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It's very funny to see the amount of reviews that are genuinely upset at this. Looks cool, Is 10 minutes long, and has incomprehensible game feel. That's a compliment where I come from!
Accompaniment Song
Truthfully, in comparison to most of my write ups, I have to come clean about personal ignorance in my experience here. The speed at which I initially played this and when I did was either before when Detchibe wrote their piece highlighting more of the ZX Spectrum John George Jones titles it was deriving off of, or with such little attention to this fact I might as well not have noticed. I played this without context originally, so of course without the context I enjoyed it. After a replay with some context I still really like it though and since I'm in the minority on that I feel like I should unpack why.
Beloved trashart explorer Detchibe notes that the appeal of go to hell (1985) and soft & cuddly (1987) was not per se the edginess or the tedious game design, but how games of this booming 80s microchip technology allowed for more vibrant texture work for independent artists which was a huge step up. Stating that its was 'functioning as a showcase for the creative liberties allowed by the microcomputer boom of the early 80s' you can definitely see that in the intricate detail of the monster design setpieces from those titles. Those two titles were an inspiration point for the forwarding of independent digital game art primarily.
Cadensia in her grace follows up that historical note by agreeing to this appeal and then, in her own post highlighting an interview showing its a product of blatant boredom of the developers part.
"For John George Jones, the development of his games was a way of killing time: according to the strange interview he gave to Sinclair User, he was first and foremost a disillusioned musician who wanted to amuse himself with people's reactions to the violence of his games before returning to other activities that would interest him more. There was no big project behind it, no real desire to push the boundaries of video game design, just a feeling of boredom."
It makes sense that if you're going to make a game out of boredom as a way to illicit abstract sensations and practice animating doodles, you wouldnt make a tight narratively driven title, you'd make a labyrinth. So we need to turn our attention to game design philosophy of the labyrinth for a moment. Firstly we can see a level of similar maze abstractions in several iconic Atari 2600 titles that were the rage only a few years before. Adventure (1979) has no explicit story or map keeping the player in a state of the unknown. This style of abstract player discovery based design was the go to for any game on that system that wanted to try to produce a dynamic experience, rather than a static goal oriented directed one like say Pacman (1980). Only 3 years later the infamous licensed game E.T. (1982) is where this lack of clarity in purpose and exploration upset players, its because it was too abstract and unclear what the goal is. A rift happens here, do players want a clear goal or a hidden one? It probably depends on how long a player is willing to put up with feeling lost. Put another way, all maze games that dont show the entire maze like Pacman has to deal with the potential fatigue any player might have until they rush for a map. Back then there was much more patience with being lost, we rush for maps all the time in games now but back then there weren't so many options. Nonetheless the failure of E.T. should show that technocultural analysis only takes us so far, at some point every player is going to get frustrated and upset, especially if the sound is bad or overbearing.
This top down obfuscation of a goal via only fragments devise by design a feeling of disorientation, allowing for the images themselves to be treated with added novelty and with difficulty arising from how large the hidden mazemap actually is. In this way within the limitations of the time we can think of George Jone's games as haunted house experiments, early attempts a more expressive spookhorror design. I don't think this is too far a stretch, after all people decorate for Halloween out of a similar sense of boredom and desire to amuse themselves as much as freak out other people and both games show creepy medieval symbols that tend to get associated with this more stylish horror.
The issue here for me is that these 2 George Jones titles are, frankly, unplayable. Mainly because what it achieves is done more slowly and rudimentary than the massive surplus of haunted house titles after it we now live within. This is the inevitability of artistic technologies in how they will snub older design applications. Beyond that, the large labyrinthine game is now in a state of arrested development both because that 'player unease' is now much more effectively explored in first person perspective horror games, and where it doesn't Yume Nikki (2004) and its seemingly endless inspiration works has now cleaned shop. Whether a player enjoys or even finishes Yume Nikki its no doubt a masterpiece in the emotive ambiguity of maze design. Its effective dream diary feeling and its establishment of a 'home' is such that the player can always feel infinitely lost without much immediate distress or compulsion to find the exit, often wanting to stay lost in many instances. The sound and music helped here to, the ambient soundtrack of Yume Nikki is immaculate and warms the player towards the feeling of being lost. A lot of games really do live or die on their music and sound design, honestly.
