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In precision platformer Clown Meat, you have to cheer up a Godzilla-sized clown from JupiterWe’re going to need a bigger tent
We’re going to need a bigger tent
Image credit:2 Left Thumbs
Image credit:2 Left Thumbs
I’ve done some elementary study of the planet Jupiter for various creative research projects/dead-ends. It’s probably a symptom of my failings as an astronomer, but I have to say that at no point have I noticed any gigantic, depressed clowns. In newplatformerClown Meat, one such gigantic, depressed clown has swum through Jupiter’s atmosphere, drifted to Earth and kicked off some kind of meatpunk apocalypse, saturating the surrounding countryside with circus-themed abominations.
Clown Meat Reveal TrailerWatch on YouTube
Clown Meat Reveal Trailer
Your goal in each level is to reach one of those motherly clown hands, with faster completion times resulting in happier clown faces on a score graph that resembles a funfair strength-testing machine. In between these vicious stabs of platforming, you’ll speak to and perhaps, entertain a range of monstrous side characters. “Bring a smile to the withered and wretched faces of humanity,” explains the Steam page. “Meet other bio-clowns, speak to creatures of whispering hands, converse with juggernauts of nasal tentacles, you never know who your audience might be.”
There’s a demo for Clown Meat onItchandSteam. I had a play over the weekend, and while it sometimes just feels like Super Meat Boy with different art, I adore the absolute full-bore mankiness of the setting - the total commitment to a world made from and dedicated to the abject misery of clowns. The clown hand characters remind me a little of the Primordial Serpents fromDark Souls, and also of Nova’s goddess-moms inAnodyne 2: Return To Dust. The scenery, meanwhile, includes some off-colour “anti-Pollish” graffiti, which developer Talia bob Mair hasdescribedas both an instance of in-world racism and a cheeky nod to Polish fans of her previous games.
Bob Mair’s previous projects - all collaborations, all “for no one”, all pretty well-reviewed - are just as wonderfully icky. There’sBrutal Orchestra, which is a turn-based roguelike set in Hell and featuring a demon called Bosch.Heatstroke, meanwhile, is an endless desert road sim in which you juggle driving with transcribing - as in, literally retyping - a deranged short story. And then there’sSwallow The Sea, in which you are an egg wobbling around a diseased ocean, consuming other cellular creatures to increase your size and eventually, get born.
Clown Meat is due to release this year. “Explore 40+ highly replayable levels!” continues the Steam blurb. “From the crumbling remains of Seattle draped in carnival lights to the burning ocean of trash that Vancouver has become, and all of the horrible scalding deserts of industry and waste in-between. Explore places you never thought possible, and find a reason to laugh, even in the darkest corners of existence.” I’ll take it.
