#IDARB (Xbox One)

Before we begin, I’m sure you’re wondering what the name #IDARB even means. IDARB is actually an acronym for “It Draws A Red Box”, the name being a reference to the game’s development that first began with the creation of a single red box. However, this neat bit of trivia hardly has any relevance when it comes to the end product, but in the game’s defense, I’m not sure I could come up with a name that accurately encapsulates its ridiculous tone, video game platforming, and mix of basketball and soccer.

#IDARB is technically a sports game, in that the goal during a session of play is to earn more points than the other team, and the game is divided into four quarters where a timer ticks down, but it integrates elements of the video games into its design in a way a real sport could not. Given a side view of the #IDARB arena, players move about by jumping around floating platforms, some completely solid and others able to be moved through. On either end of the arena is a goal, players trying to get the ball into their goal to rack up points. Besides a double jump, players also have access to a few other abilities to help with this, such as the ability to easily aim your shot while holding the ball by tilting the stick, a pass mechanic that is a bit imprecise, and a few less expected skills, such as sending out a pulse of energy as your way to knock the ball out of a player’s hands, the ability to slam down quickly to potentially daze a player and reverse their controls, and the ability to build up fizz and then launch yourself around like a crazy rocket. Already with just this, the game has some pretty good ingredients for a decent party sports game. The method of stealing leads to many scrambles for the ball, heavy focus on jump mobility pairs well with the general layouts of arenas, and the game in general encourages frantic and quick gameplay that lets things remain active and involved, players always trying to gain control of the ball to try and make the next shot. You can do 1 on 1 battles or compete with teams as big as four, but once things start hitting the 3 vs. 3 range, the chaos can almost be too much, too many little characters bouncing around the arena sending out their pulses and scrambling for a ball that’s flying all around. The smaller matches are still enjoyable and there is a bit of fun in the chaos of the mayhem of a larger game, #IDARB definitely encouraging matches that get incredibly crazy.

Before we move onto just how wild an #IDARB match can get, there are a few basics worth mentioning. In #IDARB your character carries the ball and can fire it pretty far with their shot, the game having certain distances from the goal where you can shoot from to earn more points. If you choose to just walk the ball into the big box-shaped goal, you’ll only earn a single point, but firing from close by earns you 2, and the numbers go up from there, 3, 5, and even a 10 point value possible depending on how far you are from your target. Additionally, there are a few ways to multiply the amount of points earned once you sink your shot. If the ball bounces off any surface before entering, every bounce increases the point multiplier by one, something that can also be achieved by passing to a teammate and performing an alley-oop. The imprecise nature of the pass is likely to prevent the point multiplier from getting too ridiculously high, as from the right distance with the right bounces and an alley-oop, you can earn crazy values well beyond twenty points for a single shot. #IDARB is incredibly customizable though, the options menu letting you turn of things like the bounce multiplier to prevent the game from tipping too heavily in the favor of a player on what can sometimes be just a bit of random luck. However, leaving the bounce option can encourage greater risk-taking, adding a bit more strategy to a game that otherwise has a lot of focus on quick action and movement. Quite intelligently, the game also discourages any overly defensive play with areas around the goal often giving no safe room to stand. If there is a spot that can be used to defend the goal too effectively or hide the ball from other players, standing in it will lead to a countdown timer before that player is sent to a penalty box for a few seconds, their attempt to delay the game instead leading to their brief removal from it.

Earlier, I did explain what the name #IDARB referred to, but while I explained the acronym, I did not explain the hashtag. This is no cheap ploy to get its name trending on Twitter, but part of an extra layer of the game where things called hashbombs can alter play. While playing an #IDARB match, you can connect it to a Twitter feed and players are able to send out tweets to interfere with the playfield for a bit, although you can also set these to randomly occur if you don’t have the social media clout to get active engagement with this element. Hashbombs have many different effects on the game, players having to accommodate changes in the arena, their characters, and the ball itself. #IDARB’s unusual sport really begins to show its wackiness here, with hashbombs coming in all different kinds and forms. There are some pretty basic ones, simple things like the arena getting dark, but then you have things like multiple decoy balls entering play, all the players turning into clowns, a pixelized version of Rick Astley dancing across the screen and blocking view of the game, and platforms getting infested with sharks. The ball might turn into a bomb, a bunch of platforms may suddenly crumble, and sometimes everyone might get filled with fizz and rocket around the arena wildly. These quirky complications do a great job of shaking up play and keeping things interesting, although not every hashbomb makes things better, and you can’t turn them off individually. There’s one where the ball is frozen so it can barely be moved thus dragging the pace of play down, there’s another where a monstrous face appears on screen to copy internet popscares but really it just means you can’t see anything for a small period of time and can’t play, and there’s one that zooms incredibly far out and then back in to deliberately make you nauseous. If not for the annoying hashbombs they would generally be a great addition to the game, but instead the interesting side of them involves rolling the dice in the hopes you won’t hit the few that might make you genuinely uncomfortable.

