Mighty Jill Off

Last updated

Mighty Jill Off
Mighty Jill Off.png
Title screen for Mighty Jill Off
Developer(s) Anna Anthropy
Designer(s) Anna Anthropy
Artist(s) James Harvey
Composer(s) Andrew Toups
Platform(s) Windows, Mac OS X
ReleaseFebruary 29, 2008
Genre(s) Platform
Mode(s) Single-player

Mighty Jill Off is a 2008 independently developed freeware platform video game designed by Anna Anthropy, with art by James Harvey and music by Andrew Toups. It stars a submissive named Jill, who has a boot fetish and is forced to climb up a tower after her Queen kicks her down it as punishment. Jill does this by jumping and slowly descending over obstacles. Jill can be defeated in one hit by these obstacles, but will return to the last check point. The game serves as an homage to the 1984 arcade game Bomb Jack and its console and computer sequel, Mighty Bomb Jack . It had follow-ups, such as Mighty Jill Off - Jill Off Harder Edition and Jill Off With One Hand. Jill made a cameo appearance in the 2010 video game Super Meat Boy as a playable character.

Contents

The game's BDSM and lesbian themes were implemented by Anthropy, a BDSM practitioner, for the purpose of providing legitimate "dykes" in video games. She also made the game difficult, to fit in with its BDSM theme. James Harvey attempted to make this game appealing for the BDSM community. Mighty Jill Off has received praise for its BDSM themes from critics of websites such as Rock, Paper, Shotgun and Game Set Watch. It was also praised for its high level of difficulty by editors of GamesRadar and Bitmob. 1UP.com included it in its list of favourite free PC games of 2009.

Gameplay and scenario

In Mighty Jill Off, Jill can be defeated in one hit by several obstacles, including spikes as shown here. She is able to slow her descent mid-air to hover over spikes, which allows her to get through tight, spiked passageways. Mighty Jill Off Gameplay.png
In Mighty Jill Off, Jill can be defeated in one hit by several obstacles, including spikes as shown here. She is able to slow her descent mid-air to hover over spikes, which allows her to get through tight, spiked passageways.

Mighty Jill Off incorporates several BDSM themes. It stars a submissive lesbian named Jill who has a boot fetish. [1] She is kicked to the bottom of her Queen's tower for acting like a "greedy slut". Jill attempts to climb back up the tower and return to her Queen; once there, she is given affection, constricted and gagged, and made to do it again.

Some of Mighty Jill Off's gameplay is borrowed from the 1986 arcade game Mighty Bomb Jack as a tribute. [2] Players control Jill in only three ways: moving, jumping, and slowly descending. In the air, players may cause Jill to slowly descend by rapidly pushing the jump button while pointing in the direction that they want her to go. Players can switch direction while they do this. [2] There are three types of obstacles: spikes, fire, and spiders; the latter can move to attack Jill when she comes close. [3] Coming into contact with these obstacles kills Jill instantly, forcing her to start at the most recent checkpoint—typically located at a change in room. There is only one level in the game, but with several rooms in it. The screen scrolls vertically with Jill as she ascends up the tower. Each room transition is demonstrated by a change in the room's background colour. Jill has infinite lives, allowing players to play as long as they like without having to start the game over. [2]

Development

Mighty Jill Off was designed and developed by American video game designer and critic Anna Anthropy, also known as Auntie Pixelante, in 2008. James Harvey provided the artwork for the game, while Andrew Toups created the music. [4] Anthropy designed Mighty Jill Off to feature "dykes and perverts" to make up for "the distinct lack of real dyke characters and dyke desire in games". She argued that while "supposed dykes" are seen in commercials, these characters are "written and drawn by men". She said that "they don't look like us, they don't express themselves like us, they don't lust like us." [5] Anthropy compared the challenge of players who lead Jill through the game as similar to the challenges of a top who leads the bottom through a scene. [6]

Art design

Concept art for Jill, drawn by James Harvey, showing the multiple concepts for Jill that he created before deciding on the final one. Mighty Jill Off concept art.png
Concept art for Jill, drawn by James Harvey, showing the multiple concepts for Jill that he created before deciding on the final one.

