🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕 Fuck This 🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕

I think this utilization of indie devs as a guerilla advertising force is enormously fucked up. It'll almost definitely dilute the indie scene and what videogames we talk about going forward. However, it's nothing new, in the sense that liscensed flash game shlock to sell products have been around forever (remember those LCD happy meal games? It's just like that but updated). It's a polished face to an age-old exploitation. Instead of giving the substanceless game the respect of actually getting direct scorn, which would ultimately embolden the product's aim of attention grabbing. Or otherwise meming around the existence of this which would flaccidly play right into its hands. Let's do a more 'macro informative' approach. Here's some interesting articles on recent abuses from the company in question to sate the appetite a bit:


Pandemic Racism
"McDonald’s actions speak louder than words. The reality is that 80 percent of McDonald’s majority Black and Brown workforce don’t have access to paid sick leave. That is dangerous under normal circumstances; during a global pandemic, it’s deadly." McDonald’s is Hiding Policies That Perpetuate Systemic Racism Behind Woke-Washing

Sexual Harrassment
"According to the lawsuit, since at least 2017, AMTCR knew about sexual harassment and allowed it to continue, unabated, by supervisors, managers, and coworkers at various of its McDonald’s restaurants. The harassing conduct, which was mainly directed at young, teenage employees, included frequent unwanted touching, offensive comments, unwelcome sexual advances, and intimidation. As AMTCR failed to adequately address the complaints of sexual harassment, many workers found the working conditions so intolerable that they had no choice but to quit." McDonald’s Franchise to Pay Nearly $2 Million to Settle EEOC Sexual Harassment Lawsuit


Corporate Malfeseance
"According to the SEC’s order, McDonald’s terminated Easterbrook for exercising poor judgment and engaging in an inappropriate personal relationship with a McDonald’s employee in violation of company policy. However, McDonald’s and Easterbrook entered into a separation agreement that concluded his termination was without cause, which allowed him to retain substantial equity compensation that otherwise would have been forfeited." SEC Charges McDonald’s Former CEO for Misrepresentations About His Termination

Check out The McDonald's Videogame (2006) by the dev team Molleindustria using Flashpoint to foster a better understanding of these corporate ghouls.

Optional Musical Accompaniment

The total gross income of the McDonald's franchise was $13.207 billion United States dollars (USD) in the year of 2022, with a net income of $6.88 billion USD from March of 2022 to March of 2023.¹ The franchise operates in an almost universal scale, surpassing continental and societal borders, cementing it as one of the biggest companies to have ever existed. Algeria's lack of McDonald's locations only leads to the 'golden arches' symbol being regarded not as the symbol of a giant food and entertainment conglomerate, but as a hieroglyph that spells out the immediacy of the food in question.²

Grimace was a somewhat older facet of the company's later years, being present mainly in advertising to help sell to kids. This type of child-targeted cartoon advertising would be outlawed in Mexico as one of many steps towards combating its childhood obesity problems³, which was a gradually worsening issue for countries who were not subject to the heavy scrutiny of governmental bodies looking to expand the general populace's lifespan. I say 'was' rather tentatively as obesity and its related chronic issues may end up being controlled in some significant manner with incretin mimetics should the technology proliferate and become a cheaper, more available product for the people.⁴

Grimace was, in this sense, something I tended to attach with the 'fat kid' stereotype I was always thrust upon as an obese child. He was the fat kid who loved McDonald's, and he was also a dumbass. That much effectively pounded itself into my consciousness by the time I hit middle school and they pulled away the McDonald's-Land characters from most of the locations' outward presentation. It was not cool anymore to have a SpongeBob floatie on top of your enormous Burger King location, you'd look childish and undistinguished. Not like that mattered, the medical bullying was already enough to cement that character as a genuine trigger for years I never told anyone about.

