Bang-On Balls: Chronicles

Note: To avoid confusion over their shared names, the main character will always be referred to as Bob while the Big Bad will be referred to as Bob Boss.

Bang-On Balls: Chronicles is a 3D Collect-a-Thon Platformer developed by Exit Plan Games and published by Untold Tales on October 5th, 2023 after a period of time in Early Access. The game stars Bob, a new actor at Bobbywood, who ends up playing a part in several blockbuster movies, but famous acting star Bob Boss does not approve of this and fights Bob in said movies, playing the part of the main villain in all of them. Oh, and did we mention that by 'plays a part in several blockbuster movies' we mean that Bob jumps through tv portals, and physically emerges into the movie's world? And that all the characters are stressballs? Yep, this is that kind of game, allright.

The worlds Bob enters are The Viking Invasion, medieval landscape filled with vikings, Cold Race to Space, a city world with a moon landing planned, Kraken's Lost Coins, a pirate infested sea reminiscent of One Piece full of different themed islands and Time Trouble on Kaiju Island, a world which is quite literally a combination of Japan in various time periods. In every world there are movie tapes to collect, people to save from cages and missions to follow. Once all missions are complete, Bob Boss appears in his newest acting role, and you have to defeat him in various different ways depending on the world. Bob can also be customized to your liking by collecting various pieces of clothing or tattoos scattered across the worlds, with his color pattern being able to be changed in a separate room. Additionally, after defeating a boss, its weapon and/or clothing will be unlocked for you to use, allowing for several different ways to handle combat.

On May 10th, 2024, a free update was released that added a wild west-themed world called The Good, The Bad & The Bob.

Unrelated to Polandball despite the similar character design.

Bang-On Balls: Chronicles provides examples of:

• Air-Dashing: A core movement mechanic is to propel yourself forward, which also somehow works in midair.
• Animesque: Time Trouble on Kaiju Island parodies both anime and Japanese culture. For example, most characters have Big Anime Eyes, you enter a giant mecha suit to fight Bob Boss and Bob Boss' role in the movie is of a bunch of giant Kaiju.
• Artistic License – History: The worlds Bob enters are based on historical events, but none of them try to be accurate to real life, as they're movies in-universe. For example, while the Cold Race to Space world is based on the moonlanding, it contains various Sci-Fi elements such as aliens and Mutagenic Goo. The Kraken's Lost Coins level also contains things such as walking skeletons and Funny Animal rats despite being based on the age of pirates.
• Asteroids Monster: Several of the larger enemies split into two smaller enemies each time they're hit.
• Attack Its Weak Point: Bob Boss' kraken form in Kraken's Lost Coins can only be damaged by hitting his suction cups while they're not armored. The second phase instead requires you to hit the top of his head.
• "Balls" Gag: The soccer/football minigame found in the arcade is called "A Kick in the Balls"
• Big Anime Eyes: Several characters in the Time Trouble on Kaiju Island level have large shiny anime eyes.
• Big Bad: Bob Boss is a double example. Not only is he the main antagonist outside of the movie worlds, but he also plays the role of the Big Bad in every single movie you enter.
• Brutal Bonus Level: Ultimate Bang-On Mega Bricks is a minigame found in the arcade in which you're thrown on a bunch of Tetris-like blocks that gradually disappear. Eventually, this will force you to platform very precisely to avoid getting pushed away by multi-colored bricks that appear from the tower in the center of the play area. On top of that, eventually bombs start getting sent after you that explode parts of the multi-colored bricks. After this, the cycle repeats, except faster, with there being 17 cycles in total. Fortunately, the jet hat makes it easier. Though that's relatively speaking.
• Call a Pegasus a "Hippogriff": The "zombies" in The Viking Invasion look more like skeletons with pitch-black bodies.
• Camera Abuse: Bob gets launched to the screen upon dying.
• Clothes Make the Superman: Some of the clothing items give you extra abilities when you wear them. For example, there's a rocket launcher hat that allows you to launch rockets at your enemies on command, there's a jet hat that allows you to hover in midair for a few seconds and there's a lava hat that allows you to shoot Fireballs upon rolling for long enough.
• Co-Op Multiplayer: You can play together with someone else both locally and online.
• Creative Closing Credits: After the final fight, you get launched out of Bob Boss' arena, and get sent back into the the main hub, where it's now night time. You then get rewarded with Bob Boss' facial features as customization options, with you walking on a red carpet past various balls representing the developers (complete with their names listed on top of them as a speech bubble).
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Dying doesn't do much. All it does is deduct half of your money and send you to the previous checkpoint. Most enemies, bosses or minibosses don't regain health, and you can recover your money by smashing the Instant Gravestone you left upon dying.
• Dem Bones: Zombies in this game are depicted as black creatures with skulls for faces.
• Double Jump: Bob can jump once in the air. Notably, if you leave the ground without jumping, with a bounce pad, for example, you'll be able to jump twice in the air.
• Eaten Alive: One of Bob Boss' attacks in The Viking Invasion level is to suck you into his mouth Kirby-style, after which you're thrown into his mouth and must repeatedly slam against his uvula to get spat out.
• Easter Egg: In the hub world, you can find an extra tv portal with the Exit Plan Games logo on it. Entering it brings you to an office with various balls representing the developers inside of it, as well as a tv with the game's credits. Furthermore, if you look outside, you find that the outside backdrop is actually a real photo.
• Einstein Hair: Bob Boss' hair starts to stand up straight after you defeat him enough times. Defeat him more after that, and his hair starts falling out.
• Everything Breaks: Almost every single prop in the environment can be destroyed by a dash or Ground Pound attack.
• Evil Overlooker: Bob Boss is shown as this in the box art.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies: The Viking Invasion contains random zombies in the graveyard for no apparent reason other than it being a graveyard.
• Faceship: Bob Boss' spaceship in the Cold Race to Space level looks like a larger version of him with glowing red eyes.
• Final-Exam Boss: During the final boss fight against Bob Boss, he mixes up the costumes he used in the movies, causing him to be able to use several different combined attacks based on his previous fights.
• Gender Bender: You can change Bob's gender in the same place you can change his color pattern.
• Grind Boots: In The Good, The Bad & The Bob, Bob gains the ability to grind on train tracks Sonic Adventure 2-style. He does so by spawning a minecart out of thin air and riding it it.
• Ground Pound: One of your main attacks has you slam into the ground in midair.
• Holler Button: You can make a sound by pressing a button. It's a whistle by default, but you can find customization options that let you change it to other stuff. Additionally, holding the button makes you fart.
• Hub Level: The Bobbywood Studios Lot is the area you enter all the movie worlds from. It also includes various bonus areas such as a zoo and an arcade, and it's also where Bob Boss' Final Boss arena is located.
• Instant Gravestone: You drop one of these marked with a skull upon dying, alongside half of your money. If you return to it and smash it, you regain your money.
• Invincibility Power-Up: The game has blue sheriff stars marked with 'superstar'. If you touch them, you temporarily grow in size, become impervious to damage and deal more damage.
• Invisible Anatomy: All of the characters are living balls with eyes, yet they can hold objects as though they have hands.
• Last Chance Hit Point: If you're on your last or second last hit point, you heal to 3 hit points if you survive long enough.
• Meaningful Name: Bob Boss being the game's resident Recurring Boss makes his last name appropriate.
• Mock Hollywood Sign: Bobbywood fittingly enough has a giant white sign, like Hollywood does in real life.
• No Plot? No Problem!: The game barely has any plot. Though there is some background lore in the trailers, mostly surrounding Bob Boss and his backstory.