While the character artwork for Mighty Jill Off was created by James Harvey, Anthropy first designed Jill in sprite form. Harvey was initially wary of doing work that was BDSM-themed; he felt that it was easy for something that is both cartoony and sexual to make viewers feel uncomfortable and used the Japanese harem anime genre as an example. He added that in humorous, sexually-oriented cartoons, there is a "fine line" between "cute and funny" and "repulsive". He wanted to design the relationship between the Queen and Jill in a way that people in the BDSM community could identify with it, while also avoiding putting people off who were not into BDSM. He used European comics as a model for his art work, which he admired for the "permissive attitude they have to sex in cartoons". He also cited as inspiration specific Japanese cartoonists who he felt had successfully portrayed sex in animation such as Monkey Punch, the creator of Lupin III . [7]

Harvey designed the Queen based on a loose description by Anthropy. He wanted to make her "sexy and authoritative" and to look like a "fully grown human with relatively realistic proportions". [7] He designed her to be an "amalgamation of every lesbian friend" he had "secretly been attracted to". [8] He initially designed her with a veil, but felt that this was too superfluous and girly; he decided to adorn her with spikes instead. [9] He attempted to design the title screen's background to "emphasise the drama of [the] situation, or to expressionistically[ sic ] symbolise the characters in the scene". However, there were some hurdles; he originally envisioned the Queen's tower to be a smooth, straight one, but felt that it would be too phallic, which would be meaningless symbolism given the game's content. [9] Anthropy and Harvey held a contest for people to contribute fan art for the game; the five winners won hand-made Mighty Jill Off activity books, which included activities such as creating make-out partners for a group of "repulsive, tongue-waggling oafs", as well as writing a poem for the game's Queen. He scanned one of the books and posted it online, allowing others to contribute and send in their drawings. The book features several BDSM-related themes. [10]

Harvey was split between two designs for Jill. He either wanted to depict her as a "funny little megaman character" or a grown woman; however, both approaches had their own pitfalls. He felt that the former could come off as too much like Japanese lolicon-styled art, while the latter could make the story seem too serious. The Queen's more realistic design made him question whether a child-like Jill would be appropriate. [7] He designed several versions of Jill with different proportions and sent them to Anthropy so she could pick her favourite. He compared two of the designs to Nintendo characters Mario and Link; the Mario-like design he called a "standard video game design", while the Link-like design he called "slightly realistic". The Link-like design was the most realistic design that he did because he felt that making it too realistic could make it too difficult for players to identify with, and could diminish the humorous elements of the game. [7] He also intended to design her as "dumpy and podgy" to make her more "lovable". [7]

Anthropy told Harvey that she preferred characters with more realistic proportions; as a result, he ended up with a design that was three and a half heads tall. Due to her submissive position, he designed her to be an "innocent" who looked "eager-to-please", with "benign, wide eyed facial expressions". [8] The evolution of her design resulted in Harvey having to redesign her appearance on the title screen. [9] He employed different colors to demonstrate Jill's feelings for the Queen; he used a rose tint to demonstrate her "blissful display of affection" while using a grey wash to demonstrate her sadness. [9] Harvey intended to add some red to her rubber body suit order to make her stand out from the background; however, he felt that this made the suit look more like a "crazy wrestler costume". [7] He later thought to include grey in the design or to put her initials on her chest, but decided on using an all black design. One of the difficulties of designing the suit was to make it look shiny without resembling "gross lolicon manga porn". [8]

Follow-ups

An expanded version called Mighty Jill Off - Jill Off Harder Edition, was released in October 2008, 8 months after the original version. [11] Upon clearing the original level in under 12 minutes, a second significantly more challenging level automatically begins. Clearing this level shows Jill being gagged and bound to a large X-cross and being whipped once for each minute she took to reach the top again. Anthropy compared it to the Nintendo game Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels which was noticeably more difficult than its predecessor, Super Mario Bros. She made it with the intention of reusing assets from the original game such as sprites and backgrounds but making sure that none of the challenges were recycled. [3] She also made a follow-up called Jill Off with One Hand, which features "OneSwitch" gameplay, a type of gameplay which requires only one button to play. [12] It was created over the course of Buy Nothing Day and was created with the intent of making it playable on mobile phones. [12] The protagonist Jill was featured in the 2010 platform game Super Meat Boy along with several characters from other games. [13]