It's June of 2023. It's supposed to be pride month, a celebration of diversity and triumph against hetero-patriarchal forces that have attempted to kill us either through suicide-bait or through more insidious yet now painfully obvious means; But instead of the plastered rainbow across every single cough syrup and tobacco company's logos, it is decidedly barren and unripe with color. Except McDonald's, because they decided to celebrate the birthday of their own fictional character with a milkshake that clocks in at about 580 kilocalories and 75 grams of sugar per serving, all of which designed to create and foster an addiction.⁵

To promote this assault on the digestive system, the company behind millions of peoples' chronic addictions hired a company to create a GameBoy ROM and dress it with a fanciful 'Y2K' site, complete with Blingee-esque GIFs in the corners and slightly crusty icons across the mid-section of the page. It is capitalizing on a facet of the internet that was in and of itself already capitalist, a regurgitation of digested bile intended to invoke nostalgia without providing any substance other than a shitty ROM that controls like shit.

Grimace jumps like a god damn loser here. He skates, sure, but he apparently has such little control over his own feet that while he can do kickflips with relative ease, he has a bizarrely consistent movement over his skateboard that smacks him into walls and sends him careening into one direction without any reprieve to switch mid-ride unless you jump and aggressively switch course or slide off the railings. It's the type of obfuscating eldritch control that similarly follows me whenever I walk into a physical McDonald's, aimlessly trying to figure out which simulacra of interaction I wish to experience. Do I want to feign the social skills required to admit to someone that I have a debilitating addiction to sugar? Or do I want to pussyfoot around and punch in orders so that I save face for a couple minutes?

Either way, you get the shake, and you're still on the toilet in an hour.⁶

---

Citations:
[1] - https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/MCD/mcdonalds/net-income
[2] - https://youtu.be/JVmSc790gnU
[3] - https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2021/mar/23/stringers-no-more-tony-tiger-mexican-cereal-boxes/
[4] - https://www.fda.gov/drugs/information-drug-class/incretin-mimetic-drugs-type-2-diabetes
[5] - https://www.theimpulsivebuy.com/wordpress/2023/06/12/mcdonalds-grimaces-birthday-shake-review/
[6] - https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/lactose-intolerance/

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater walked so that OlliOlli World could run so that Grimace's Birthday could remind you to get your daily recommended over-allowance of sugars, fats, and artificial sweeteners, and then shit all over itself.

The demon of Babylon disguises himself with the coat of the righteous.

God bless America.

One of the stranger American English phrases I have noticed that seems to exclusive to a certain pocket of Gen-X'ers and Millenials is the rhetorical question, "Am I being Punk'd right now?"

I'm entirely certain the first time I heard this phrase used in this way was in the 2007 film Transformers, directed by Michael Bay. As a 9 year old at the time, even I thought that was a weird cultural reference to make. I had both seen Ashtons Kutcher’s Punk'd on TV before, and could most probably identify Ashton Kutcher in a lineup if you had asked me to at the time, and yet it still stood out to me like a sore thumb. I admit I have only seen Transformers twice - Once on a pirated-and-edited-for-my-mormon-neighbor DVD, and once again on a roadtrip on one of those headrest mounted displays in my mom’s SUV. I may be misremembering this gag, or even inventing it entirely. I think the joke was that referencing Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d , even in 2007, was a clumsy attempt at seeming cool, snappy, and in tune with the younger generation was inherently a goofy thing that only old people like Shia LeBouf’s white haired professor would do. This was my first recollection of the phrase “Am I being Punk’d right now?”/”Are you Punk’d-ing me right now?”/”I totally thought you were Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d-ing us”/etc.” being used outside of the context of an actual episode of Punk’d, and since then I have kept track of more or less every time someone else has invoked the cultural touchstone that is Mr. Kutcher’s incredibly famous and popular prank show. On 4 separate occasions, 2 of them being from my mom, someone has rhetorically asked me if there were hidden cameras recording them in exasperation over the absurdity of whatever was happening in that instant. All 4 of those times, it came from someone older than be by at least one generational label, if not two. All 4 of those times, I could not resist but be possessed by my inner mean spirit, and would poke fun at the use of such a reference.

But, perhaps, I am nothing if not my mom’s child.

