Jay and Silent Bob in: Let Us Dance

Overview

The first game from filmmaker/podcaster/author Kevin Smith's games project Smarcade, Jay and Silent Bob in: Let Us Dance is a free to download, four-input color-coded touchscreen rhythm game featuring animated versions of Jay and Silent Bob. The player has to hit the corresponding colored button to make Jay dance along to one of the music tracks playing on the boombox being held aloft by Silent Bob.

Gameplay

As the player hits the buttons at the appropriate time, building combos with consecutive well-timed presses, a performance bar fills. Once filled, a overdrive-style mechanic kicks in, scoring more points and allowing for hotter dance stylings by Jay. High scores and high accuracy results in higher leaderboard rankings and unlockable achievements.

Development

Jay and Silent Bob have been portrayed by Smith and his friend, Jason Mewes in various films, television shows and comic books, often written and directed by Smith. In the past few years, Smith has stepped back from film, and has entered into a business partnership with Mewes, founding SmodCo. The company began with podcasts, has expanded to internet radio, internet video, and live podcast recordings.

This free game is the first product of the duo's venture, Smarcade, with a paid Apple Marketplace game, Too Fat To Fly, also announced and released at the same time. At a Q&A session at ComicCon 2012, Mewes provided a live demo of the game, and Smith stated the the game was the idea of Ken Plume, who has overseen the animations that SmodCo has been producing over the past few years.

The animators, Powerhouse Animation, is alos working on Smith's movie review show, Spoilers, which plays on Hulu, and has also done work on other games, such as Disney Epic Mickey, Starhawk and Risk: Factions, according to their website. The game was developed by Ice Cap Games.

As Smith's films have their own cult following and also pay homage to popular culture items from movies and music important to him, the featured location in the game is a convenience store, the famed hangout for Jay and Silent Bob in many of Smith's projects, such as Clerks and Clerks 2, which feature the Jay character dancing to a boombox. Also, the boombox, which plays the music highway of notes is being held by Silent Bob in the famed fashion of John Cusack's character in the 80's film Say Anything.