Reception and promotion

Mighty Jill Off has received generally positive reception. Retronauts ' Jess Ragan praised Anthropy for her understanding of what made Mighty Bomb Jack good. [14] 1UP.com 's Scott Sharkey listed Mighty Jill Off as one of his favourite independently-developed freeware games in 2009. [15] Gamasutra listed it as one of their runners-up for the top five best indie games of 2008. [16] On two separate occasions, IndieGames' Tim W. listed Mighty Jill Off as "game picks"; first for the original version, and second for Mighty Jill Off - Jill Off Harder Edition. [11] [17] GamesRadar 's Nathan Meuiner listed the game as one of the "most ruthlessly punishing indie games" and wrote that the difficulty level may make players question whether the "pain of a million deaths is worth the pleasure awaiting" players. [18] Bitmob's James DeRosa called it "tough-as-s***" and gave credit to Anthropy for coining the genre "masocore". [19]

The game has also received praise for its insight into BDSM and the dom/sub relationship. Rock, Paper, Shotgun 's Kieron Gillen called it an "interesting examination of the master/slave relationship". [2] Rock Paper Shotgun's Alec Meer described it as a "wry, subversive examination of why video game protagonists put themselves through a torturous amount of struggle to reach their objectives". [20] James DeRosa praised Anthropy for her implementation of elements and ideas that most games do not cover and called it a "hypersexualized, bondage-themed platformer" with which Anthropy "explores the power dynamics of sexuality and disassembles essentialist male and female sex roles as portrayed in video games -- as well as the significance of difficulty and reward as a design method". [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>Ico</i> 2001 video game

Ico is a 2001 action-adventure game developed by Japan Studio and Team Ico and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. It was designed and directed by Fumito Ueda, who wanted to create a minimalist game based on a "boy meets girl" concept. Originally planned for the PlayStation, Ico took approximately four years to develop. The team employed a "subtracting design" approach to reduce elements of gameplay that interfered with the game's setting and story in order to create a high level of immersion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Parker Posey</span> American actress and musician (born 1968)

Parker Christian Posey is an American actress. She was labeled "Queen of the Indies" for her roles in a succession of independent films throughout the 1990s, such as Dazed and Confused (1993), Party Girl, The Doom Generation, Kicking and Screaming, The Daytrippers (1996), The House of Yes, Clockwatchers, and Henry Fool (1998). She is the recipient of nominations for an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Satellite Award, and two Independent Spirit Awards.

Jill Valentine is a character in Resident Evil, a survival horror video game series created by the Japanese company Capcom. She was introduced as one of the two player characters in the original Resident Evil (1996), alongside her partner Chris Redfield, as a member of the Raccoon City Police Department's Special Tactics And Rescue Service (S.T.A.R.S.) unit. Jill and Chris fight against the Umbrella Corporation, a pharmaceutical company whose bioterrorism creates zombies and other bio-organic weapons, and later become founding members of the United Nations' Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance (BSAA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keiji Inafune</span> Japanese video game producer, illustrator, and businessman

Keiji Inafune is a Japanese video game producer, character designer, game designer, and businessman. In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time.

Nina Williams is a fictional character from Namco's Tekken fighting game series. A cold-blooded professional assassin from Ireland, Nina made her first appearance in the original 1994 installment. She is one of four playable characters to appear in all main installments of the Tekken series, alongside Heihachi Mishima, Paul Phoenix and Yoshimitsu. She has also starred in her own spin-off game, Death by Degrees.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BDSM in culture and media</span> Stories, books and media about bondage

BDSM is a frequent theme in culture and media, including in books, films, television, music, magazines, public performances and online media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kellee Santiago</span> Venezuelan American video game designer and producer

