“[Interwebz TROLL Simulator] is more of an art piece than a game, and I know most people won’t play it more than 2-3 times after playing it once.”
Michael Patrick Rogers is one hell of an intense guy, and his newest game — or ‘game’? — is directed at what most people consider to be the bottom-feeders of the online community: internet trolls. “I decided to make the game a troll itself,” he said, “but about important issues and more of a political satire, like the political cartoons that they used to have in the newspaper when I was growing up.”
The maker of last year’s infinitely weird experiment, The Lady, is back with a different sort of project. Interwebz TROLL Simulator has players interact on a message board, of sorts. There is no goal, no winning, no achievement that is readily noticeable.
To be honest, it’s kind of strange that an article about this game is even ending up on a horror site. Other than some pentagrams and a soundtrack straight out of Liquid Television, there isn’t anything overtly horrific about Interwebz TROLL Simulator. It is a representation of the darkness of the internet, but it isn’t actually the darkness itself.
For that reason, the game is underwhelming. It is not the mixture of 8mm and S&man I expected, and the content isn’t varied enough to bring players back. Rogers said, “I think there are over 100 comments and 50 something user names, with about 10 Twitter links,” adding, “the game was made on a $0 budget with someone I made another free game with, and it was basically made in one weekend.”
Still, there is something oddly declarative and clear-eyed about this game’s purpose. Players log in as User and choose one of four troll ‘classes’ before being taken to message board of sorts in order to unleash his or her inner troll. They will be privy to a variety of ignorant and politically-charged invective. It’s almost like a second-tier NES game you might have picked out at the video store if Tiger Heli and Monster Party had been rented.
It doesn’t draft information from what users type, though that was my initial impression, and it doesn’t actually contain the most offensive content I’ve seen, something I halfway expected. It seemed like Interwebz TROLL Simulator should be the end-all, be-all of user-created trolling content. But the content in no way makes it onto the internet, nor is it saved internally for use on later users who log in and play. It is the antithesis of trolling, which is to unsettle as many or as few people as possible from behind a gilded curtain of anonymity.
The game sort of trolls the user. It isn’t what players would expect, so it is kind of trolling the player’s expectations. And it matters not which class the player chooses; the content is fairly similar, in terms of hatred and ignorance. It’s a really weird experience.
I’m not saying play Interwebz TROLL Simulator. I’m also not saying don’t play it for a little while, either. It didn’t change the way I think about gaming the way that more pointed deconstructions of gaming have, but I do think it’s cool that we’ve reached a point that really personal things can exist and be seen, even to undercut the industry to which they belong.
The game is available exclusively at Indie Game Stand, and players can pick it up for the price of $1.00, currently at a 99% discount.
