This game appeals to those of us with old-school sensibilities, an odd sense of humor, or both.
Badman takes a risk in terms of limiting the player's interaction with the world to one action: digging. You play as a "God of Destruction", which, to the untrained eye, looks very much like a floating pickaxe. Your goal is to prevent the titular anti-hero, Badman, from being abducted by parties of adventurers who swarm the dungeon he resides in. To accomplish this goal, you dig through a grid-like set of blocks one at a time; some blocks have special nutrients that create basic monsters to populate your dungeon. You can create more advanced unit types by waiting for the basic units to feed on each other, thus powering up or by using slightly more advanced digging techniques, such as isolating a single square and allowing nutrients to be deposited into it (bigger beasts need more nutrients, basic baddies move nutrients from place-to-place semi-randomly). You also want your dug-out dungeon to be somewhat maze-like, to as to cause the heroes to have to wander through the dungeon and run afoul of more of your home-grown creatures. You are given a bit of time to do this, trouble-free at the start of each wave of heroes, and then you are asked to place Badman in the dungeon; after this, the heroes come down and start running amok, killing creatures and trying to capture Badman and bring him back up to the surface (and a Game Over screen). This is the part of the game that feels like a bit of a missed opportunity, because even though you have no direct control over any of the units (they all move according to AI which is explained by the game) it would be nice to be able to do something other than dig (even this is limited by "dig-points" which force you to carefully consider the implications of each blocked removed), perhaps launching spells or filling in previously-dug terrain to trap the heroes, but alas, no such options present themselves. That having been said, this sense of helplessness does help create a great sense of tension, I was literally on the edge of my seat watching heroes parade through my shoddily-designed deathtrap towards Badman. Another thing that adds to the tension is the fact that there are no save points in this game, to see the end of story mode, you have to play all the way through. This seems a bit harsh, seeing as the game lends itself to shorter play-sessions due to it's somewhat repetitive nature, especially as it's on a portable system. A one-save, one-load system similar to those often found in Roguelikes such as Nethack and Ancient Domains of Mystery might have worked well. There are no real unlockables or secrets in this game (some might debate that the core mechanics themselves are indeed the secrets) although you can upgrade your units to new subtypes in-between waves based on your level of success in the recently-cleared wave. The game includes an menu-based almanac that keeps track of the various unit types you've creates and the various heroes that have come down to besiege your dungeon and the written descriptions, although highly irreverent, can be quite amusing. Anyone who found the humor in "Work Time Fun" amusing will probably feel the same about Badman's quirky humor that almost feels like a series of translation errors or an in-joke that you're not in on. There is no multiplayer of any sort here, and this feels like another missed opportunity. it would have been fun to, for instance, raid another player's dungeon or work together to hold off a greater number of adventurers. The $19.99 pricetag seems a little steep, especially considering the number of excellent games available from the Playstation Store for download at prices of $5.99 (WildARMS among others) and $9.99 (Final Fantasy 7, to name one) but if seen as something that helps encourage indie game developers to continue to create interesting and original ideas such as this, instead of thinking up ways to milk some tired old workhorse series to death, then it can be seen as an investment, and a good one at that.