“Am I Getting Punk’d Right Now?” an internal monologue rushed to the forefront of my conscience to shout, as the McDonald’s employee walked up to my car window literally less than 10 seconds from when I had pulled into the mobile order pickup parking spot and tapped “Here” in the McDonald’s app to confirm that I had arrived to The Grimace’s birthday celebration.

Stunned by the sheer speed at which the kind worker had thrust the intoxicatingly purple milkshake and neatly presented brown and red bag containing one medium order of fries and a big mac into my hands, I barely had the time to process the social transaction, nor can I recollect the event in any detail beyond this. I don’t remember what he said to me, or what I said back. Did I pull a classic rookie mistake and respond to an “Enjoy your meal” with “You Too”? I have no way of knowing. The drive home with my new meal in tow was equally as expedient, as I hit every green light on the way back, turning a 5 minute drive (if my sense of recollecting my previous McDonald’s experiences at this location is to be trusted) into a brisk 2 minute drive.

Not 10 minutes prior did I even conceive the notion that I would be celebrating a birthday that night. I wasn’t even aware there was a birthday to celebrate until I had seen the news on Twitter. But, a birthday only comes once a year, and I hadn’t yet eaten dinner. So it was decided that I needed the purple milkshake. This series of events resolved so rapidly that I had no sense to anticipate, guess, or ask what flavor such a milkshake could be. A Big Mac, some french fries - These were familiar to me. Practically staples of a broke teenage Me that did not always have the sense of security when it came to home cooked meals. I have no illusions over the McDonald’s corporation being a “friend” or anything, and if Ray Kroc got what he deserves he is rotting in hell at this very moment, but I think the countless trips to McDonalds throughout every stage of my life and my sensory nostalgia for the sickening stench of McDonald’s cheese, grimy Nintendo 64 and Playstation 2 controllers, and unholy Playplace plastics may have played some part in my ease of willingness to place an order for this meal on my phone. As if I had all of those memories and senses of memories unlocked by a now viral photograph of a young Grimace with missing teeth standing inside of a McDonald’s restaurant. Devilishly clever marketing from the McDonald’s corporate team.

But i’m rambling now - The purple milkshake. Subconsciously, I probably assumed it was a purple sweet potato flavor, like Taro or the Filipino favorite Ube. Before taking the dive into the shake tasting experience itself, I observed two qualities it possessed:

Observation 1.) This milkshake was notably runny. I don’t often order milkshakes with my food, particularly at McDonald’s, so I’m not sure if this was par for the course. Not that I’m complaining, but the image in my head of a milkshake is something thick, that you could almost turn upside down with little to no spillage, as the stylings of Dairy Queen’s Blizzard tend to boast. No, this shake was either shook too hard, was prepared well in advance of my arrival and melted, or the milkshake machine was experiencing some kind of issues. Fortunately, my milkshake was still cold and thick enough not to be a frosty soup, but it did not instill confidence in quality of the product.

Observation 2.) The milkshake was either underfilled, or they did not give me a standard helping of whipped cream. No doubt Grimace’s Birthday was a popular thing to celebrate, if my Twitter timeline as of right now is any indication, so I suppose I could see an impromptu shortening of the milkshake and whipped cream rationing. Disappointment is too strong of a word to describe how I felt seeing my milkshake filled well below the clearance provided by the domed lid even with the whipped cream on top, but it was once again an indicator to not expect this milkshake to be more than “Okay” at best. It was his birthday, so I suppose I can only ask for so much from Grimace.

As I pulled suction from the straw, the not-as-thick-as-i’d-have-expected milkshake flooded my mouth. The experience that played out there did so in multiple distinct stages. For a fraction of a section, surprise at the blue-berryish flavor, relinquished by an “Oh well obviously”, for a few fractions more. A whole second later, confusion, or even bafflement at the choice to flavor a dairy dessert with fruit - Something I associated more with frozen, icee-like treats, and then another mental concession once I had remembered that Strawberry Milkshakes are indeed very popular as well. Still, the creamy blueberry sensation was new to me, and I could not tell if I enjoyed it or not. Before I could come to a conclusion, the oral sensation had begun to shift.