Kellee Santiago is a Venezuelan American video game designer and producer. She is the co-founder and former president of thatgamecompany. Santiago was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and raised in Richmond, Virginia, where Santiago played video games from a young age and was encouraged by her software engineer father to experiment with computers. While attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, she became active in experimental theater, planning to pursue it after earning a master's degree in the Interactive Media Program of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. However, Santiago became involved in video game design and produced Cloud, a game developed by Jenova Chen and a student team. Its success sparked her and Chen to found thatgamecompany upon graduating, and she became the president.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edmund McMillen</span> American video game designer and artist

Edmund Charles McMillen is an American video game designer and artist. He is known for his Adobe Flash games with unconventional visual styles. His works include 2010's side-scroller Super Meat Boy, 2011's roguelike game The Binding of Isaac, and its 2014 remake The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.

Juri (<i>Street Fighter</i>) Street Fighter character

Juri Han (ハン・ジュリ), full name Han Ju-ri (한주리), is a fictional character in the Street Fighter series. She made her first appearance in 2010's Super Street Fighter IV. In the series, she is a South Korean Taekwondo fighter employed by S.I.N. and an underling to the main antagonist of Street Fighter IV, Seth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gregory Avery-Weir</span> American game designer and writer

Gregory Avery-Weir is an American game designer and writer, best known for the 2009 browser game The Majesty of Colors. Avery-Weir lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Anthropy</span> American video game designer

Anna Anthropy is an American video game designer, role-playing game designer, and interactive fiction author whose works include Mighty Jill Off and Dys4ia. She is the game designer in residence at the DePaul University College of Computing and Digital Media.

<i>Sissys Magical Ponycorn Adventure</i> 2011 video game

Sissy's Magical Ponycorn Adventure is a 2011 indie graphic adventure game developed by Untold Entertainment Inc. founder Ryan Creighton and illustrated and voiced by his then-five-year-old daughter Cassie Creighton. It was released as a browser game on computers, and later released on the iPad and BlackBerry PlayBook. The game follows the titular character Sissy, voiced by Cassie, as she searches for fictional creatures called Ponycorns, a portmanteau of the words pony and unicorn. Cassie drew the artwork at the Toronto Game Jam. Ryan then integrated the art into the Untold Graphic Adventure Game System (UGAGS) that the game uses. The game received positive reception for its cute appearance, Cassie's ambitious design, and her voice acting.

<i>Encyclopedia Fuckme and the Case of the Vanishing Entree</i> 2011 video game

Encyclopedia Fuckme and the Case of the Vanishing Entree, later retitled Fuck Eat Kill, is an independently developed freeware dating sim developed and written by Anna Anthropy. The game stars a submissive who eagerly goes to Anni, her dominant partner, only to find that Anni plans on eating her for dinner in her house. The player is forced to make branching choices which affect the game's outcome.

<i>Dys4ia</i> 2012 video game

Dys4ia is an abstract, autobiographical Adobe Flash video game that Anna Anthropy, also known as Auntie Pixelante, developed to recount her experiences of gender dysphoria and hormone replacement therapy. The game was originally published in Newgrounds but was later removed by Anthropy. In 2023, it was reinstated by her on itch.io.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emily Care Boss</span> LARP and tabletop role-playing game designer

Emily Care Boss is an indie roleplaying game designer, theorist and publisher. She was a foundational member of The Forge, an early leader in the indie role-playing game movement and is considered the creator of the American Freeform genre of roleplaying games, which combine indie RPG principles and mechanics with Nordic freeform and American chamber live action role-playing techniques. She has been referred to as the "Dean" of the North American school of structured freeform game design.

Mattie Brice is an independent video game designer, critic, educator, and industry activist. Her games and writing focus on diversity initiatives in the games industry, discussing the perspective of marginalized minority voices to publications like Paste, Kotaku, and The Border House. Her games are freeware and do not require programming to create.

merritt k, formerly Merritt Kopas, is a Canadian writer, editor, and video game designer.

<i>Achievement Unlocked</i> 2008 video game

Achievement Unlocked is an Adobe Flash video game written by John Cooney in four days and published by Armor Games in 2008. The player controls an elephant who moves and jumps around a level with the goal of completing every achievement. Such achievements include finding hidden numbers, dying, or even doing nothing for a period of time.