Anyway, this represents a distinct philosophy towards the maze entirely where its exploration for its own sake rather than for an explicit exit or goal. This may seem like a counterargument to the out of history comparison here, as I acknowledge they are functionally incomparable right? Let's take to it absolute extremes before you decide that. If the appeal is to be so horrified I want to leave rather than explore, I have at my power something that in a physical cornfield maze or haunted house I dont, I can leave immediately. For digital mazes, I can just shut off the console, thereby 'leaving the maze' and origin of discomfort immediately. Of course people still play games that 'scare' them, but the point of my illustration is that these old titles by their rudimentary design only have symbols towards an endgoal so the momentary symbolic collection loses its historical value without something other propulsion to play, I can just leave by just turning off the machine which trivializes merely objective or museum based gawking, there needs to be some other internal set of systems to keep me around. The character movement in these John George Jones games so that symbolic collection of historical items first hand is slow, which kills any 'masocore' reason for play, it doesn't help that there's no save function I know of so turning off is the only way to reset the maze without dying anyway. Which begs the question, why bother? Like, why collect these experiences with my eyes through direct hand input if I'm not even enjoying it when I could just look up somebody else doing it online now? If the only thing here is a bad maze with some good art I can just watch a video instead. More ruthlessly, absolved from its historical context, what value would these titles even represent to me now being as outdated as they are?
Well Fucker Gamer Scum Get Stabbed (2014) actually has a rather blunt answer: The art style is pretty cool and worth updating and reusing in a modern context. Consider FGSGS for a moment as a discursive attempt at updating the appeal of ZX for a modern audience. FGSGS gets rid of the large map design, instead going for a tight few rooms, but leaves the disorientation still intact. There's a fluid sense of constant movement, not just from the floaty player character but the constant dripping of needles and running of player monsters. Along with the midi industrial song hunter killer by Smersh. This is all a modernization, the lack of music and ability to have several fluid animations on screen at once makes the original titles feel like literal molasses. FGSGS expounds to us that there's much in its bright neon framework we can borrow and use now, it shows how exciting it all is and does it with a novel sense of style, replacing the mideval iconography with more 21st century anxieties like hospitals and anarchism.
When you add it all up it repurposes the original elements of haunted horror unease for a short industrial retronostalgia of the forgotten technology for a new audience. That audience, if signposted to at all, is likely other internet game designers at the time. 2014 was still fairly early in itchio's platform development, originally coming to the public in 2013. The rudimentary nature of it is probably intended to make an appeal that this stuff even exists to other designers in the same way the popular trading of Playstation graphical design style via 'PSX' is (itchio as a platform has a rich amount of cultural exchange that make these actually active decisions, but thats a topic for another day). Seeing the history of the microcomputer itself having the notable outbursts be much the same makes this as a rather 'fitting' interpretation do you think?
That is not to say that this wasn't made for public showing and viewing, and that you can't get anything from it and shouldn't talk about it. Rather, we are a secondary audience, the primary audience is people who didn't already know about the ZX spectrum and found immediate sensual novelty in doing so. As a more informed secondary audience, I think instead of prodding at Fucker Gamer Scum Get Stabbed with our dissatisfaction for not meeting our various expectations, its worth appreciating it as an digital memory that tries to compound this old artsyle of to that of the present because I know that what probably happened here is we found out about ZX spectrum through this and just went to look them up first. Much more preferable I think to having some studio buy out go to hell give it a bit of extra movement and then upcharging it on a cultureless store page like steam. People say a lot in defense of remakes and remasters but I much prefer the more down to earth approach of just making your own inspired derivative work that calls back to those older works. You can think of it like just a nonverbal 'remember X?' blogpost in that sense.
Sure there's something to be said for how hollow it feels. It's short and doesn't have that same creature design, the soundtrack feels hollow with the number of political visuals on screen. Hospitals, people tied to anarchist books, the death of 'punk'. Rather than seeing this aspect as a failure though I see it as what a contemporary and chronically online set of fears is. The longer you spend online the more you get nervous of whats happening in the margins and how those are and should be amplified. I think Fucker Gamer Scum Get Stabbed is just poking a bit of fun at these fears by centering them as a 'new' haunted house. The game reads a bit more reactionary or at least politically stunted with its needles and hostile hospital designs in a post covid environment but this would be an unfair to place on it, in america at least there were larger healthcare concerns by this time that justify this. As for the 'death of punk' stuff, that old trope, I think that it's such an obvious fear that it would be foolish not to include in 'digital funhouse' mirror of fears. One that even Cadensia touches on in her conclusions on in the game, that it would be a poor decision not to use it to unease the player. I think that's plenty thrilling enough, if you asked me.