The flavor of the milkshake migrated from a creamy and sweet berry flavor engulfing my cheeks and the flat of my tongue, to something a bit more acidic and sharp onto the vertical sides and tip of it, almost as if I was consuming real fruit. This formed a sort of feedback loop where that sourness, that hint of zing would begin to make my mouth water, which would in turn only make the zing that currently inhabited my tastebuds all the more potent, until the milkshake eventually found its way back to my throat and died down.

The opening act of the milkshake was nothing to write home about, boringly sweet and a little confusing. But the climax of this taste, as fleeting as it was, was the real deal. It was a high so potent that my initial apprehensiveness towards it quickly faded. And so I took another sip. Then another three more sips. Amazed at the novelty of the shake, I had to force myself to be reminded that if I did not eat the rest of my meal soon, it would become cold. If you have ever had cold fries from McDonald’s, you should know that in this context, cold food is basically inedible food. Perhaps not even really “food” anymore.

Crispy, salty french fries, a tangy big mac, and a new wondrous non-euclidean milkshake. What’s not to love about this gluttony of riches?

As it turns out, this was actually the achilles’ heel of the Grimace Birthday meal. The delight and novelty of the milkshake was fragile. It couldn’t even settle on what it was inside of my mouth when it had no competing consistencies, textures, or flavors. Against the wave of the monolithically consistent Big Mac and accompanying fries, the milkshake had stood no chance. All those years of eating McDonald’s had cemented these flavors into the brain of my tongue and had selfishly completely and utterly enveloped my tastebuds. Been there, done that. Is this really all there is? McDonald’s is what I would consider to be comfort food, in that a simple fulfillment and instant gratification of my craving for it can temporarily and superficially soothe some of my troubles at any given time, but at the cost of contributing very directly to some of my other troubles. I would go on to finish my meal, but I did not feel very comforted this time around, even discounting whatever the usual physical consequences I would be experiencing.

The purple Grimace Milkshake simply did not compliment the rest of the meal. Perhaps if I had ordered the McNugget version of this meal, things would be different. Perhaps if my single mother at the time could have afforded to pay for me to join my local football program as a child, things would be different.

But I did not join a football program, and I did not order the McNuggets.

I know better than to worry about the literally infinite what-if scenarios in my life, and yet, I still do. I suspect even the most carefree, adventurous individuals do the same; Left, instead of Right; Soup, instead of Salad; The risk of rejection outweighing the possibility of returns of boundless joy.


This is human nature. As humans, we are all bound to the nebulous construct of Time. If humans could experience infinite Time, it stands to reason to myself that each infinite what-if scenario involving them would transpire. But whether we are conscious of it or not, Time is something we are always losing. To generations older than me, perhaps Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d is on the same level of novelty as The Internet, Fidget Spinners, and self driving cars that explode. Even something as monotonous and unchanging as the McDonald’s menu is not immune to the forces of time, being unable to help but invoke and exploit the ghosts of times past, either by way of intentional propaganda or sensory happenstance from the individual, with endless gimmick promotion after gimmick promotion, of which their appeal is propped up entirely by the limited Time they are available for.

Time has the power to ambush us at our most vulnerable moments. I was blindsided by Grimace’s birthday arriving, just as I have become increasingly often blindsided by the birthdays of those around me, and most frighteningly blindsided by my very own birthday. I can still remember as if it were yesterday what those old McDonald’s restaurants in that photograph of young Grimace looked and smelled like. I’ve lived through at least 2 total brand aesthetic revitalization efforts from McDonald’s, and have seen the same location remodeled to fit this branding more than once, with each successive remodel less potent in my memory than the last. The effects of this McTime Dilation reach me even in as brief an interaction as pulling into a parking spot to pick up my food. References to Ashton Kutcher’s Punk’d is something old people do. I… Am getting Old now.

Where did the time go?