Masocore is a video game subgenre with a focus on intense difficulty, often featuring complex or unfair mechanics. The name is a portmanteau of "masochism" and "hardcore", suggesting that players of the genre are hardcore gamers who find pleasure in the aggravation required to beat the games and the feeling of reward afterwards for having surpassed a seemingly insurmountable challenge. Masocore games are mostly 2D sidescrollers, harkening back to retro Nintendo hard platformers, although the definition can also be taken to encompass fully 3D games of high difficulty such as soulslikes.

References

  1. ↑ Alexander, Leigh (30 March 2012). "Anna Anthropy turns a personal struggle into a heartfelt game". www.gamasutra.com. Retrieved 2021-01-24.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Gillen, Kieron (2008-09-17). "Whip It: Mighty Jill Off". Rock, Paper, Shotgun . Archived from the original on 2010-11-09. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  3. 1 2 Anthropy, Anna (2008-10-15). "jill off harder". Auntie Pixelante. Anna Anthropy. Archived from the original on 2011-06-13. Retrieved 2011-04-25.
  4. ↑ "Mighty Jill Off". Anna Anthropy. Archived from the original on 2011-02-09. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  5. ↑ "Anna Anthropy interview – Auntie Pixelante is in the house!". Lesbian Gamers. 2008-12-19. Archived from the original on 2010-11-28. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  6. ↑ Alexander, Patrick (2008-09-23). "Interview: Anna 'Dessgeega' Anthropy". Eegra. Archived from the original on 2011-07-10. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Harvey, James (2008-03-15). "Mighty Jill Off". James Harvey. Archived from the original on 2011-08-17. Retrieved 2010-12-08– via LiveJournal.
  8. 1 2 3 Harvey, James (2008-03-17). "Unseen Jill Off - Part 2". James Harvey. Archived from the original on 2011-08-17. Retrieved 2010-12-08– via LiveJournal.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Harvey, James (2008-03-22). "Mighty Jill Off - PART 3". James Harvey. Archived from the original on 2011-08-17. Retrieved 2010-12-08– via LiveJournal.
  10. ↑ Caoili, Eric (2009-04-29). "Mighty Jill Off Activity Books". GameSetWatch. Archived from the original on 2011-09-09. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  11. 1 2 Tim W. (2008-10-25). "Best Of Indie Games: Ready, Set, Jill Off". GameSetWatch. Archived from the original on 2010-01-22. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  12. 1 2 Anthropy, Anna (2008-11-29). "jill off with one hand". Auntie Pixelante. Anna Anthropy. Archived from the original on 2011-06-13. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  13. ↑ Caoili, Eric (2010-10-20). "Fetus Juice, Indie Cameos In Super Meat Boy Launch Trailer". GameSetWatch. Archived from the original on 2010-10-31. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  14. ↑ Ragan, Jess (2010-07-11). "Spectrum Analyzer: Bomb Jack". 1UP.com . Archived from the original on 2012-07-31. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  15. ↑ Sharkey, Scott. "101 Free Games 2009: The Best Free Games on the Web from". 1UP.com . Archived from the original on 2011-08-05. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  16. ↑ "Gamasutra's Best Of 2008: Top 5 Indie Games". Gamasutra . 2008-12-12. Archived from the original on 2010-11-09. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  17. ↑ Tim W. (2008-03-01). "The Weblog - Freeware Game Pick: Mighty Jill Off (dessgeega)". IndieGames. Archived from the original on 2012-03-14. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  18. ↑ Meuiner, Nathan (2009-07-15). "Most ruthlessly punishing indie games". GamesRadar . Archived from the original on 2012-10-10. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  19. 1 2 DeRosa, James (2010-12-02). "5 Tough-As-S*** Indie Games Referenced in Super Meat Boy". Bitmob.com. Archived from the original on 2011-08-15. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
  20. ↑ Meer, Alec (2009-08-04). "Don't Squeal, Piggy: When Pigs Fly". Rock, Paper, Shotgun . Archived from the original on 2010-11-09. Retrieved 2010-12-08.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.