I write so extemporaneously and in such excruciating detail here for such a nothingburger of a work for many because this approach probably explains why I like more games than I don't especially on itchio. I'm not thinking about them in terms of satisfying a set of explicit design rules (weak level design or movement ability) or sociopolitical aggression ('not punk enough'), so much as what there is to be charitably remembered from each piece I spend time with. As long as the memory isn't offensive or upsetting I think it's worth keeping around and giving a respectful nod to, personally.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to Detchibe for keeping me remotely updated and involved in the Backloggd Discord Game of the Week during my exile, along with all the attendees for the thoughtful criticism so far (If I haven't quoted you its out of respect for peace of mind, my new policy is to only quote people I'm following or who express comfort with being quoted). This was a fun exercise. I hope to do another one of these soon :3
Truthfully, in comparison to most of my write ups, I have to come clean about personal ignorance in my experience here. The speed at which I initially played this and when I did was either before when Detchibe wrote their piece highlighting more of the ZX Spectrum John George Jones titles it was deriving off of, or with such little attention to this fact I might as well not have noticed. I played this without context originally, so of course without the context I enjoyed it. After a replay with some context I still really like it though and since I'm in the minority on that I feel like I should unpack why.
Beloved trashart explorer Detchibe notes that the appeal of go to hell (1985) and soft & cuddly (1987) was not per se the edginess or the tedious game design, but how games of this booming 80s microchip technology allowed for more vibrant texture work for independent artists which was a huge step up. Stating that its was 'functioning as a showcase for the creative liberties allowed by the microcomputer boom of the early 80s' you can definitely see that in the intricate detail of the monster design setpieces from those titles. Those two titles were an inspiration point for the forwarding of independent digital game art primarily.
Cadensia in her grace follows up that historical note by agreeing to this appeal and then, in her own post highlighting an interview showing its a product of blatant boredom of the developers part.
"For John George Jones, the development of his games was a way of killing time: according to the strange interview he gave to Sinclair User, he was first and foremost a disillusioned musician who wanted to amuse himself with people's reactions to the violence of his games before returning to other activities that would interest him more. There was no big project behind it, no real desire to push the boundaries of video game design, just a feeling of boredom."
It makes sense that if you're going to make a game out of boredom as a way to illicit abstract sensations and practice animating doodles, you wouldnt make a tight narratively driven title, you'd make a labyrinth. So we need to turn our attention to game design philosophy of the labyrinth for a moment. Firstly we can see a level of similar maze abstractions in several iconic Atari 2600 titles that were the rage only a few years before. Adventure (1979) has no explicit story or map keeping the player in a state of the unknown. This style of abstract player discovery based design was the go to for any game on that system that wanted to try to produce a dynamic experience, rather than a static goal oriented directed one like say Pacman (1980). Only 3 years later the infamous licensed game E.T. (1982) is where this lack of clarity in purpose and exploration upset players, its because it was too abstract and unclear what the goal is. A rift happens here, do players want a clear goal or a hidden one? It probably depends on how long a player is willing to put up with feeling lost. Put another way, all maze games that dont show the entire maze like Pacman has to deal with the potential fatigue any player might have until they rush for a map. Back then there was much more patience with being lost, we rush for maps all the time in games now but back then there weren't so many options. Nonetheless the failure of E.T. should show that technocultural analysis only takes us so far, at some point every player is going to get frustrated and upset, especially if the sound is bad or overbearing.
This top down obfuscation of a goal via only fragments devise by design a feeling of disorientation, allowing for the images themselves to be treated with added novelty and with difficulty arising from how large the hidden mazemap actually is. In this way within the limitations of the time we can think of George Jone's games as haunted house experiments, early attempts a more expressive spookhorror design. I don't think this is too far a stretch, after all people decorate for Halloween out of a similar sense of boredom and desire to amuse themselves as much as freak out other people and both games show creepy medieval symbols that tend to get associated with this more stylish horror.
