I checked out Quing’s Quest VII the other day, originally for work, but I quickly realized it was too full of mature themes and games industry snark to be good for the kids. The entire game is a parody, in which my genderqueer sidekick, Guybrush, and I were flying our spaceship, the Social Justice Warrior, away from our home planet, Videogames. Then the evil Gamer Police caught my ship, and arrested us for a list of crimes, including snogging the wrong people, wearing the wrong clothes, taking too many selfies and resisting arrest. It’s a Twine game, too, which just adds to the entire joke, because experimental Twine projects seem to bring out the fastest switch from “Make your own games then!” to “That doesn’t count as a game!”
Hilarity ensues, with glitter, dancing and delightful flavortext. Quing’s Quest VII takes just a few minutes to play and is a ridiculously good moodbooster.
[Tweet “Hilarity ensues in Quing’s Quest VII, with glitter, dancing and delightful flavortext. “]
The game is full of glaringly obvious references to GamerGate disasters, particularly your friend Frankie who is too exhausted from working crunch hours to really help you, and besides, if you submit quietly to the misogynerds, plead guilty and promise never to act up again, you could probably go home and get another industry job. But Quing’s Quest VII is also full of fun references to classic games, and I couldn’t help giggling when I was offered a choice between using the Konami code, escaping from Monkey Island or doing the hokey-pokey to evade my captors. All the injokes are a nice reminder of all the silliness and good times in gaming, and the dancing and ridiculous choices made it a really cheerful playthrough.
Even though at the end of the game, I hovered over the Save Videogames button but didn’t want to feel sad after my glitter-awesome adventure, and ultimately choose the Get The Hell Away From Games conclusion. There’s a lot of galaxy for adventure-seeking space pirates!
