Instead of trying to summarize Party Tencho's Kissma with a regular review full of sentences—which would be kind of like trying to extinguish a grease fire with a pail full of mackerel—we're going to share an excerpt from our original e-mail conversation about it. These were our comments to our reviewer mailing list when we first played the game. We hope this peek into the inner workings of Jay is Games will be helpful and enlightening. And heeeeere we go:
Psychotronic - I just don't know how to describe this.
Kero - words fail me.
Jay - It's KISSTASTIC!
Dora - Oh my stars and garters.
Jay - I thought I was doing GREAT, but got "lowest kiss class" :(
Marcus - It sort of reminds me of the Parodius games on the old Turbo Duo. Just... odd... And, yes, "lowest kiss class" for me, as well :(
JohnB - I thought of Parodius, too! This thing is too crazy for words. Favorite kisspower: THE CLAW GRABBY MASHEEN! I love the "music" for this game, btw.
Jay - It looks like something Alien Melon (Blue Suburbia/Haxed by Megahurtz/Alexis) would do.
Dora - How can I be lowest kiss class?! I had a kiss cannon! AND KISS SHURIKEN.
JohnB - I didn't see EITHER of those. What, are there several dozen kiss powers?!
Jay - I had spidey's Kiss Web and the Kiss HAMMER
Art Begotti - Yeah, keep playing, it just gets crazier. I think I'm on my eighth game, and I'm still seeing new ones (although I've had repeats already as well). 82,600... still lowest kiss class. I'm hoping 100k isn't the next milestone?
Kero - 92.2k and lowest kiss class
Dora - This game is out of control. Someone needs to regulate the funk here, 'cause it is cra-zay!
Art Begotti- OOH! If you get the pongy-breakouty power-up (rolling kiss?), you get TWO THOOOOOUSAND!!! points per kiss. It's harder though, since you don't have as much control where the face goes.
Art Begotti - Oh... Eeugh... so if I'm interpreting the high scores right, your kiss grade is merely determined by whether or not you make the top 30. That's... disappointing.
Still riotously fun, although a pain if you get the wrong power-ups.
Dora - If only this were available for Gameboy. Then I could take Kissma wherever I go! :'(
Art Begotti - Who says you can't take Kissma wherever you go? (You're at least a girl, you can get away with running around and kissing random strangers in bizarre ways more easily than any of us guys could.)
Kero - If you press K you kiss everyone on screen. takes a few seconds before it activates though
Dora - Maybe if I ripped out the soundtrack so I could play it from the speakers on my MP3 Player . . . oh, if only . . .
StaceyG - :()
JohnB - I can just see one of us walking into a room, seeing 15 or so people meandering around, going about their business, all the while we're sizing up potential KISSMA scores. "Ok, I can hit the scruffy homeless guy twice before he wakes up, that's 300 points total, then I grab the bottle he's clutching which is obviously a super KISSMA power, allowing me to perform an AEROBIC KISSMA on a bunch of the others..."
Art Begotti - AAAAUGH!!! I tied for last place (98.1k) but I didn't get in!
Dora - Guys, guys! You're cheapening the Kissma Experience(tm) by focusing so much on the scores! Stop the fussin' and th' feudin'! Remember what Kissma is about -- fabulous hair and forcing your drunken affections on total strangers!
Ms. 45 - But Dora, I can do that anywhere!
SonicLover - If I ever end up in the same room as you, Dora, do me a favor and pretend I don't exist.
Dora - Since you ask so sweetly.
I got the worst kiss class too.
But I got two cool powerups.
Kiss me beneath the milky twilight.
I am very confused... Can I like this?? I think I do!
Haha, I saw the link to this on JIG's twitter. Can't quite get the hang of it with only a trackpad though.. ):
oh my goodness. Why can't I stop playing this??
4.1? yeah and pigs fly.. Does any game ever get 3 or less around here?
