The most bizarre but awesome game at GDC goes to... It Draws a Red Box

#IDARB

It Draws a Red Box is a crowd-sourced Xbox One indie game, where up to eight players (on one system) compete in 2D games of... soccer? Well, it's not actually soccer, it's more like damn. This is a tough one. There's a ball, and you need to throw it into a goal, but it's also a 2D platformer, and and you have jetpacks, and there are also QR codes, and Twitter hashtags, and Star Wars characters, and breakfast foods, and

Let me start over: My time with IDARB was short and I did pretty poorly, but I didn't want to stop. I played in a six-player match as a character that was blatantly Han Solo and slowly learned how to grab, intercept, and toss the ball into the goal. But while the concept is relatively simple, the overall game is anything but.

I think one of the reasons it's so hard to explain IDARB is because it's ever-changing. Developer Other Ocean put it together by crowd-sourcing suggestions on Twitter. People told them to make a platformer, so they did. Then they asked them to add a ball, so they did. Then they asked them to add bacon, and My Little Ponies, so they did--and then they added a character creator. There's apparently going to be some single-player content, but people still need to suggest what it'll be. IDARB is a mish-mash of strange, disjointed ideas that, somehow, play together absurdly well. There are even plans to watch the players and create highlight reels (using in-game footage and Kinect) that can be shared online. It's crazy. But it's also brilliant. And it's coming out later this year.

Check out the following screenshots for additional info!

The game's characters are simple, but recognizable

You can boost and blast off by charging up your character.

These characters don't look like they're breaking any Copyrights. Nope. None.