This is another in a long line of tiny posts about arcadey high-score chasers. I like ’em, okay!

You play as a flying head who slams into the ground violently while eating bananas with wings (Batnanas, of course) and maggots. Uh, gross. You control the velocity in which your head slams into the ground, aiming for bananas when you’re in the sky while angling yourself to land on the nearest pile of maggots to chomp. Avoid the chainsaws on the ground, though, or you’re in for a one-hit kill. It’s pretty fun and I’ve played more than a few rounds of destroying this poor man’s skull with misplaced slams.

That’s about it. But I think there’s another discussion to be had here. Have you ever had a time when a game’s aesthetics slowed a recommendation you would have otherwise made? The Binding of Isaac is a prime example for me. It’s a game about poop monsters and demons fighting crying babies. It’s gross, immature, and one of the most fun games I’ve ever played. Do I wish I could show the game to more people without having to first provide a dozen caveats? Yeah. Do I think Isaac would be as good without all of that stuff? I’m really not sure.

I wish I could know where The Binding of Isaac would be if it were the exact same gameplay but with a totally different skin from the beginning. Without its stark dismissal of religion and its bleeding corpse children would it have stood out from the crowd? As it stands now, Isaac is a unique thing without an equivalent. It’s impossible to talk about the game without mentioning how it presents itself. The gross-out stuff doesn’t bother me, but it does make me pause before I recommend playing it with a new friend.

That leads us back to Banana Boy. If all of the art were swapped for rainbows and butterflies but it kept its core mechanics, would I have still written about it today? Who knows!

Anyway, Banana Boy is weird and gross and fun and you can try it out on its itch.io page for free!