The Grimace Birthday meal at McDonald’s is a grave reminder of my own mortality.
The meal itself is a limited time offer, as is the fleeting bliss of the sharpest notes of His milkshake on my tongue. The new sensations the human experience may offer me are always suppressed and truncated by Time’s Constant, just as the purple Grimace milkshake is suppressed and truncated by a Big Mac and Fries. It is an unavoidable tragedy, but one that either inspires or scares me to make the most out of the miniscule amount of Time I have left in the greater cosmic calendar. Should I get to experience the Grimace Birthday meal once again, I will savor it, unperturbed by the prospects of the main course.

I did not play this video game.

In 2043 McDonald's will probably make a similar thing to this but instead it's a homage to the seventh generation, It will have a cover system and will look like nier gestalt and the thought of that makes me sick. Only I'M allowed to jerk off to Condemned: Criminal Origins visual style!

Anyway this is an ok corporate propaganda meme game. You play though 2 skate board levels before going full kirby mode at the end. Before every level you are forced to read the worst tweets ever made. Why does everybody in this game talk like a boomer making fun of a millennial?

The hard mode of this seems weirdly mechanically layered, i could see a worst (Read: better) version of myself investing time trying to perfect my grimace strats but for now i think I'm just going to leave it at the one playthrough lol.

Between Ronald, the Hamburglar, Birdie, and the other McDonald Land characters, Grimace was always my favorite one out of the bunch. I thought he looked cool and he always gave off a friendly, wholesome vibe even if he was originally introduced as a villain. Upon hearing the news that McDonald's was celebrating Grimace's birthday, I was pleased because McDonald's has finally begun to start acknowledging the McDonald Land gang again, even moreso that they used my favorite character for their promotion.

The story is pretty much in the title. Its Grimace's birthday and he wants to celebrate, but his friends are missing and he has to go find them. Along the way, you collect as many shakes as possible for everyone who is attending the party.

It's both a platformer and a skating game. You go from point A to point B grinding on rails and collecting shakes in the process. Like some of the previous McDonald's games that came before it, it is an entertaining platformer. I'd list more of the positives, but for how short this game is there isn't much else to say.

My only problem with the game is as mentioned, it is too short. Around the time I thought I was halfway finished with the game, I saw the ending play and the credits roll. I came in expecting to beat it in at least 45 minutes to an hour, but it took me about 20 minutes and probably even less than that if I had to guess. I know its sole purpose is to advertise a limited edition milkshake, but I would have appreciated if they made it just a little bit longer.

In the end, it's a neat little promo they made and it shows that they put a lot more care & effort into advertising the Grimace shake than they ever needed to. Sadly, I never tried out the Grimace shake and it took me serveral months after the celebration for me to get around to playing this game. I may have been late to the party but I still got to celebrate the birthday of my favorite purple goofball from the McDonald Land crew.

Watch me lose the little credibility I had by saying that a fucking Grimace game that runs on a Game Boy Color is better than Crash Bandicoot.

I should preface by being completely honest and say that my connection with McDonald's mascots has been absolutely minimal over the years, the only one I've ever seen on TV being this absolute monstrosity. I've barely had any contact with the Hamburglar, the Touhou funny clown, the one that shall not be named and, of course, the good ol' purple nub is no exception, and the biggest achievement this game accomplished was making me feel nostalgic for characters I was exposed to only because of the internet. I say this but I also must be one of the four motherfuckers that knows that Grimace has canonically mentioned his grandma; I really don't know why I know this information when I didn't even know who Birdie was until now.

The fact this can be played in a GBC is already really cool, but playing it in web browser was also extremely charming. It SCREAMS of 90’s product in the best way possible, and yes, I mean product; it goes for the most ad-game vibe possible and it rocks at it: the product placement, the way everything looks (including the web-site), the characters talking in internet slang, to even Grimace fucking skating; it’s an amalgamation of the 90’s and internet era advertising and it’s so apologetic and obvious it oozes charm. They embraced the absurdity, while it still serves as a kind of advertising, and it’s the first time in my life a game of this sort doesn’t even annoy me once.

