Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby

Winnie the Pooh's Home Run Derby^{[lower-alpha 1]} is a 2008 Japanese Flash baseball video game published at the Walt Disney Company website. The player controls Pooh in order to compete in a home run derby contest, facing off against many other characters in the series as pitchers. The game won cult following in early 2013 and became a viral hit due to its extreme difficulty, especially for a children's game.

Gameplay

The game plays as a typical home run derby, where most aspects of baseball are stripped away in favor of the simple aspect of being pitched baseballs with the goal of hitting home runs.^[1] The player controls Winnie the Pooh, using the computer mouse to position him and his baseball bat, and clicking to swing the bat.^[1] The game contains eight stages, each with a different Winnie the Pooh series character pitching the ball, each with different type of ways to throw the ball and increasing difficulty.^[2][3][4] The goal of the game is to hit the target number of homeruns in each round.^[1] Points are earned for performance, and may be used to purchase upgrades for their speed (Which allows the player to move towards the ball more quickly), accuracy (Which makes it easier and more forgiving for the player to hit the ball) and strength (Which sends the ball further when hit) as they earn points throughout the stages.^[5]

Reception

While the game was initially quietly released in 2008,^[6][2] in 2013, the game went viral, with many publications noting the game's extremely difficulty level, especially considering the game's primary demographic being for children.^[3][4] with the game even receiving coverage from the NBC Sports website.^[7][5][8][1] Multiple publications compared it to the game QWOP due to its similar premise of being simple in concept, but extremely difficult in practice.^[4][1][9] Eurogamer was more positive about the game, concluding that it "isn't particularly deep, but it is moderately addictive and watching Piglet and company tear Pooh Bear a new one isn't without its charms."^[4] Other outlets were less positive, with PCGamesN claiming that the game "reject[s] the laws of physics and fair play" and "would require a child for who is able to bend time and space to their will" to play the game successfully.^[8] Kotaku referred to the game's difficulty as "game that's so difficult, you just might smash your monitor...instead of the nice woodland creatures you know and love, they've been replaced with rocket-armed ür-beasts that would eat Randy Johnson with a side of honey.^[3] Complex named it one of the ten most difficult browser games of all time, calling the game "just about the most challenging thing you can ever imagine."^[10]

References

Notes

External links

• Official website