Tobberian - Considering that we're highly selective with what games we choose to review, the average score here at JIG does skew higher as a result of our scrutiny. We're more a filter than a link blog.
As for Kissma, most of us here at JIG had far too much fun with it to have passed this one up.
This game is strangely brilliant. Very fun little time waster.
Wow, I got 8th place, I'm a Kissmaster! Lock up your daughters, there's a floating head kissing about town. Now to enjoy my 8 seconds of accomplishment before I am dethroned, as is the standard for web games.
As for the game itself, it's quite unique, I'll give it that. The pixelated mess that seems a nod to old school side-scrolling shooters, only you have to get in close for the kiss. It's also good to note that you get points even without having to take the floating heads down, because they come in large waves and they take kisses like a girl at a... Well, kissing booth I guess.
The game is all over in under a minute, and there doesn't seem to be any reason to replay, until one considers the beauty of the game. The bottles that float across (two per game) give one a random power, and it is worth it to try and use all the powers. That is what brought me back time and again.
Though it should be noted that high scores seem rather random, not to mention highly dependent upon the random powers, so it comes down to more a game of luck than skill.
Here are the forms I came across while playing:
I forget most of the names, and I can't quite remember all the specials I came across, but...
wedding
bartender
kiss bazooka
kiss deluxe
kissing devil
kiss denge
robot
slot machine
brickbreak clone
magic kiss
kiss face shooter
high-speed kissing
spider
giant face with really long title
ah, I just remembered a couple more:
mallet
workout form
kissing rhythm
More and more reviews on this site are of this 'humorous' kind. Apart from the fact that many people may not share the same sense of humour as the reviewer, it makes the reader work too hard to find out what the game is like.
JIG seems to be losing some of its charm in this respect, it never used to annoy me like this. Am I getting old?!
Don't want to be too critical though, as otherwise you are a brilliant site.
ahaha, art's comment wins.
I was playing this yesterday, its oddly addictive.
@Stuart: The screenshots probably should have tipped you off. To say nothing of the review.
Weird, sort of funny for a few minutes, and I will have nightmares about the claw machine.
A cute little thing I forgot to mention - if you make the window smaller while it's at the menu, the side faces will get closer, and then they'll kiss.
Perhaps the many goofy voices and the really BIG colourful retro graphics :) (all a bit unusual) is what's alluring, I give it that. But the gameplay, say a generous 0.8 "sucks" it down to ~2.2. (Replayed 2 times more just to make sure.. maybe insufficient, maybe It's me).
Anyhow thanks for responding JIG. =)
Despite MY small annoyance, this site is still VERY VERY GOOD INDEED!! =) thx!
I don't really get what to do in this game.
You just click the faces "kissing" them??
Sometimes a game like this or Robot Dinosaurs comes along, where the gameplay is objectively inferior to similar games, but something about it strikes a chord with people anyway. If practically all of us JIG writers get excited about it, it's usually a safe bet that we should post it, knowing that it's not going to hit everyone the same way.
That's what I tried to capture by posting the review the way I did: the way it struck a chord with us. It's not meant to be a joke, although some of the comments are funny.
Nonexistant gameplay with regards to being challenging, strategy, scoring, etc.
BUT...
It does fulfill the primary directive of games, which is being fun!
After all, what's the point of playing a game in the first place?
Granted, it's no Elder Scrolls IV - Obvlion, but it has the same point... Enjoyment.
Although if you play this for more than an hour, it's probably fulfilling it's secondary purpose... Revealing that you have ADD.
This game is like that show The Mighty Boosh. People rave about how fun it is just to seem cool and different, but they're both pretty terrible.
Jorge:
If you don't like the game, that's okay. It's not for everyone.
Your idea that people are pretending to like it in order to be "cool" is false. That's a wrong-headed idea.
I'm sorry that you feel you've lost some status because you don't like something that other people do like, but that's not their problem, and they don't need to be insulted.