The issue here for me is that these 2 George Jones titles are, frankly, unplayable. Mainly because what it achieves is done more slowly and rudimentary than the massive surplus of haunted house titles after it we now live within. This is the inevitability of artistic technologies in how they will snub older design applications. Beyond that, the large labyrinthine game is now in a state of arrested development both because that 'player unease' is now much more effectively explored in first person perspective horror games, and where it doesn't Yume Nikki (2004) and its seemingly endless inspiration works has now cleaned shop. Whether a player enjoys or even finishes Yume Nikki its no doubt a masterpiece in the emotive ambiguity of maze design. Its effective dream diary feeling and its establishment of a 'home' is such that the player can always feel infinitely lost without much immediate distress or compulsion to find the exit, often wanting to stay lost in many instances. The sound and music helped here to, the ambient soundtrack of Yume Nikki is immaculate and warms the player towards the feeling of being lost. A lot of games really do live or die on their music and sound design, honestly.
Anyway, this represents a distinct philosophy towards the maze entirely where its exploration for its own sake rather than for an explicit exit or goal. This may seem like a counterargument to the out of history comparison here, as I acknowledge they are functionally incomparable right? Let's take to it absolute extremes before you decide that. If the appeal is to be so horrified I want to leave rather than explore, I have at my power something that in a physical cornfield maze or haunted house I dont, I can leave immediately. For digital mazes, I can just shut off the console, thereby 'leaving the maze' and origin of discomfort immediately. Of course people still play games that 'scare' them, but the point of my illustration is that these old titles by their rudimentary design only have symbols towards an endgoal so the momentary symbolic collection loses its historical value without something other propulsion to play, I can just leave by just turning off the machine which trivializes merely objective or museum based gawking, there needs to be some other internal set of systems to keep me around. The character movement in these John George Jones games so that symbolic collection of historical items first hand is slow, which kills any 'masocore' reason for play, it doesn't help that there's no save function I know of so turning off is the only way to reset the maze without dying anyway. Which begs the question, why bother? Like, why collect these experiences with my eyes through direct hand input if I'm not even enjoying it when I could just look up somebody else doing it online now? If the only thing here is a bad maze with some good art I can just watch a video instead. More ruthlessly, absolved from its historical context, what value would these titles even represent to me now being as outdated as they are?
Well Fucker Gamer Scum Get Stabbed (2014) actually has a rather blunt answer: The art style is pretty cool and worth updating and reusing in a modern context. Consider FGSGS for a moment as a discursive attempt at updating the appeal of ZX for a modern audience. FGSGS gets rid of the large map design, instead going for a tight few rooms, but leaves the disorientation still intact. There's a fluid sense of constant movement, not just from the floaty player character but the constant dripping of needles and running of player monsters. Along with the midi industrial song hunter killer by Smersh. This is all a modernization, the lack of music and ability to have several fluid animations on screen at once makes the original titles feel like literal molasses. FGSGS expounds to us that there's much in its bright neon framework we can borrow and use now, it shows how exciting it all is and does it with a novel sense of style, replacing the mideval iconography with more 21st century anxieties like hospitals and anarchism.
When you add it all up it repurposes the original elements of haunted horror unease for a short industrial retronostalgia of the forgotten technology for a new audience. That audience, if signposted to at all, is likely other internet game designers at the time. 2014 was still fairly early in itchio's platform development, originally coming to the public in 2013. The rudimentary nature of it is probably intended to make an appeal that this stuff even exists to other designers in the same way the popular trading of Playstation graphical design style via 'PSX' is (itchio as a platform has a rich amount of cultural exchange that make these actually active decisions, but thats a topic for another day). Seeing the history of the microcomputer itself having the notable outbursts be much the same makes this as a rather 'fitting' interpretation do you think?
That is not to say that this wasn't made for public showing and viewing, and that you can't get anything from it and shouldn't talk about it. Rather, we are a secondary audience, the primary audience is people who didn't already know about the ZX spectrum and found immediate sensual novelty in doing so. As a more informed secondary audience, I think instead of prodding at Fucker Gamer Scum Get Stabbed with our dissatisfaction for not meeting our various expectations, its worth appreciating it as an digital memory that tries to compound this old artsyle of to that of the present because I know that what probably happened here is we found out about ZX spectrum through this and just went to look them up first. Much more preferable I think to having some studio buy out go to hell give it a bit of extra movement and then upcharging it on a cultureless store page like steam. People say a lot in defense of remakes and remasters but I much prefer the more down to earth approach of just making your own inspired derivative work that calls back to those older works. You can think of it like just a nonverbal 'remember X?' blogpost in that sense.
