Marzipan Beef Reverser

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Revision as of 16:55, 23 March 2022

The Beef Reversing

A micro platformer about Marzipan reversing beef back onto a cow. It can be played on the itch.io page or downloaded and played on a Game Boy emulator, actual Game Boy hardware via flash card adaptor or an Analogue Pocket.

Cast (in order of appearance): Marzipan, Cow Skeleton

Date: Monday, March 21, 2022

Controls

The Game

The game opens with a screen displaying a cow skull above the game's title and the text "press any budden". Once any button is pressed, gameplay begins and music starts to play. Marzipan appears on the left and a cow skeleton to the right. The skeleton shoots out steaks, which move in different patterns and damage Marzipan by one unit of health when touched. The steaks repeat in this order: Downward left diagonal from cow, left horizontal from cow, left horizontal from ground level, and upward left diagonal from cow (bounces off top and left edge of screen). If Marzipan loses all eight units of health (displayed at the bottom of the screen), a screen reading "DEATH!" will appear, prompting any button to be pressed for the game to restart. Marzipan must whip the steaks with her hair to make them disappear. On the first level only, she can whip the skeleton directly to regain a unit of health up to a maximum of eight units, but she will take damage if she touches the skeleton.

Once eight steaks are hit, the cow regenerates even more, and the steaks speed up along with the music. This repeats for 4 phases. On the last phase, the clouds permanently disappear. Once the full cow returns, the music changes, and if Marzipan goes to the center of the screen to approach the cow, this dialogue appears:

Thank you Marzi. You reversed the beef!

If the player manages to complete the game without taking a hit, the following dialogue is added:

I also noticed you didn't take damage

That's pretty cool

The dialogue finishes:

...

That will be all.

After this, the game resets.

Fun Facts

Trivia

• The full itch.io description reads:

Help Marzipan whip steaks back onto a horrifying skeletal bovine carcass in order to bring it back to life! But beware, -or should we say... beRARE- the steaks can also hurt you! A micro game to celebrate MAR21 (marzi) day! Controls: Z (A) - Jump X (B) - Hair Whip Arrow Keys (D-pad) - Move Install instructions If you have a flash cart or GameBoy emulator, the .gb file should run in it. If you have an Analogue Pocket, the .pocket file is your friend!

• The shortened itch.io description (seen on Videlectrix's page) reads "Help Marzipan turn steaks BACK into cows!"
• The "More information" box lists the status as "Released", the platforms as "HTML5", the author as "Videlectrix", the genre as "Action", and the tags "beef", "homestar-runner", "marzipan", "micro-game", "vegetarian".

Day 2 Patch

• A Day 2 patch was released featuring a new way to gain health, a milk wave attack once the udders are restored, and a hidden bonus stage with Marzipan beating up a car. However, this patch was unstable, causing many players to experience a kernel panic crash. As such, the game was reverted to the old version around 30 minutes later, with the bonus stage being restored three hours later.

Inside References

• Marzi Day (Mar21) was referenced in a @StrongBadActual Tweet on the same day of the previous year.
• The music is the same tune as "Thoughts on a Bird" from the game Audition with Marzipan, which is also used as background music in The Luau.

Real-World References

• Marzipan's hair whip attack is highly reminiscent of the basic attack of Shantae, titular heroine of the Shantae series.
  • It is also reminiscent of the basic attack from Kabuki: Quantum Fighter.
• The car destruction minigame is based on the ones found in Final Fight and Street Fighter II.

External Links

• play "Marzipan Beef Reverser"