Games Not To Show Your Mother

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.