Sure there's something to be said for how hollow it feels. It's short and doesn't have that same creature design, the soundtrack feels hollow with the number of political visuals on screen. Hospitals, people tied to anarchist books, the death of 'punk'. Rather than seeing this aspect as a failure though I see it as what a contemporary and chronically online set of fears is. The longer you spend online the more you get nervous of whats happening in the margins and how those are and should be amplified. I think Fucker Gamer Scum Get Stabbed is just poking a bit of fun at these fears by centering them as a 'new' haunted house. The game reads a bit more reactionary or at least politically stunted with its needles and hostile hospital designs in a post covid environment but this would be an unfair to place on it, in america at least there were larger healthcare concerns by this time that justify this. As for the 'death of punk' stuff, that old trope, I think that it's such an obvious fear that it would be foolish not to include in 'digital funhouse' mirror of fears. One that even Cadensia touches on in her conclusions on in the game, that it would be a poor decision not to use it to unease the player. I think that's plenty thrilling enough, if you asked me.
I write so extemporaneously and in such excruciating detail here for such a nothingburger of a work for many because this approach probably explains why I like more games than I don't especially on itchio. I'm not thinking about them in terms of satisfying a set of explicit design rules (weak level design or movement ability) or sociopolitical aggression ('not punk enough'), so much as what there is to be charitably remembered from each piece I spend time with. As long as the memory isn't offensive or upsetting I think it's worth keeping around and giving a respectful nod to, personally.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks to Detchibe for keeping me remotely updated and involved in the Backloggd Discord Game of the Week during my exile, along with all the attendees for the thoughtful criticism so far (If I haven't quoted you its out of respect for peace of mind, my new policy is to only quote people I'm following or who express comfort with being quoted). This was a fun exercise. I hope to do another one of these soon :3
go to hell was good at being a bad game
fucker gamer scum get stabbed even sucks at being bad
fucker gamer scum get stabbed even sucks at being bad
Casually browsing away at a furious pace.
Along comes a bird with a most curious request!
"A game I have I do!
Take it from my beak!
Believe in my words for they are true!
Trust in me, for it is peak!"
You take the game and give it a play!
Why, this game reeks!
Although it is a tad unique!
Unfortunate that it is weak!
You return to find the bird was not of his word!
They make way in such a sneak.
For you now look like a geek!
My! What a terrible game of the week!
Clickity click!
You make your way to this very page you do!
Fancy meetin' you here gamer, they got you too?
Along comes a bird with a most curious request!
"A game I have I do!
Take it from my beak!
Believe in my words for they are true!
Trust in me, for it is peak!"
You take the game and give it a play!
Why, this game reeks!
Although it is a tad unique!
Unfortunate that it is weak!
You return to find the bird was not of his word!
They make way in such a sneak.
For you now look like a geek!
My! What a terrible game of the week!
Clickity click!
You make your way to this very page you do!
Fancy meetin' you here gamer, they got you too?
I don't get it :(
lol, uh, I'm concerned that anyone might actually think the Speccy games this "homage" references were ever this bad
It's not horrible for a 5-10 minute romp through hastily-made, gorily garish mazes until you find the somewhat hidden secret room that ends it. The music choices remind me of the earlier Space Funeral in a good way, and its commitment to just being a little fucked-up guy of a game, only loved by its creator, is admirable. Sadly, Fucker Gamer Scum Get Fucked almost entirely misunderstands the source material it's deriving from. Both of John George Jones' splatterpunk classics for the ZX Spectrum, Go to Hell and Soft & Cuddly, are both more playable than this and offer an ironically meaningful kind of Thatcher-era nihilism. They were emblematic "video nasties" taken to the computer's known limits, while FGSGS would barely escape the Newgrounds blam-hammer with how much it tries my patience.
