Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Brazilian indie developer and professional psychotherapist Nicolau Chaud is fast becoming a favourite of RPS. And why not? The man pushes at boundaries like a mean cat in a small shoebox. He first came to our attention with Marvel Brothel, and his next game, a short story of torture and sadism entitled Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer, got Kieron so excited that he came out of retirement to do an exhaustive review.

This week, freelance journo Jordan Rivas has taken a look at Chaud’s upcoming game, Polymorphous Perversity. You can read the full blog post here, or examine my digest of the sexy Brazilian’s next big release after the jump. Urgh, I just succeeded in grossing myself out.
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In a year where a fake game about being a serial killer was at the center of an internet whirlpool, it’s somehow pleasing that another serial killer game was actually released and has performed its act of unspeakable brutality without drawing much attention to itself. Only the detectives of ElectronDance brought it to my attention. The contrasting approach to the subject matter of the two games seems to follow the ideas of serial murder which they’re most interested in. Serial Killer Roguelike was all cheap opportunism, (metaphorically) breaking in an open window, cutting up its victims and smearing itself in viscera. Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer is about the secretive killers who do their grim work for years and no-one will ever know – except their victim, and only too late. In other words, a serial killer who’s all the more disturbing.

Beautiful Escape: Dungeoneer is also more disturbing in a key, important way. It actually exists.
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Imagine if Professor Xavier decided that fighting battles so that the battles might stop was stupid. Imagine if he gave up fighting evil mutants. Imagine if, instead, he decided to bring about the acceptance of mutants with the power of love. Imagine a Brazilian man made a sim game of this for his brother’s Birthday using RPG Maker 2003. That is Marvel Brothel.

This is, without a shadow of a doubt, a weird game. Imagine trying to satisfy the voracious sexual appetite of The Incredible Hulk. That’s the kind of game we’re dealing with here. But I’ve not yet mentioned the weirdest thing about it.
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