Let's Sperg JAIMAS PLAYS A TERRIBLE GAME: EXTREME MEATPUNKS FOREVER by Heather Flowers - TFW You Make James Corbett Seem Like a Good Writer by Comparison

[Drain Todger]

The dev has a bit of a history of being on a shoestring with this kind of thing, and if you're willing to wade through their timeline on their Social Media accounts, they love body horror and guro shit, so yes, this absolutely is a fetish for them, much like their entire online persona is. They're very much part of the Sophie Labelle/Rhys McKinnon/side of things where they're extremely loud and mostly use Social Media to browbeat anyone that dares criticize them.

What's fascinating to me is that as a consequence of existing in this theatre of operations on the internet so long, they've lost the ability to properly engage with people in ways that aren't knee-jerk sound-bites. Take a look at their manifesto earlier in the review of chapter 1, and one thing immediately becomes apparent: They have absolutely no idea whatsoever what "the Fash" is. The dialogue we see, which establishes nothing about "the Fash Collective" in-game, tells us that they see the sort of shitposting you see on Twitter accounts and subreddits they don't like as something worthy of not just opposition, but violence in the name of. What this means is that their own game inadvertently works as propaganda against themselves. The protagonists don't come across as likable or relatable, they're a drunken asshole who starts shit with two people and then pawns the problem off on his friend and some dude without the spine to stand up for himself until he's waist-deep into trouble courtesy of the friend that started it.

Like an episode of Chargeman Ken, it gets to the point where you root for the bad guys, just because it looks, to all casual observation, like the the protagonist is the bigger problem.

With cover art like that, you would almost expect this game’s setting to be post-apocalyptic. See, I could go for something that’s like Kenshi, but with meat mechs. But that’s not what this is. It’s worse than you say. Not only is there zero world building, there’s no Mise-en-scène. No consistent visual theme. It’s just the modern world but with meat mechs inexplicably shoehorned in. Look, if you’re gonna have meat mechs, then the buildings and the clothing have to be made of meat, too, like full-on Giger/Beksiński. Like Scorn.

Instead, we get a drunken gay dude in a shirt and khakis, and meat mechs. Talk about a wasted premise.

 

[Yukari Yakumo]

With cover art like that, you would almost expect this game’s setting to be post-apocalyptic. See, I could go for something that’s like Kenshi, but with meat mechs. But that’s not what this is. It’s worse than you say. Not only is there zero world building, there’s no Mise-en-scène. No consistent visual theme. It’s just the modern world but with meat mechs inexplicably shoehorned in. Look, if you’re gonna have meat mechs, then the buildings and the clothing have to be made of meat, too, like full-on Giger/Beksiński. Like Scorn.

Instead, we get a drunken gay dude in a shirt and khakis, and meat mechs. Talk about a wasted premise.

That actually reminds me, for a while now I imagined a Meatpunks remake that takes away all of the "UWU WE'RE GAY AND PUNCH NAZIS" fluff to make it sound actually serious and cool. We're here for the actual Meatpunks, not whatever idpol shit you cum to.

 

[Aaa0aaa0]

That actually reminds me, for a while now I imagined a Meatpunks remake that takes away all of the "UWU WE'RE GAY AND PUNCH NAZIS" fluff to make it sound actually serious and cool. We're here for the actual Meatpunks, not whatever idpol shit you cum to.

I'd pay for that. I'd also love to see it quietly subvert any of the points (except paying your staff) on the meatpunk manifesto.

To any aspiring autist out there, do it because you really enjoy the idea of fleshing out a meat mech game or add on, not just because you want to dunk on the meatpunk ttrpg game team. You'll enjoy a project more if you do it out of love than spite (the spite is a bonus).

 

[Yukari Yakumo]

I'd pay for that. I'd also love to see it quietly subvert any of the points (except paying your staff) on the meatpunk manifesto.

To any aspiring autist out there, do it because you really enjoy the idea of fleshing out a meat mech game or add on, not just because you want to dunk on the meatpunk ttrpg game team. You'll enjoy a project more if you do it out of love than spite (the spite is a bonus).

First things foremost: Let's make the EVUL FASHHH actual characters instead of just living punching bags.

 

[Jaimas]

First things foremost: Let's make the EVUL FASHHH actual characters instead of just living punching bags.

What's actually truly amazing about the "Fash" in EMF is that it actually manages to go beyond zero-effort in this regard. I don't know what the fuck one would even call the inversion of effort, but that's what this is.

I've been going over the screengrabs and my text rips and I realize, only after the fact, that at no point do we have any establishment for any system of government in this setting. The only things we ever are given as establishment can be effectively boiled down to three things:

1. They have a football team, apparently.
2. Cops love them, apparently.
3. They inexplicably are everywhere, apparently.

