically played for their manic, hastily sketched atmosphere, and not for their actual gameplay value. His most infamous games are Drink Tea or Die, a very simple game in which two players compete to see who can drink a cup of tea the fastest, and the Johnny series, which, last I heard, was the longest-running Game Maker series in existence, with 29 official installments.

Kubus's games are often broken, and some of them quite literally cannot be won. A lot of them rely on the player being able to guess the location of an invisible door or fall to his death. A lot of his games rely on dumb luck. For instance, in many of his games, enemies will spawn in random points on the screen, and move in random directions. Often they appear directly next to the player's character, killing him before he even gets started. Some games respawn the character instantly, and he dies five or six times before the player can even take control. Kubus's games are made very rapidly, with, I assume, very little playtesting. When he is in the mood for making games, Kubus releases several games per week. At one point, he created two new Johnny titles in one day. Kubus's games are released under the brand of "PG Games, The Paradise of Great Games."

In recent years, Kubus has branched out into other media. He now releases music on a regular basis. As I type this post, it is April of 2010, and Kubus has already released nineteen full-length albums this year. Kubus's music could most charitably be referred to as noise music. Most of the tracks consist of Kubus fiddling around with various instruments which he seems never to have played before. There is no sense of key or even tone. Typically a loose semblance of rhythm is the only way you can tell that it's intended to be music. Most of it hurts your ears and gives you a headache. Kubus's music can be listened to for the novelty factor, and can be quite funny at times. Songs like "You Can Suck My Duck," and "Dumpster Truck Massacre" are genuinely humorous. Sometimes, though, Kubus will go through a whole album without any vocals, which is very difficult to withstand.

Along with music, Kubus has been branching off into film, under the banner of "Kubus Home Video." At their best, Kubus's films feature him and a friend improvising a very loose narrative, usually in a mundane setting like the woods near Kubus's home, expecting the audience to imagine along with them that they are someplace more interesting. For instance, in The Island of Fucking Good Pussy, Kubus claims to be on a boat, then claims to be walking the plank, and walks across a log. He then claims that he cannot jump off the plank because there are "too many sharks," but that he "sees an island" that he can jump to. At their worst, Kubus's films are mostly made up of extreme closeups of Kubus's rotten teeth.

This is Kubus's website.

As a whole, Kubus can be enjoyed for the humorous moments that spring from his mostly improvisational style. When playing a Johnny game, you'll suddenly come across an enemy with an enormous freakish smile and stringy blond hair helpfully labeled "HIPPY." When viewing one of his videos, you'll suddenly see a JPEG of a warped escalator pop up on the screen, and hear Kubus shout "I EAT FLESH!" If you go in expecting to enjoy his works on these terms, then you will get the most out of them.

It is my theory that Kubus is sort of an online performance artist, and that his works are intended to be exactly as frustrating as they are. After seven years building a library of over a hundred games, Kubus's games are exactly as broken and frustrating and visually jarring as they were in 2003, if not more so. It is impossible to interpret them as anything other than intentionally so-bad-it's-good without insulting Kubus tremendously. That in mind, Kubus seems to take joy in alienating his audience. His best, most interesting work, will usually be followed by horribly dull work, just in case you were starting to acquire a taste for it.

As I feel like it, I'm going to try to go through and review every single one of Kubus's works. I'm not sure about the exact chronology, but I'm going to try to go through them year-by-year at least, starting with the earliest stuff and working my way up. I may try to even it out a bit, and mix in some of the early films and music with the early games, since the music and movies don't start until 2007.

I will rate Kubus's work relative to his other work. The best stuff, even though it would be considered pretty bad by most counts, will be rated five of five stars, and the worst stuff will be voted one of five stars. Additionally, the games will only be weighted against the other games, the films will only be weighted against the other films, and the music will only be weighted against the other music.

Also, in reviewing Kubus's works, I will attempt to refrain from snidely imposing faux-highbrow layered meanings onto everything. Also, I will give Kubus's work the benefit of the doubt, and not attribute any of the crazy stuff to drug consumption unless it actually includes or references drugs (as does a lot of of the music.)

So yeah. That's the plan.