• Pokémon Speak: The zombies in the graveyard in The Viking Invasion can only say 'Zombie! Zombie! Zombie!' In a high-pitched voice.
• Pass Through the Rings: The Good, The Bad & The Bob contains giant floating horseshoes that you can move through, which causes a sequence of more horseshoes to appear that you need to move through while under a time limit.
• Portal Endpoint Resemblance: The rooms that contain the tv portals to each world all have a similar aesthetic to the world the tv portal sends you too. Even more so upon spending movie tapes to unlock more props. The music even changes to an arrangement of the main theme of the world.
• Power Copying: You can steal the weapons of several bosses upon defeating them.
• Planet of Steves: All of the named characters are named 'Bob', which are also the initials of 'Bang-On Balls'.
• Punny Name: One island in Kraken's Lost Coins contains a restaurant owned by rat pirates. The achievement for farting in the restaurant names them Chez Pierats, as they're pirates who are also rats. Furthermore, "Chez" is French for "In" or "Among" while also sounding like "cheese".
• Queer Colors: One of the flag patterns you can choose to wear is the queer pride flag◊.
• Recurring Boss: Bob Boss is fought at the end of each world. Downplayed, though, as he plays a different character each time.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Bob Boss' Faceship in Cold Race to Space has prominent glowing red eyes. When you're spotted by them, the ship sends out aliens to attack you.
• Regenerating Health: A variation. Normally, your health can only be regenerated by health pickups, but if you only have 2 to 1 HP left, your health regenerates to 3 if you survive for long enough.
• Rewarding Vandalism: Averted when destroying random objects. You don't get anything when destroying them. However, sinking entire ships in The Kraken's Lost Coins rewards you with massive treasure chests filled with large amounts of money.
• Rump Roast: Similar to Super Mario 64, if you touch lava, you're sent flying upwards, dealing one unit of damage.
• Sanity Slippage: Bob Boss loses more and more of his sanity the more you defeat him. After a while, his hair starts sticking out in every direction, after even longer he starts losing hair and Laughing Mad.
• Save-Game Limits: The game only has one save file.
• Scenery Porn: The game has quite impressive lighting. The higher the graphics settings, the more beautiful the scenery looks.
• Shock and Awe: The Mjolnir hammer unlocked upon defeating Bob Boss in The Viking Invasion causes all your attacks to electrify enemies, stunning them for a while.
• Short-Range Shotgun: The Shotgun unlocked upon beating the miniboss inside of a mine in The Good, The Bad & The Bob functions exactly like the earlier unlocked blunderbuss, except that it can fire twice before reloading, at the cost of having lower range.
• Shout-Out:
  • All the characters are balls patterned with country flags, which is an obvious reference to Polandball.
  • In Bob Boss' fight in Time Trouble on Kaiju Island, he transforms into a giant lizard, giant moth and a robot version of the giant lizard in the first, second and third phase respectively.
  • One of the many posters you can find everywhere depicts a ball with bunny-ears captioned with Playbob.
  • The mecha suit you use to battle Bob Boss with in Time Trouble on Kaiju Island looks an awful lot like Gundam.
  • The cafeteria in the office building in the hub contains french fries inside of red packaging with a yellow B on it, causing them to look like McDonald's fries.
  • One sequence in Time Trouble on Kaiju Island involves you parcouring across various traps in order to reach the "Takeshi Boss" at the end. sound familiar?
  • The wild west-themed world added in an update is called The Good, The Bad, & The Bob.
  • The game's resident Invincibility Power-Up is a sheriff star marked with "Superstar", referencing the Super Star power up from Super Mario Bros.
• Silence Is Golden: The game barely has any dialogue outside of random gibberish, the occasional one word sentence and the 'BANG ON!' heard upon grabbing the Invincibility Power-Up.
• Sore Loser: The more you defeat Bob Boss, the more insane and angry he gets.
• Speaking Simlish: All characters speak in random gibberish, though occasionally words are spoken. For example, the zombies in The Viking Invasion constantly shout 'Zombie! Zombie! Zombie!', while the ghost pirate in Kraken's Lost Coins can be heard shouting 'Maggots!'.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Female balls look no different than male ones aside from having prominent eyelashes. Taken farther in the Time Trouble on Kaiju Island level, where female balls have eyelashes alongside Blush Stickers and larger, shinier eyes.
• Toilet Humor: You can fart on command by holding the whistle button. It does nothing, but you get an achievement for doing it in specific places.
• Transformation Sequence: After powering up the giant mecha suit in Time Trouble on Kaiju Island, you’re treated to a sequence of Bob putting on the armor piece by piece with a flashy anime backdrop.
• Trapped in TV Land: The main premise of the game is Bob entering a tv and ending up in several different movie worlds.
• Villainy-Free Villain: Bob Boss in general is more of an egotistical Jerkass than an actual villain, though he’s the Big Bad all the same. That said, he always plays the role of the villain in the movies you enter. Subverted in the final battle, where he attacks you in real life, using everything he has previously used to kill you.
• Virtual Paper Doll: Bob's color pattern, clothing, weapon and shield can be customized. Most of the options are purely cosmetic, but some have special abilities tied to them.
• Walk, Don't Swim: Instead of swimming in water, Bob sinks down to the bottom and will drown if you don’t resurface in time. Though some worlds allow him to summon an inflatable boat that he can use for water transport.
• Wutai: Parts of the Time Trouble on Kaiju Island are themed around medieval Japan and are filled with ninjas, samurai and Kitsune.
• X-Ray Sparks: Whenever a character gets electrified, their bones start showing.
• Your Size May Vary: In Time Trouble on Kaiju Island, before activating the mecha suit, it appears much, much larger than Bob, to the point of him being the size of an ant compared to it. However, upon activating it, not only does the armor fit perfectly on him, but Bob seemingly grows several feet to fit inside of it, making him about equal the size of Bob Boss' Kaiju form. This goes full circle after you re-enter the tv portal after the fight, as Bob and the mecha suit seemingly shrink down to Bob's default size after exiting the portal.