The gameplay also screams od 90’s tie-in game!... And by that I mean it’s bad!

Well that’s a bit of a exaggeration, it’s just that the skating controls are sometimes infuriatingly loose and imprecise, especially in hard (WARNING: DO NOT PLAY GRIMACE’S BIRTHDAY ON THE HARD CONTROLS SETTING, WORST MISTAKE OF MY LIFE), and the rest of the platforming stages are nothing especial at all… which kinda adds to the vibe of it all.

The game is what it is: a really short game that doesn’t shine in anything, just as most games of its genre, and the fact that this time is by all means intentional adds a lot of value in a weird, twisted way. It really perplexed me that something like this was requested by the company itself and not done by fans out of parody and love, ‘cause that what it feels like; it isn’t anything too bombastic or great, it’s just lovely.

Take it away, Lee Greenwood

I’m an admitted brand tie-in enjoyer, but I still thought Grimace’s Birthday was more than the usual marketing shovelware. This is the kind of whimsy I’m looking for from evil corporate conglomerates: if they’re going to destroy the world, the least they can do is make it a little fun.

This game is incredibly short but shockingly runs on original hardware as well as in a browser (it even works well on mobile). Grimaces Birthday was obviously the passion project of some wage slaves (see edit) who convinced their bosses to let them make this, and I think it’s pretty well-executed and diverting as a skateboarding platformer. The addition of score attack and free skate modes are unnecessary but welcome bonuses for this free game.

If this was a Happy Meal toy in the ‘90s, similar to the 2000s Burger King games, people would be nostalgic for it.


Edit: This was commissioned by McDonald’s, but still, someone who cared got the execs to okay this.

A Black Mass is a ceremony typically said to be celebrated by various Satanic groups. It has allegedly existed for centuries in different forms and is directly based on, and is intentionally a sacrilegious and blasphemous mockery of, a Catholic Mass.[1]

In the 19th century the Black Mass became popularized in French literature, in books such as Satanism and Witchcraft, by Jules Michelet, and Là-bas, by Joris-Karl Huysmans.

Modern revivals began with H. T. F. Rhodes' book The Satanic Mass published in London in 1954, and there is now a range of modern versions of the Black Mass performed by various groups.

History
Early Catholicism
The Catholic Church regards the Mass as its most important ritual, going back to apostolic times. In general, its various liturgies followed the outline of Liturgy of the Word, Offertory, Liturgy of the Eucharist and Benediction, which developed into what is known as the Mass. However, as early Christianity became more established and its influence began to spread, the early Church Fathers began to describe a few heretical groups practicing their own versions of Masses. Some of these rituals were of a sexual nature.[2] The fourth-century AD heresiologist Epiphanius of Salamis, for instance, claims that a libertine Gnostic sect known as the Borborites engaged in a version of the Eucharist in which they would smear their hands with menstrual blood and semen and consume them as the blood and body of Christ respectively.[3] He also alleges that, whenever one of the women in their church was experiencing her period, they would take her menstrual blood and everyone in the church would eat it as part of a sacred ritual.[4]

Medieval Roman Catholic parodies and additions to the Mass

Within the Church, the rite of the Mass was not completely fixed, and there were places at the end of the Offertory for the Secret prayers, when the priest could insert private prayers for various personal needs. These practices became especially prevalent in France (see Pre-Tridentine Mass). As these types of personal prayers within the Mass spread, the institution of the Low Mass became quite common, where priests would hire their services out to perform various Masses for the needs of their clients (Votive Masses)—such as blessing crops or cattle, achieving success in some enterprise, obtaining love, or even cursing enemies (one way this latter was done was by inserting the enemy's name in a Mass for the dead, accompanied by burying an image of the enemy). Although these practices were condemned by Church authorities as superstitious and sacrilegious abuses, they still occurred secretively. In the 12th and 13th centuries there was a great surplus of clerics and monks who might be inclined to perform these Masses, as younger sons were often sent off to religious universities, and after their studies, needed to find a livelihood. Also within the Church, the ritual of the Mass was sometimes reworked to create light-hearted parodies of it for certain festivities. Some of these became quasi-tolerated practices at times—though never accepted by official Church authorities—such as a festive parody of the Mass called "The Feast of Asses", in which Balaam's ass (from the Old Testament) would begin talking and saying parts of the Mass. A similar parody was the Feast of Fools. Though often condemned, practitioners of such activities, called "Goliards", continued despite the Church's disapproval.