To the people who complain about the site hosting "non-traditional" games like this, I feel compelled to remind you all that the internet is limitless. If this game doesn't tickle your pickle, the next one might. Are you all dissatisfied because of the time you might have to wait until the next game is reviewed? Remember now, that at least a couple new games are reviewed every day.
Personally, although I spent only a few minutes (and got through about three or four re-plays) on this game, I loved it. But I won't spend my whole day here. Cool game. I got a chuckle, now back to my term paper. Perhaps the naysayers should consider adopting a similar attitude..?
Keep doing the things you're doing here at JIG. I've been coming for a year now and it continues to be a trip worthy of my time. Funny reviews, serious ones, no matter. Discovering a game for yourself is where the magic lies. I don't usually read whole reviews anyway, because I trust that the community will filter out the "junk". Knowing that, I like to dive into the games here and form my own opinions.
Hahaha. It almost sounds like the soundtrack chorus is "I kiss you" in Japanese. Anyone fluent? Mine's rusty. Watashi Kiss mo?
@Toberrian: I strap rockets to my pigs to get them flying. It's almost as fun as strapping a rocket to a cat and less likely to end with me loosing an eye.
Seriously though, I gave this game a 5.0 and meant every mushroom of it. Mmmm...rocket mushrooms. They're like normal mushrooms, only rocketier.
@Jorge: I don't need to pretend to be cool. I AM cool. Er...well...okay, so maybe when I say cool what I really mean is nerdy and occasionally crazy...but I figure that's close enough. Well close enough for government work anyway.
ROCKET MUSHROOMS FOR THE WIN!
KISSMA!!!
Sometimes you want deep, meaningful gameplay that challenges you and the way you look at the world. And then sometimes you want a game that will take your brain and hold it gently for you for a few minutes. Kissma isn't a deep, intellectually stimulating experience, but it stands out because of it's unusual aesthetic, unabashed quirkiness, and broad arsenal of kiss-related power-ups. It's not something you see every day, and because some effort has clearly gone into making something you'll probably never see the likes of again, I think it should at least be given a try.
I don't understand the appeal of a lot of things -- books by John Grisham or anything to do with Rachel Ray -- but there is nothing wrong with not taking yourself seriously for a moment and indulging in some well-deserved silliness.
And of course, if you think we're neglecting some other more important game, please be sure to submit it! We might very well have missed it.
This was a pretty awesome experience, and I thought the review was perfect as well (it's not exactly something that screams out for a review or lends itself to description)
I wonder if Stuart finds the need to let everyone else on the internet know when they don't amuse him sufficiently. On this site I often click the game before I read the review, but it's always worth it to come back and see what you guys thought, even if it's a little eccentrically expressed ;)
KISSMA is such an awesome game, even if it has no real point. Thumbs up from me!
Mmchuuuuuupa!
This game is... eh..em. Words fail me. Let's see if i can remember kiss powers
Kissko ninja (decent)
Kissko attack (mediocre)
Incredibly long title... it was something like super mega awesome kissko dynamite kiss (very good)
Kissma (AWESOME)
The grabby matscheen (good)
Kissrythm (very good)
Kissbar (decent)
Kisstornado(good)
Erm... breakout? (bad)
Lipstick girl (decent)
Rijoukakiss? (decent)
Beautiful majora kiss? (mediocre)
Erm... zapkiss? (decent-good)
Kissmasheen(bad-mediocre)
Kisstornado(good)
There WERE others, i'm sure of it...
It's a bit of a let-down that the game is just about the powerups, but it's still very fun. 4,5/5
Some more.
Kissbazooka (decent)
Kissslot (Although hilarious, very bad)
Karuyetasomethingkiss? (Quite good)
Machenakiss (decent)
Wedding kiss (probably the worst up to now)
Can't . . . stop . . . playing . . . ! *twitch*
First of all. This was pretty stuipid in my opinion. I think it was addicting but annoying. I think "kissma" sounded like a man. "she" was pretty ugly too. I like reading the review at the top because of the discussion.
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