I Wanna Be The Guy

I Wanna Be the Guy: The Movie: The Game is a 2D platform indie freeware video game developed by independent developer Michael "Kayin" O'Reilly for Microsoft Windows using Multimedia Fusion 2. The game was first released in October 2007 and is no longer in active development, although it is listed as a beta. However, the source code for the game was released by Kayin in November 2011. IWBTG is best known for its difficulty level. Most of the landscape is specifically designed to kill the player character. In addition to a number of recognizable hazards such as spikes and pits, there are also many less obvious threats, most of which are difficult to avoid without prior knowledge or trial and error.

Story

I Wanna Be The Guy: The Movie: The Game is a sardonic love letter to the golden age of early American video games, packaged as a nerve-wracking, difficult platform adventure. Players take on the role of The Kid, a teenage Megaman-like protagonist who sets out to become The Guy. The inscrutable plot, however, is just a vehicle for a variety of inventive, well-crafted and frustrating jump-and-shoot challenges that pay homage to many of the games you loved as a kid. The ever-fragile Kid explodes at the slightest touch of the game's many obstacles in a shower of red pixels, from traditional spikes and bottomless pits to more unconventional killers like plants and puzzle pieces. With a multi-route layout not unlike a Metroidvania, the game offers a certain amount of deadly exploration without those extraneous upgrades meant to make life easier. Thanks to a variable difficulty setting, where the number of save points can be varied from frequent to nonexistent, players have the choice of how quickly they want to die. IWBTG is open to all players; knowledge of video game history is optional and may not help against the often ironic and always sadistic death traps present. And so the question remains to you.... Do YOU have what it takes to be The Guy?