Wickedly genius (clever) joke ad, not just for its apparent authenticity, but for the synthesis it represents; a capital culture concoction of self aware corporate social media, populist post-modern humor, and a fierce retro gaming nostalgia that has been slowly getting more socially refined into a broadly palatable entertainment taste (don't bother thinking of it as art, however).

All of these ultra modern qualities would surely give you a soul ache if the joke game itself was of such immediately disposable quality like Date Colonel Sanders and Torture the Jack in the Box (two online flashesque games I'm positive exist).

But this is a much deeper (more effortful, seemingly innocent) joke than similar ilk.

Released in tandem with a real life and as-of-writing currently relevant McDonald's ad campaign entitled "Grimace's Birthday Meal", it exploits hard on our fractured contemporary communication which makes it purposefully distinguishable as a product of the Now, lamenting the style of the past without aping the past's sincere modern-modern banality. The exquisitely meme friendly re-evaluation of Grimace^, who uses abbreviated internet slang in cutscene speeches to his bestie cohorts, is forced hard enough to attract mainstream attention while being sparse enough for it to make a positive immediate impact. It's quite deviously charming how much effort was put into amplifying the advertisement's messaging, that we the corporation seem to miss the fanciful corporate creativity of the past, too (and you should buy 30 Grimace shakes before the Pete Davidson meal comes around, we got a PG rated Dress Up Pete game ready for the girlies on that one).

It works on a real GameBoy Color^^- err Analogue Pocket, fitting its entire design/art philosophy into the ancient constraints of the GBC, and as such has a nebulous 1999-2001 vibe that can capture the heart of any terminally online consumer millennial (almost everybody that this was targeted towards).

The remarkable simplicity of its gameplay doesn't elevate it in the way that the one-made-by-Treasure does, but that's because it is, of course, a novelty, revolving around shallow solitary gimmicks used quickly enough to get onto the next phase of the meta joke. Levels include: a skateboarding + collecting combo reminiscent of Tony Hawk games^^^. Hop-n-bop style platforming ala Mario (somehow with even less complexity). A Balloon Kid-ian section. Random mini-game. The end. 15 minutes total, maybe. A fleeting, semi-ironic loveletter to the shovelware of old, with all the unhealthy fat of such (chunky padding with obtuse controls) removed and forgotten about^^^^.

^the second banana friendly oaf archetype there to juxtapose against the well rounded leader Ronald, who used to command the previous McDonalds games as either omnipotent wizard God or powerful ability wielding protagonist. Us zoomers don't much care for the Ronald ego trip like previous generations, choosing to associate better with the cool dude(s) on the side of the spotlight.

^^why make this /specifically/ for the GameBoy Color? Well, I get /why/ it went for the authenticity of actually /being/ a GameBoy Color game instead of simply mimicking the style for a probably much easier to make a flashesque game with similar overall quality, but the reasoning behind this platform over any other?
Sure the McDonaldland fantasy universe thrived during the GBC's appropriate time of relevancy, but that whole thing was around since the 2600 days and was only fully phased out around the end of the 360 era. So, scarily advanced social media marketing from McD's or dorky sponsored project from kitsch loving indie devs or both? Who knows = Good joke. I will now consume one (1) Grimace shake.

^^^the best ones released during that precious, highly regarded post-Phantom Menace, pre-9/11 period of time.

^^^^Just, y'know, try not to forget that the Grimace Birthday Meal is 1490 calories(!). Yeeshikes!

<me and Grimace share the same bday btw>