From the start, you're bombarded with Speccy-like colors-on-black aesthetics, albeit balking that platform's infamous graphical restrictions (ex. sprite color clash). None of this looks as cohesive as I think the creator intended. More detailed sprites and objects stand out in an uncanny but uninteresting way, like an overworked collage canvas. We're supposed to be floating a bizarre nightmare maze of sorts, the kind of Grand Guignol show turned gore film that Go to Hell did so well. But I wasn't even a bit spooked or put-off by the imagery, just bored. At least this doesn't fall into the same traps as fashionable mascot horror one-offs these days, but the baneful bits of J.G. Jones' duo have lasting power this doesn't. Used syringes, nondescript projectiles, and a cheap glut of bloody surfaces does not a fun horror show make. Gimme me the conjoined babies, flying guillotines, walls made of Hell's victims spanning all its rings, distorted scrimblo faces to make Otto from Berzerk proud...all that you'll get in the actual '80s games.
Now, you won't catch me saying there's any trenchant narrative or commentary in something like Soft & Cuddly. Transgression was by far the most important goal for Jones, using the Sinclair PC's inimitable visual strengths to transform horror cliches into something more compelling. But his creations weren't lumped into the more literary splatterpunk movement without good reason. There's a distinct air of anti-Tory, pro-creators ethos felt throughout either adventure, from the mercurial hells you explore to cute humor like the game over screen punchlines. All the grim, strange sights on offer, plus shrill soundscapes, evokes the evolving, never-ending drudgery of living through miners' strikes, predatory capitalism, and Mary Whitehouse screeds against non-conservative art in general. Jones made these shambling but nonetheless enjoyable scare houses for himself and friends, something the punks and outsiders could share in common.
I'm not sure who the audience for this modern retread is. Parts of FGSGS look too polished, too modern game engine-based to fit a visual style made under technical constraints. Go to Hell wasn't much more than a decent if tedious maze adventure, but this has barely any progression at all. You quickly jet your way through not nearly enough screens to feel as complete as its inspiration, all while seemingly anything kills you without logic. The life-draining walls and enemies in Go to Hell are very punitive, but possible to work around and feel some accomplishment for reaching each cross. FGSGS just has nothing like that. It's a big nothingburger of an attempted mid-2000s Flash game in its current state. Less like an amateur's earnest riff on Clive Barker, Alan Moore, Tanith Lee, or any other icons of '80s UK pulp fiction—more like My First VVVVVV Fangame v0.3.
But worst of all, this just doesn't get the kind of socio-economic nihilism that makes Jones' games so interesting today. I couldn't come across any weird level design, enemy type, or wacky set-piece here suggesting that vibe of "we're stuck in a hellish war-torn ghost town world with nowhere to go, hounded by those above us". Go to Hell has you playing a very simple but recognizably Manic Miner-like character, traveling through corridors adorned with commodified villains, symbols, and unfortunates like yourself. The crosses you seek are themselves distorted, flashing neon facsimiles of the real thing, lighting up a night of meticulous wandering. Jones' hell feels surprisingly barren despite its content overload, a telling contrast. Reaching each cross and finally Alice Cooper's digitized mug may not mean much, but there's something to feel accomplished about. FGSGS really just throws everything and the kitchen sink at you, hoping something sticks.
IDK, there's not much more to say for this one. Throw it on if you love watching your PC monitor forcibly switch to 640x480 resolution, or want a quick laugh. I get more enjoyment from Livesey Walk animations, let alone a quality YouTube Poop with the same runtime. Normally I'd just give this kind of game a 2-star rating and move on, but it's hurt a bit by having such a dismissive attitude towards Jones' games and the "ZX Spectrum aesthetic" in general. (Not that I fault anyone for disliking how Speccy games almost always look, but developers have crafted very artistically interesting works on it for a long time.) The most praise I'll give to Fucker Game Scrum Get Stabbed is that I finally played Go to Hell because of it—now that's what I call Entertainment.
Completed for the Backloggd Discord server’s Game of the Week club, Feb. 28 – Mar. 6, 2023
It's not horrible for a 5-10 minute romp through hastily-made, gorily garish mazes until you find the somewhat hidden secret room that ends it. The music choices remind me of the earlier Space Funeral in a good way, and its commitment to just being a little fucked-up guy of a game, only loved by its creator, is admirable. Sadly, Fucker Gamer Scum Get Fucked almost entirely misunderstands the source material it's deriving from. Both of John George Jones' splatterpunk classics for the ZX Spectrum, Go to Hell and Soft & Cuddly, are both more playable than this and offer an ironically meaningful kind of Thatcher-era nihilism. They were emblematic "video nasties" taken to the computer's known limits, while FGSGS would barely escape the Newgrounds blam-hammer with how much it tries my patience.
