2012 In Review 029 - KARRIBLE.RPG

Write and read reviews of games that have been uploaded to Slime Salad.

Moderators: Bob the Hamster, marionline, SDHawk

Post Reply
User avatar
Gizmog
Metal King Slime
Posts: 2622
Joined: Tue Feb 19, 2008 5:41 am

2012 In Review 029 - KARRIBLE.RPG

Post by Gizmog »

Pre-Thoughts:

I remember playing this when it came out in the Terrible Games Contest, and I'll give Nathan credit, it was pretty terrible. I remember it being fairly racist and offensive, like, I actually remember being offended by it which is kind of saying something. I think my offense had to do with Nathan portraying it as an anti-racist game when in fact it was quite racist, and there was some hypocrisy with like "Black people think white guys are nerds so it's okay to drop the n-bomb" or something. Maybe I'm building a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe it was some kind of "Furries aren't racist" thing instead of a white supremacy thing. Remember, these pre-thoughts are just my own conceptions and thoughts, they can be mistaken and terribly terribly wrong.

Thoughts-During:

Yep... still kind of offensively racist in that "I'm not racist, but..." kinda way

And you can run away from the Negromancer and still get his melons...

Hold down enter affairs for battle..

Post-Thoughts:

Oh lordy, not sure what to make of this thing at all. Nathan's political views have always been a little controversial, but he really goes off the rails here. The intro denounces "Those who would take the wealth of others", presumably those who lobby for reparations to be made to the ancestors of slaves. I agree that people who never owned slaves paying money to people who never were slaves would be ridiculous, but there's a non-White Supremacist way to present that point. He follows it up by denouncing homosexuals as perverts and laughing at their desire to be married, which is a controversial issue, points can be made on either side, but for a man who wants to be eaten by a wolf and jack off in its stomach to call buttsex a perversion is hypocrisy on ice! He finishes the intro by declaring that anyone of undetermined gender will always be a man until proven otherwise... guess he ran out of steam on the first two, and declares himself (Or rather, each of his alts, Rurouni, Nathan and Ronin_Catholic) a defender of truth and righteousness!

..and then we get to the character select menu? There's some kind of recurring gimmick where the game pretends to be broken, where parts of the game can't be played or found. The only character you can play as is Ronin_Catholic. He starts in the middle of town, with a door to each cardinal direction leading to a racist caricature. You pick one and fight him and after the battle steal their gimmick, Megaman style. The first battle is a slow, hold down the enter key affair, and each ensuing battle gets easier, till the last battle is basically an afterthought. Your basic attack needs MP too, so if you spam your special attacks, you'll have to "rest" to gain a SINGLE MP at a time to make a single attack at a time, making stuff feel longer.

Storywise, there isn't much of anything. The backstory is that aliens, who just HAPPEN to resemble racial caricatures of black folk, native Americans, Asians and white folk appear. The black guy is easily incited to violence and loves to eat watermelons, the Native American wields a tomahawk and tries to scalp people, white dude has a gun and is an elitist, Asian guy talks in the traditional "Me chinese!" kind of patter. It feels like some of it might supposed to be satire, but it doesn't play with the stereotype or prove the stereotype wrong or make fun of the idiots who believe this stuff, it just puts it up there and our vaguely Asiatic-Furry savior puts every race (Oh! Excuse me! I mean ALIEN!) in their place. Geordi from Star Trek: The Next Generation makes a cameo, giving like, tricorder readings of each racist caricature for some basic strategy. An NPC calls a woman out for not being disgusted by the alien invaders, but OH WAIT, it's okay because she's an Android! Totally no one accusing anyone of being a race traitor here, no sir!

The only thing I'd really want to see in another game is the little multicolored dot attack the random encounters do. Kind of a neat effect, kind of retro. Graphics are the standard Nathan_Karr style, MSPaint backdrops and half-assed, four colored walkabouts. The game is small which kinda works in its favor, but its also pretty boring visually. He stole a bunch of music from the Homestar Runner guys and it's well placed, but I hate to think of Homestar Runner in the same context as this slime. Sound effects are okay.

One thing to remember is this was made for the Terrible Games contest. To me, that gives Nathan some reasonable doubt. Maybe he was just trying to be offensive for the hell of it, maybe he didn't mean to make some really weird implications about who knows best and putting people in their place or maybe he did. I am in no way saying that white people don't have any place in a discussion about race. It really bothers me when I talk to people my age and they mention the concept of "Reverse Racism", the idea of a black person discriminating against a white guy. There's nothing reverse about that, that *IS* Racism. Anyone of any race can be racist against anyone else of any race. Cultural sensitivity is a strange new concept and it's hard to decide where to draw the line. Is it offensive for a sports franchise to name their team the Redskins? The Indians? What if they have permission of the surviving members of the tribe, like Florida State's Seminoles? Is it offensive for college students to have a drunken orgy and call it a Toga Party, as if the Greeks/Romans would smile and nod at their bedsheets and cans of Pabst? Is it better or worse that these cultures aren't around to defend themselves? I don't know, that's a dialogue I'd love to have someday. But KARRIBLE isn't asking that, it just wants to play it up for shock value.

Wouldn't recommend it to anyone, doesn't do anything you can't get somewhere else without the weird white/furry supremacist vibe. Don't be racist!
Attachments
Man, I wish...
Man, I wish...
Karrible0001.png (2.02 KiB) Viewed 2212 times
It's okay guys, he called the white guy intelligent! Equal opportunity racist, comin' through!
It's okay guys, he called the white guy intelligent! Equal opportunity racist, comin' through!
Karrible0081.png (4.8 KiB) Viewed 2212 times
It's that kind of game.
It's that kind of game.
Karrible0041.png (3.35 KiB) Viewed 2212 times
Maybe because it's been used mockingly as a stereotype for over a century?
Maybe because it's been used mockingly as a stereotype for over a century?
Karrible0031.png (3.64 KiB) Viewed 2212 times
Let's knock Darwinism too, while we're here.
Let's knock Darwinism too, while we're here.
Karrible0049.png (4.36 KiB) Viewed 2212 times
Post Reply