Read: our finest words
- Over and Over: Overlord II Impressions
- Wot I Think: Anno 1404: Dawn Of Discovery
- An Hour With… Ghostbusters
- The Quest Journal: Mysteries of Westgate Interview
- Wot I Think: Arma II
- Why Can’t I… Teleport In MMOs?
- And much more...
Revisit: a random post
Spandau Ballet Sits and Starts Singing about Gold
Respond: to our gibberish
- Stromko : “It's looking pretty good. I was going to suggest much the same thing as Cigol for a replacement to the entire ship glowing red. If ...” on Space! Battles! Gratuitousness!
- Persus-9 : “Looks great! I'm not a huge fan to tower defence either but on the other hand I really loved Defence Grid and PvZ so I ...” on Space! Battles! Gratuitousness!
- Heliocentric : “Ooh, alpha prime £1.50 steam And erm, men of war on gamersgate for £13 Again! If you get the new red faction from gamersgate.com (rather ...” on The RPS Bargain Bucket: Reborn!
- fishoil : “i'm fishoil84. give me a game” on Foot Like A Traction Engine: Kickabout League
- Heliocentric : “Majesty £3.03 impulse.” on The RPS Bargain Bucket: Reborn!
Discuss on the forum
Play: indie, mods and webgames
Browse: the mighty RPS archive
Games Not To Show Your Mother
Written by Alec Meer on August 26, 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.
Related Stories:
- Instant Action: Fallen Empires Beta
- PC Gamer’s 365 Days Of Free Games
- Eternity’s Child: The Wrong Platform
Comment on this story — Share/save/Digg this story
Tags: Coil, edmund mcmillen, free, I'm Not Putting The Other One's Name In A Tag, indie, Komix Games, Twin Hobo Rocket
__________________
« GOA Confirms Open Beta, Definitely Lowers Prices | Crysis Wars: 13-Day Aged Prime-Cut Trailer »
Okami says:
I’m at loss for words
August 26th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Dinger says:
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…
August 26th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
lio says:
those are some… uhm… unusual games for sure… but at least they are unique in their own way :)
August 26th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
The Poisoned Sponge says:
In ‘Coil’ I’m feeling far more seeding and corrupted by the little paragraphs of text in between the minigames…. it’s quite disconcerting.
August 26th, 2008 at 11:10 pm
Zonderic says:
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.
August 26th, 2008 at 11:44 pm
Gibble says:
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.
August 26th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
N says:
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…
August 26th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
Heliocentric says:
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.
August 26th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
sinister agent says:
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.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:06 am
MindBrain says:
They should make the adolescents play this game, would help to keep them away from sex for sure!
August 27th, 2008 at 6:07 am
Martin says:
Coil won’t load for me either. Either that or I’m daft and can’t get it to run.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Ian says:
I don’t intend to play Twin Hobo Rocket simply because no game could ever live up to such a premise.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:29 am
mister slim says:
The post from ‘rohashbodash’ is spam. Please delete this post after deleting him. Also, what’s the best way to report spam posts?
August 27th, 2008 at 9:41 am
cullnean says:
just finished coil WTF
August 27th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Bob Arctor says:
I don’t understand coil, it doesn’t explain what you do in the cell stage.
August 27th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
iwo/mffaiv says:
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.
–
I write Obama slash McCain fan fiction and I vote
August 27th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
MacBeth says:
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…
August 27th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Martin says:
Bah, I moved just about everything in circles to no avail. :/
August 27th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Sum0 says:
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.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Eddy says:
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
August 27th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
dhex says:
coil kinda jacked the old coil logo a la stolen and contaminated songs era.
August 28th, 2008 at 12:54 am
Seth Tipps says:
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.
August 28th, 2008 at 9:35 am
Add your comment
Statistical chance of typo-free post: 0.691%
© 2007-2009 Rock Paper Shotgun Ltd
Hosted by Positive Internet
Design by James Willock
Hi, Alec Meer’s mom!
August 26th, 2008 at 10:19 pm