I say "apparently" because at no point are any of these explained or even expanded upon. It's not even enough to say that the world is inexplicably in the hands of a fascist state; the setting won't even give you that much. Nor will it explain why it's simultaneously omnipresent, omniscient, and yet utterly impotent, or why even why they're bad in-setting!

At no point do you actually see them do anything villainous until welder mask guy torches Hopeville, which we know nothing about. We're to take everything said about them at face value, but the characters who we are taking this information from include a murderous psychopath and her companions who may or may not have killed people in cold blood. The Hopeville crew even has a body count long before the characters arrive, and we know, again, nothing about their conflict. The end result of all of this is that you wind up with some of the most incoherent, toothless storytelling of any setting I've done a JPATG review on, and I once did a review of a game that was a WH40K ripoff where one of the factions was a MLP reference.

 

[Adamska]

In the RPG book that we didn't finish, they make a point to screech that the bad guys are just there to get destroyed. There was no motivation or explanation for them, and the incompetents writing it seem to actively get mad at that idea too. Then again there seems to be a particular fear of worldbuilding in general. Imagine if instead of that they explain that these fascists were something like this:

"Gene Purists are a particularly disgusting philosophy found on Meat World, and unfortunately they have a decent amount of support. They are a cult of eugenicists who believe that many of the ills of Meat World are due to defective gene expressions. Monsters to them are Meat Mechs or expressions of the Dead God that went wrong. This is bullshit of course, since Monsters just naturally form, but then again, arguing with them is pointless.

The biggest reason you probably want to punch them are because they have a habit of euthanizing Meat Mechs and people with disabilities in general. Gene Purists have a set series of "templates" that they believe are purestrain, and deviations are to be culled. They're enemies of creativity, and are deadset on forcing their worldview on you.

So punch them before they punch you." ~ Made-up on spot Lore

But nope, they didn't do that. They couldn't be bothered to do any lorebuilding at all since the only thing they cared about was putting their [current year] problems into both a video game with little effort and a TTRPG for little effort.

Awful.

 

[Yukari Yakumo]

In the RPG book that we didn't finish, they make a point to screech that the bad guys are just there to get destroyed. There was no motivation or explanation for them, and the incompetents writing it seem to actively get mad at that idea too. Then again there seems to be a particular fear of worldbuilding in general. Imagine if instead of that they explain that these fascists were something like this:

"Gene Purists are a particularly disgusting philosophy found on Meat World, and unfortunately they have a decent amount of support. They are a cult of eugenicists who believe that many of the ills of Meat World are due to defective gene expressions. Monsters to them are Meat Mechs or expressions of the Dead God that went wrong. This is bullshit of course, since Monsters just naturally form, but then again, arguing with them is pointless.

The biggest reason you probably want to punch them are because they have a habit of euthanizing Meat Mechs and people with disabilities in general. Gene Purists have a set series of "templates" that they believe are purestrain, and deviations are to be culled. They're enemies of creativity, and are deadset on forcing their worldview on you.

So punch them before they punch you." ~ Made-up on spot Lore

But nope, they didn't do that. They couldn't be bothered to do any lorebuilding at all since the only thing they cared about was putting their [current year] problems into both a video game with little effort and a TTRPG for little effort.

Awful.

Honestly it would have been kinda cool to have the 'Fash' actually be some sort of eldritch hivemind, if they're trying to go for that effect with Meatworld being a dying god. But no, they're just there because the creators WANT them to be there for no reason outside of "bad guy bad".

 

[Corn Flakes]

The Enemy must be a bogeyman. If you explained their motivations and made them in any way human, some people could identify with them and they can't have that.

Remember: the Enemy is not human. These brave social justice warriors think they're in They Live, fighting against this all-encompassing threat... that somehow still lets them live their lives perfectly normally, kept at bay by their frantic twittering.

 

[Yukari Yakumo]

The Enemy must be a bogeyman. If you explained their motivations and made them in any way human, some people could identify with them and they can't have that.

Remember: the Enemy is not human. These brave social justice warriors think they're in They Live, fighting against this all-encompassing threat... that somehow still lets them live their lives perfectly normally, kept at bay by their frantic twittering.

Plot Twist: "The Fash" is just a mass hallucination caused by inhaling too many meat fumes (or being gay), our protagonists are actually fighting normal people. But wait! Even that sounds more interesting! And that's illegal in Extreme Meatpunks Forever!

 

[Corn Flakes]

Plot Twist: "The Fash" is just a mass hallucination caused by inhaling too many meat fumes (or being gay), our protagonists are actually fighting normal people. But wait! Even that sounds more interesting! And that's illegal in Extreme Meatpunks Forever!

That would imply they're wrong for bashing the Fash, and that's definitely illegal.

