By Nelson Schneider - 03/10/24 at 03:37 PM CT
It’s that time of year, again! The coming of March means that localized paranormal phenomenon, Chris, is another year older and another year more inscrutable. Last year, I dug back into Game Freak’s world of pocketable monsters to reveal that there are indeed more of them that look, act, or otherwise invoke the abstract concept of “Chris-ness” than I initially realized.
This year, in honor of the recent developments in “Name, Image, and Likeness” law surrounding college athletes, I decided to take a look at all the small-time Indie games that Chris could definitely sue for stealing his unique… err… appeal?
"When I first saw Chris playing this abomination (in a non-fullscreen window… with a mouse), I asked him if he had done the art design for it. Chris’ levels of depravity and love of the gruesome are at least on par with this game’s developer, if not greater, and every time I (accidentally) see some new horror from Isaac’s basement, I immediately think that the game’s environments must look exactly like the interior of Chris’ mind."
"Chris’ first two obsessions in life were 1) hamburgers, and 2) horrifying imagery. This game combines them both. So if there’s anything in Chris’ inner world that isn’t covered in “The Binding of Isaac,” it’s definitely in here."
"Chris loves to create chaos and mayhem… but he’s not a goat. He’s also not quite a bum, though he did come dangerously close to being ‘unhoused’ a couple years ago. Anyway, the adventures of a crude, rude, alcoholic who rambles incomprehensibly while flipping people the bird (and throwing hand-made pigeon grenades at them) is pretty much an average Wednesday for Chris."
"Even I’m surprised that the small, round, featureless gooballs (that make inscrutable giggling noises) at the center of 2D Boy’s breakout Indie classic haven’t appeared in a previous iteration of this list… but there they are."
"Anyone who deals with Chris in real life knows that he’s vague, frustrating, and prone to psychotic outbursts. He’s also short and hairy. So, then, how can he NOT be compared to the definitive, vague, frustrating game featuring abstract concepts of ‘dwarfness,’ that always ends in someone turning into a murderer for no reason and sending all of society cascading down the path of self-destruction?"
"Anyone who has been following these lists for any appreciable amount of time will instantly see Chris when looking at the stumpy, fungal hero of this one-man Indie effort. At least Chris does have plenty of friends and family around to keep him from feeling too alone… and between us we end up giving him around 3 different “birthday dinners” every year!"
"This knock-off of flavor-of-the-day meme-game, “Vampire Survivors” literally looks like someone decided to make Chris a DLC character in that game, but then decided he deserved his own terrible Bullet Hell spam-clicker thing. The worst part is, Chris would probably love this turd, and not just because he can identify with the main character."
"The only thing Chris loves to put in his mouth more than hamburger is the stuff that goes around the hamburger: Buns, bread, breadsticks – doesn’t matter. If it’s bread, he wants it like Fat Bastard, “In his belleh!” How, then, could we not take into account the fact that “you are what you eat” and determine that the hero of the Indie RPG, “Born of Bread,” Loaf the flour golem, is what Chris will eventually turn into?"
"So, yeah. Chris eats so much bread that I think his physiology is about 60% bread, 20% garlic butter, and 20% ‘other contaminants.’"
"Wow. I know Chris has never eaten a turnip, but, still… wow. The protagonist of this game looks like Chris, acts like Chris, talks like Chris (that is, either not at all or in an indecipherable dialect consisting of nothing but punctuation), and has financial difficulties like Chris. I know the sequel is “Turnip Boy Robs a Bank,” but I’d honestly rather see “Turnip Boy Files a Frivolous Lawsuit” instead."
Comments
Chris Kavan - wrote on 03/20/24 at 06:41 PM CT
They need to make a I Am (Garlic) Bread followup and that would be #1 on the list for sure.