From the start, you're bombarded with Speccy-like colors-on-black aesthetics, albeit balking that platform's infamous graphical restrictions (ex. sprite color clash). None of this looks as cohesive as I think the creator intended. More detailed sprites and objects stand out in an uncanny but uninteresting way, like an overworked collage canvas. We're supposed to be floating a bizarre nightmare maze of sorts, the kind of Grand Guignol show turned gore film that Go to Hell did so well. But I wasn't even a bit spooked or put-off by the imagery, just bored. At least this doesn't fall into the same traps as fashionable mascot horror one-offs these days, but the baneful bits of J.G. Jones' duo have lasting power this doesn't. Used syringes, nondescript projectiles, and a cheap glut of bloody surfaces does not a fun horror show make. Gimme me the conjoined babies, flying guillotines, walls made of Hell's victims spanning all its rings, distorted scrimblo faces to make Otto from Berzerk proud...all that you'll get in the actual '80s games.
Now, you won't catch me saying there's any trenchant narrative or commentary in something like Soft & Cuddly. Transgression was by far the most important goal for Jones, using the Sinclair PC's inimitable visual strengths to transform horror cliches into something more compelling. But his creations weren't lumped into the more literary splatterpunk movement without good reason. There's a distinct air of anti-Tory, pro-creators ethos felt throughout either adventure, from the mercurial hells you explore to cute humor like the game over screen punchlines. All the grim, strange sights on offer, plus shrill soundscapes, evokes the evolving, never-ending drudgery of living through miners' strikes, predatory capitalism, and Mary Whitehouse screeds against non-conservative art in general. Jones made these shambling but nonetheless enjoyable scare houses for himself and friends, something the punks and outsiders could share in common.
I'm not sure who the audience for this modern retread is. Parts of FGSGS look too polished, too modern game engine-based to fit a visual style made under technical constraints. Go to Hell wasn't much more than a decent if tedious maze adventure, but this has barely any progression at all. You quickly jet your way through not nearly enough screens to feel as complete as its inspiration, all while seemingly anything kills you without logic. The life-draining walls and enemies in Go to Hell are very punitive, but possible to work around and feel some accomplishment for reaching each cross. FGSGS just has nothing like that. It's a big nothingburger of an attempted mid-2000s Flash game in its current state. Less like an amateur's earnest riff on Clive Barker, Alan Moore, Tanith Lee, or any other icons of '80s UK pulp fiction—more like My First VVVVVV Fangame v0.3.
But worst of all, this just doesn't get the kind of socio-economic nihilism that makes Jones' games so interesting today. I couldn't come across any weird level design, enemy type, or wacky set-piece here suggesting that vibe of "we're stuck in a hellish war-torn ghost town world with nowhere to go, hounded by those above us". Go to Hell has you playing a very simple but recognizably Manic Miner-like character, traveling through corridors adorned with commodified villains, symbols, and unfortunates like yourself. The crosses you seek are themselves distorted, flashing neon facsimiles of the real thing, lighting up a night of meticulous wandering. Jones' hell feels surprisingly barren despite its content overload, a telling contrast. Reaching each cross and finally Alice Cooper's digitized mug may not mean much, but there's something to feel accomplished about. FGSGS really just throws everything and the kitchen sink at you, hoping something sticks.
IDK, there's not much more to say for this one. Throw it on if you love watching your PC monitor forcibly switch to 640x480 resolution, or want a quick laugh. I get more enjoyment from Livesey Walk animations, let alone a quality YouTube Poop with the same runtime. Normally I'd just give this kind of game a 2-star rating and move on, but it's hurt a bit by having such a dismissive attitude towards Jones' games and the "ZX Spectrum aesthetic" in general. (Not that I fault anyone for disliking how Speccy games almost always look, but developers have crafted very artistically interesting works on it for a long time.) The most praise I'll give to Fucker Game Scrum Get Stabbed is that I finally played Go to Hell because of it—now that's what I call Entertainment.
Completed for the Backloggd Discord server’s Game of the Week club, Feb. 28 – Mar. 6, 2023