By Alec Meer on August 26th, 2008 at 10:12 pm.
I’ve just spent a little time at Komix Games, home of Austrian developer/artist Florian Himsl. He’s a very naughty boy. I thought I’d posted about impregnate ‘em up Coil before, but I can’t find it in our archives after all. One of several games Himsl made in collaboration with Gish creator Edmund McMillen, it’s the more subtle edge of their work. Beautiful but bewildering, it’s a sort of biological puzzle-art game that takes pride in not offering much in the way of help or hints. Llike their other efforts, it employs a soundtrack that’s the right mix of pretty and disturbing, neatly preventing this from being simply offensive.
Whether that’s true of genitalia-fixated shmup C*nt or not I don’t know. (I censor the name because I just found out my mother sometimes reads this site. Um. Sorry, Mum). Again, the music’s great. The art’s great. But it is about shooting a mutant, disaease-belching vagina with an engorged penis. Unsubtle commentator on the gender divide or just a ribald agent provacteur? Let’s go with the latter. Coil’s just about safe for work, though you’ll net some quizzical looks. This one, however, most certainly is not, unless you work in an STD clinic. Worth seeing for its audacity alone, but please don’t look if you’re prone to being outraged about seeing graphic drawings of people’s rude bits. So long as you’re not, it’s pretty funny once you’re past the initial shock of the thing.
Then there’s Twin Hobo Rocket, which isn’t about carnal acts, but is about twin hobos on a rocket. It’s not quite as funny as the concept promises, but it’s hard to deny that using Gravitar-esque controls to hunt down spare change from space is a fun time.
The others I’ve not been able to look at yet, but apparently Himsl’s on a one-man crusade to make flash games as offensive as possible whilst still being genuinely artistically impressive. Good show, that man.
All found via Playthisthing’s linking to That Game With The Naughty Name.
Hi, Alec Meer’s mom!
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I’m at loss for words
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Google ad that I get on this story o__O
nabeel
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good lord! I played The Game Whose Name Shall Not Be Mentioned for all of 2 minutes when it suddenly disappeared and was replaced by a website going on about Rugby. (If you suspect that clicking on that link gives someone money, don’t do it).
That’s shocking in itself, since my visit to Paris last year forcibly burned into my Yankee skull the association of rugby with Barbour-wearing repressed-British homoeroticism.*
Then I realize the beauty of it all. It’s right up there with The Damned’s “Jet Boy” as an anti-breeder screed. Hey, that’s cool. Making The Holy of Holies into some sort of smiling devil — I can appreciate that. It’s the Bermuda triangle, dude, and while many who venture there are never heard from again in bachelor circles, and at work you can hear their phantom laments, many of us still venture into those waters.
*yes, I wear some sort of Barbour jacket in inclement weather, and do not judge sexual preference solely on that basis. Well, except for the chaps in the impeccably-maintained Bedales…
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those are some… uhm… unusual games for sure… but at least they are unique in their own way :)
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In ‘Coil’ I’m feeling far more seeding and corrupted by the little paragraphs of text in between the minigames…. it’s quite disconcerting.
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I didn’t think it was going to be THAT disgusting until things started exploding in ketchup/mustard colored splashes. Quite hilarious if you are disassociated enough.
The best is that if you lose the C-game, it lists all the STD’s you now have.
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Im pretty sure McMillen was the lead designer of Coil and Cunt as he seems to be credited first in the intros of both of them. he used to run a website back in the day that had much worse stuff then this on it. hes bringing sexy back.
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Vadge is a pretty ok game, it also gets progressively gnarly… the final level takes the cake, and by cake I mean pie… and by pie I mean the creamy kind…
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i spent 5 minutes trying to not hurt the orifice.. Then i realised thats the whole point.
>_< that probably says more about me than the game.
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How is the first one offensive?
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Is this the same Coil that was mentioned in its very early stage aaaages back on the WoS forums? And I did that great bit about it standing for “Contraceptive of indefinite longevity” and nobody replying to say how amazing I was?
This brings back hurtful memories. I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Also I can’t seem to get it to load. Hmm.
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They should make the adolescents play this game, would help to keep them away from sex for sure!
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Coil won’t load for me either. Either that or I’m daft and can’t get it to run.
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I don’t intend to play Twin Hobo Rocket simply because no game could ever live up to such a premise.
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The post from ‘rohashbodash’ is spam. Please delete this post after deleting him. Also, what’s the best way to report spam posts?
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just finished coil WTF
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I don’t understand coil, it doesn’t explain what you do in the cell stage.
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The uterine wall level is awesome!
OK I always say that.
edit: is it the last level though? Couldn’t get anything else to come up despite random clicks everywhere. Bob – you have to seperate the three colours. I hope all the substance D hasn’t left you colour blind.
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I write Obama slash McCain fan fiction and I vote
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Not explaining is part of the charm… you have to experiment and see what works. Generally it involves moving the mouse pointer in circles, if nothing seems to be happening…
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Bah, I moved just about everything in circles to no avail. :/
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I wasn’t overly impressed by Coil. Now I absolutely adore pretentious arty things, but this is a pretentious arty game with … nothing to say? Unless I’ve just missed the point.
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anyone wanting a walk through for coil, or just a good break down of the game ( and analysis of the story) check out this review and comments by users, pretty interesting interpretations.
http://jayisgames.com/archives/2008/02/coil.php
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coil kinda jacked the old coil logo a la stolen and contaminated songs era.
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Guys, if you haven’t already, check out triachnid. This is another of his games on the website and I’ve never seen anything like it. It also has a soundtrack that I would kill for: Tin Hat Trio in one of their earlier albums. I’ve wanted to do an adventure game with their music for a while, but it’s cool to see someone else who like 21st century chamber music that isn’t Philip Glass. Play it, love it, and check out Tin Hat Trio.
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