Welcome
to Isometrics, the clinically conflicted gander at the literary world
of computer and video games. We are but a few days away from the
release of Armikrog, the sequel in spirit to cult hit The Neverhood,
a fascinating odyssey in plasticine from the creator of Earthworm
Jim, and yet rather than unbridled joy, I'm completely conflicted
with whether I should buy a game I know I will enjoy.
“Why?!”
The dearest reader of this may well scream. “If you know you will
enjoy it, why not buy it and support a game you love?”
The
problem of course is the author is Doug TenNepal, creator of The
Neverhood and Earthworm Jim, creating Armikrog after a very
successful Kickstarter from pretty much everyone other than myself
who played The Neverhood back in the day. See, I love Doug TenNepal
the artist. My adoration for The Neverhood basically created my
eternal love for FMV games, claymation, indie games, the surreal and
weird obscure games few people seem to have heard of (although enough
to crowd fund a sequel evidently).
For the
uninitiated, The Neverhood was a 1996 point and click adventure in
the clay eponymous world, where you play as Klayman and have to find
the crown of the king Hoborg. This involved exploring the world of
the Neverhood, solving silly yet creative puzzles, endlessly
backtracking and collecting history disks, one of which was stored in
the longest corridor ever, which told the history of the Neverhood
universe in clay etchings and the slowest walk cycles ever. It's hard
to tell sometimes whether some of the dafter design decisions were
deliberate or simply the case of wanting to keep every frame of
animation made over an agonising year-long production. It is a game
that is hard not to see the love that went into it, and that adds a
charm that forgives some of its more fundamental flaws. The game was
packed in on an OEM bundle but even so it did not sell well, possibly
being a bit too out there even for the unbridled creativity that was
the mid 1990s gaming landscape.
Two
years later, its sequel, Skullmonkeys, followed pretty much the same
formula. Eschewing the point and click shenanigans for a full on side
scrolling platformer, the game was equal parts barmy and beautiful,
full of a lot of surreal, hilarious and innately charming moments.
These hilarious moments, like the beans scene and the awesome Bonus
Room song (basically the best reason to kill yourself on that one
level to collect every Swirly Q) were of course tempered by some iffy
game mechanics, and an absurdly high difficulty curve artificially
exacerbated by the fact there were only passwords and no save system
for a PS1 game in 1998. General consensus is that the Neverhood is a
better game, and I'm not going to argue, however I suspect that some
individual scenes in Skullmonkeys are so funny they do bring the
whole game up, and make you want to play more to see the next bit of
slapstick. I did love it.
So with
that, and the obvious and inexplicably gigantic success of Earthworm
Jim (seriously, only in 1995 could that game get a TV show), TenNapel
naturally released a terrible fighting game and disappeared from
video games to make comic books and flash cartoons based on Ape
Escape (this actually happened). But hey, he returned with a
massively successful Kickstarter in 2013, and Armikrog is set to be
released at the start of August.
So why
am I so hesitant, I hear you cry? Well, TenNapel has said some very
interesting things in the interim period, things that certainly
colour the opinion of a creator. Things of a “I'm not very fond of
gay people” fashion. Now, several commentators have brought in his
religious beliefs, being a Breibart-esque republican Christian, and
while there is a connection between his opinions and those of the
religious right, it seems somewhat hypocritical to tar all religious
folk with the same brush as the people he is tarring. There is a
fascinating article on the website Mostly Retro, which asks the
question “But if you’re not a homophobic, sexist bigot and you
still want to back Doug TenNapel, I have one question... [w]hat the
fuck is wrong with you?”
James Eldred's article, which is a really good read posits that final support of a project made by someone with very questionable beliefs is a tacit approval of said beliefs. How far does that go however? Pencil Test Studios, the publisher and developer of Armikrog is more than just Doug himself, surely you can support the studio and not TenNapel personally? Perhaps technically, but that's not really the point. He's writer, creator and designer of the game, his name is tied directly to it and it is his creative vision. Even if that £20 (£25 for the deluxe edition) you pay for the game does not in fact go straight into his bank account to buy more bigotry, it does serve to define him as a creative asset, and every success justifies the use of his name and his talent.
Which
leads to the ultimate question, how connected is an artist's beliefs
and their art? The safe answer is that it clearly depends, between
different artists, different works even. In some cases even different
editions of the same work will receive edits to fit in with an
artist's new beliefs, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein being a particular
damaging example compared to the original work. We can think of many
artists who made a “religious” album of course, but these err
towards very general displays of worship, rather than particularly
contentious issues of a faith. In gaming it is even more difficult to
see, partly because of the long lead times and rather large teams
working on gaming ensuring the most controversial aspects of a belief
system are removed before release. TenNepal has never released a game
which explicitly is transphobic or misogynist or homophobic, and it
seems astonishingly unlikely that he would compromise or manipulate a
concept to fit something so alienating in.
So far, we may not be able to separate a creator entirely from his game (although of course New Theorists will argue that point with me), is it possible that people can buy a game and support the studio, the publisher and the creative part of an author without endorsing these beliefs. I disagree with Mr Eldred on that aspect. You can enjoy John Lennon's music and not endorse the fact he beat his wife, an act he apologised and showed deep regret for before his death. You can enjoy Muse without buying into Matt Bellamy's conspiracy theories. You can even enjoy the game Shadow Complex, despite it being based loosely on a book written by a homophobe hiding behind his Mormon beliefs to justify his bigotry. In the end it is art, and whatever art you choose to enjoy is your business.
Just be
aware that your favourite games may be made by your least favourite
artists...