Most of the game’s silliness is done in a much less double-edged manner. The teams you can play as in #IDARB aren’t just groups of sports players. You can select teams such as a group called Your Mom where they are identified as being the moms of everyone to ever exist, including you. You can select a team that consists of moving breakfast items like bacon, milk, and coffee. Barnyard animals, dead presidents, characters from movies and T.V. like the cast of He-Man and The Walking Dead, characters from games like Killer Instinct 2 and indie games like Chariot, there is such a wide variety of characters you can select that are silly or shout-outs to famous works, but you can also make your own characters to potentially have any pixelly representation of whoever you like play #IDARB. The ridiculousness continues on in other elements of design, such as when you score a goal, a man will excitedly shout a variety of phrases that are often a reference to a famous line or quote. Hearing “GIVE ME BACK MY SON!” right after scoring a goal is certainly silly, as is hearing the game’s end credit music encouraging players to be nice to the creators on social media. The story mode certainly goes for a comedic tone too, as your attempt to be the best #IDARB player leads to you recruiting new team members and playing other teams who you have goofy chats with before playing. The story mode has some themed battles with special hashbombs and other alterations like quarters having incredibly short lengths, but just like multiplayer, once you get to around 3 vs. 3, things can get so crazy it’s hard to keep track of anything, and sometimes you the player can just sit there and let the AI do all the work.

The AI in general isn’t really the best opponent since they can’t handle the chaos too well, and I’d recommend #IDARB more as a game to play with other people rather than on your own. The game’s AI isn’t really its biggest issue though. While #IDARB can be frenetic fun with some friends, the sport is made enjoyable by the arena layout, and there aren’t that many option for it on offer. There’s a default play field, one with pinball bumpers that launch players and the ball about, and one with weird gravity to pull and push players, but that’s it. There are some DLC arenas to buy, but it still feels like the game could have used more variety here to ensure the game stays fresh longer. There are a few extra modes to give you a bit more to do, but betting fake money on AI matches that has no use outside of betting isn’t much. One extra mode that is a nice addition though is the Half-Time Olympics. Cropping up in the middle of a match between human players or just accessible from the main menu, the Half-Time Olympics contains some simple minigames for you to try and win. Some are sports themselves, such as a 100 meter dash or tug-of-war contest, although the game wanting you to move your control stick back and forth quickly to play these feels like a recipe for breaking controllers and thus these aren’t best engaged with too enthusiastically. A few are safer to play, send ups of games like Flappy Bird and Crossy Road appearing as simple one button games where you try to outlast the other player. Not really substantive enough to be more than a curiosity, they do add a touch more to a package that could have used much more.

THE VERDICT: #IDARB is a ridiculous bit of fun with human players, the game easy to play and delightfully chaotic and silly. The central sport is incredibly fast-paced and frenzied, but if you get too many players on the field, it loses some of its focus on movement and interference and just becomes a manic free-for-all. Hashbombs can add a bit more of the enjoyable insanity to a decent sized game, many of them adding funny twists to play despite the few duds. The over the top tone definitely matches the unusual concept for a sports game, but despite having a lot of interesting cameos and team concepts, the area it need variety most was in the arenas, and there’s too few on offer to support the party play. Your innings with #IDARB are best kept short and are best against other human players, because under those conditions, its craziness and competitiveness are easily enjoyed.

And so, I give #IDARB for Xbox One…

A GOOD rating. #IDARB creates its own virtual sport, and while most real sports are played on just one type of playfield, the video game world offered up a lot more for #IDARB to take advantage of. Since the players are just visuals rather than having any stats, the variety of the game comes a lot from things like the arena designs, but even with just the small bunch on offer, playing on them can still be a blast. Those arenas do allow things to be kinetic, players jumping all about and trying to launch their balls into the goal in different ways for better payoffs, and with hashbombs on, you can usually expect the lack in arena design to be made up for with some of the crazy new factors that change up how you play for a bit.

#IDARB has the structure needed to ensure its sports side can be enjoyed competitively but also adds in plenty of elements to allow for more casual craziness. This is, after all, a game where you can play a match where an arcade cabinet and a mermaid have their game interrupted by the arena flooding with beer right before they all turn into werewolves. The game is definitely focusing on fun, something it does achieve but could do so much more with if there was just more to it.