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This is basically if outsider art responded to controller input and we honestly feel a little mean being as low on it as we are. If we were rating things "objectively", this would be 1-star--and even then, only because we don't give 0.5 stars to games that don't meet "personal least favorites". By all metrics that most people use, Dontrel Dolphin (2012) does not "deserve" a rating any higher than the bottom of the barrel. But there's something to this that makes us hesitate an oddly large amount--and it's not JUST the fact this game's most famous thing to most people is it being played by, uh, a certain individual who you probably don't need us to tell you is not a good person. ;P
This game is very, VERY obviously an amateur's first programming effort even without the knowledge that it was remade and got multiple other games after it; having looked at the source via a Game Maker decompiler, we can confirm this thing is buckwild under the hood (there's over 10 unique objects for the player character when like, EVERY OTHER GAME EVER has only one. The reason? Each object has a unique sprite. Yep.) and that's no doubt part of why this game is so... uh... like this.
That being said. And this is a strong "that being said". It's kind of endearing how earnest this game is, despite how low its overall objective quality is. While actually playing it is nothing short of an utter nightmare, it is fun in some cosmic, unintentional way, to play a platformer game that feels like it was made by somebody who only learned what a platformer game even was upon the exact moment they opened Game Maker Classic that day. And the art, when it isn't an utterly garish meld of photographs and rather sloppy digital sketches, are rather endearing traditional art pieces.
This is definitely a game that is more fun to study, and was almost certainly more fun to make, than it is fun to actually play. And, well, we think the dev realized that; they just straight-up made a new version of this game later on (which we've yet to touch.)
Do we recommend you BEAT Dontrel Dolphin (2012)? Goodness, don't do that to yourself! We aren't even sure if the original build is a beatable video game! ...Do we recommend you PLAY it, whether it be to humble yourself by playing something you know will be low-quality on an objective level, or just to experience its baffling control scheme, or to witness its simultaneously garish yet entrancing aesthetics, or just out of your own morbid curiosity? Absolutely, yes. While we don't think Dontrel Dolphin (2012) is good, we did still enjoy our time playing what we could of it, and we respect the fact it exists. That's more than you can say for some games.
...And, all that being said, even if we were being objective, Dontrel wouldn't even be the worst video game we played involving a dolphin--cough cough, Winter's Tail on DS. So, uh, take that, ill-fated YouTube channel!
This game is very, VERY obviously an amateur's first programming effort even without the knowledge that it was remade and got multiple other games after it; having looked at the source via a Game Maker decompiler, we can confirm this thing is buckwild under the hood (there's over 10 unique objects for the player character when like, EVERY OTHER GAME EVER has only one. The reason? Each object has a unique sprite. Yep.) and that's no doubt part of why this game is so... uh... like this.
That being said. And this is a strong "that being said". It's kind of endearing how earnest this game is, despite how low its overall objective quality is. While actually playing it is nothing short of an utter nightmare, it is fun in some cosmic, unintentional way, to play a platformer game that feels like it was made by somebody who only learned what a platformer game even was upon the exact moment they opened Game Maker Classic that day. And the art, when it isn't an utterly garish meld of photographs and rather sloppy digital sketches, are rather endearing traditional art pieces.
This is definitely a game that is more fun to study, and was almost certainly more fun to make, than it is fun to actually play. And, well, we think the dev realized that; they just straight-up made a new version of this game later on (which we've yet to touch.)
Do we recommend you BEAT Dontrel Dolphin (2012)? Goodness, don't do that to yourself! We aren't even sure if the original build is a beatable video game! ...Do we recommend you PLAY it, whether it be to humble yourself by playing something you know will be low-quality on an objective level, or just to experience its baffling control scheme, or to witness its simultaneously garish yet entrancing aesthetics, or just out of your own morbid curiosity? Absolutely, yes. While we don't think Dontrel Dolphin (2012) is good, we did still enjoy our time playing what we could of it, and we respect the fact it exists. That's more than you can say for some games.
...And, all that being said, even if we were being objective, Dontrel wouldn't even be the worst video game we played involving a dolphin--cough cough, Winter's Tail on DS. So, uh, take that, ill-fated YouTube channel!