 

[Pickle Dick]

https://twitter.com/HTHRFLWRS/status/1399742566287953927

https://archive.md/wip/qnLgF

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sinisterbeard/extreme-meatpunks-forever-the-roleplaying-game

https://archive.md/wip/Wg3Kb

 

[Adamska]

View attachment 2223821

https://twitter.com/HTHRFLWRS/status/1399742566287953927

https://archive.md/wip/qnLgF

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sinisterbeard/extreme-meatpunks-forever-the-roleplaying-game

https://archive.md/wip/Wg3Kb

Didn't they ALREADY get that shitty book funded?

Because that makes this a gigantic fucking scam if so.

 

[Yukari Yakumo]

Didn't they ALREADY get that shitty book funded?

Because that makes this a gigantic fucking scam if so.

I just can't wait for when this Titanic of a leftie cumsock crashes into the iceberg of cancel culture.

 

[Haramburger]

@Jaimas i don’t vidya or like vidya

fucker

 

[An Ghost]

If i remember correctly the two things they're adding compared to the quick start is rules for custom mechs and characters. You could probably mix and match any PbtA combat system and make the game better, fo free. Instead people are willing to shell out uh how much?

Fuck. Well the art is fine and its hardcover.

Before 1d4chan was kill, I remember the Pbta article saying something like, "shit's free. Be careful what you pay for. Cause it's likely garbage."

Didn't they ALREADY get that shitty book funded?

Because that makes this a gigantic fucking scam if so.

The quick start book was free, and also made available in the big itch.io social justice bundle. I don't recall seeing one for the accompanying game either.

 

[Adamska]

If i remember correctly the two things they're adding compared to the quick start is rules for custom mechs and characters. You could probably mix and match any PbtA combat system and make the game better, fo free. Instead people are willing to shell out uh how much?
View attachment 2225786
Fuck. Well the art is fine and its hardcover.

Before 1d4chan was kill, I remember the Pbta article saying something like, "shit's free. Be careful what you pay for. Cause it's likely garbage."


The quick start book was free, and also made available in the big itch.io social justice bundle. I don't recall seeing one for the accompanying game either.

Okay, so that's good at leas, they aren't trying to double dip in terms of fundraising. But it's still blatantly obvious they just ported the game's barely thought out idea and setting into a book using a free system to cheaply make money.

And there's still no way that the added items would make it worth it. A more rationalized world setting and rewrite to take the "Steal this Book" crustpunk LARP down to an 8 rather than a 10 would be more worth it... for stupids.

 

[Aaa0aaa0]

As someone who hates communist I think the most communist thing to do would be to not give them money and wait for someone to steal it therefore making sure not to participate in unethtical consumption. The most capitalist thing to do would be to spend money on a product before it comes out - it's not a donation.

I never get these people. I mean, I do, I just never cease to be amused at the consoom.

 

[Jaimas]

As someone who hates communist I think the most communist thing to do would be to not give them money and wait for someone to steal it therefore making sure not to participate in unethtical consumption. The most capitalist thing to do would be to spend money on a product before it comes out - it's not a donation.

I never get these people. I mean, I do, I just never cease to be amused at the consoom.

I do.

Their advocacy of communist shit comes from the fact that they're generally have-nots - or at least perceive themselves to be have-nots. That shit is the easiest crap on the planet to market to people either at the bottom or who think they are. The thing is, one reason that the glorious communist revolution these dorks advocate for never fucking happens is because the second they have access to resources, they realize they don't really need the glorious communist revolution at all, they just needed money and power, so thus begins the hilarious process of tying themselves into knots trying to justify their doing the exact opposite of what their ideology tells them is what a good communist does. It's such a consistent pattern of behavior you can set clocks to it.

The ones that are just obviously grifters are there to make their mark and move on, of course, just like BLM's head proved recently.

 

[NerdShamer]

I do.

Their advocacy of communist shit comes from the fact that they're generally have-nots - or at least perceive themselves to be have-nots. That shit is the easiest crap on the planet to market to people either at the bottom or who think they are. The thing is, one reason that the glorious communist revolution these dorks advocate for never fucking happens is because the second they have access to resources, they realize they don't really need the glorious communist revolution at all, they just needed money and power, so thus begins the hilarious process of tying themselves into knots trying to justify their doing the exact opposite of what their ideology tells them is what a good communist does. It's such a consistent pattern of behavior you can set clocks to it.

The ones that are just obviously grifters are there to make their mark and move on, of course, just like BLM's head proved recently.

To make it so bad, nearly every communist country that existed has pulled this.

But it's essentially a byproduct of Marxism since it's literally: Wagies aren't paid enough, they kill their masters, they equally divided the money amongst themselves, automation somehow fixes everything, followed by several missing steps that people hopefully won't take advantage of. And we have the utopia that is North Korea.

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

These idiots make Kevin Siembieda look like a god of game design.