Happy Game

Developer/publisher Amanita Design Format PC, Switch Origin Czechia Release Spring

There’s something subversive about Amanita Design announcing a psychedelic horror game during a Nintendo Direct. This is miles away from the gentle shivers of Creaks: Jaromír Plachy’s follow-up to Chuchel is gory and genuinely disturbing. Was challenging expectations part of the appeal of making it like this? “I’ve always enjoyed the idea of making Happy Game right after creating the poetic Botanicula and cheerful Chuchel,” Plachy tells us.

We’ve had the chance to play roughly two-thirds of an early build and it is explosively weird. Happy Game tells the story of a young boy whose pathetic whimpers are unsettling even before we get to the part where we’re dragging a doll’s arms to detach its own head, or using a guillotine on a rabbit we’ve lured into position with a giant carrot. It’s more point and drag than point and click. That slight change makes you feel all the more guilty as you grab this poor lad and drag him towards a variety of horrifying sights, or grip onto the limbs of mutated versions of childhood toys and pull and stretch until… well, that would be telling.

As ever, the joy (if that’s the right word here) of an Amanita game is in the surprising responses to your actions. The key difference in Happy Game is that they’re more shocking than amusing. “It is really strange,” Plachy says with glee, “a mix of absurd humour, weirdness, blood, and death. I dare to compare it to my favourite series, Twin Peaks – quite often you don’t know what to think about it, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it.” As long as you’re above a certain age. “Don’t give this to your kids,” Plachy says, mischievously. “We warned you.”