Although its politics and bigotry have long been part of the analysis, Lovecraftian scholars benefit greatly from the fact that the namesake died before 1939. Tales of unfathomable beings, the limits of reason, and proto-steampunk sensibilities are ultimately intertwined with sentiments of race science and colonial expeditions. A new game of Umurangi Generation creator Naphtali Faulkner seeks to wield the horror genre without excusing its many sins. And how does he achieve this? Adorable penguins.
In Penguin colonyyou play as Antarctic birds. A lot of them. Large emperor penguins. Little baby penguins. Grasshoppers. Chinstraps. By snuggling up to another penguin, the player can transfer their essence in an instant. Each has alternating characteristics. Speed. Swimming. Jump. A photo mode. And even though it would be pretty awesome to slide belly down into the tundra, their hard but simple life is turned upside down.
With touches of alternate history, the game tells Lovecraft’s story. At the mountain of madnessthis time with the Nazis unlocking the ice caps instead of well-funded New Englanders. Learning of an ancient god captured in frost, their research team attempts to discover the deity. In order to prove their racial purity through the image of the elder. As you may have guessed, the face they discover doesn’t look like their own, triggering a formless, melting terror. The penguins, much more adapted to this environment in many aspects, are there. Waddle deeper into the graves. Pecking at fragments of forbidden knowledge.
There have been many Nazi send-ups of Lovecraft (hell boy comes to mind). Faulkner attacks the fundamentals of the genre, brandishing Lovecraft’s own work against it. In his stories, anthropologists suffer from the madness of curiosity, but it is funny how often in their work Western academics bring reality itself to the brink of destruction. It doesn’t have to be on a cosmic scale how out of their depth these explorers are. Between the chapters are flashes of local indigenous guardians, cleaning up the messes of self-inflated travelers for generations. Their segments intentionally look like clips from other games. A half-minute piece, as if you accidentally sat down on the input button on the remote control, entering and exiting a Reign of the night session.
As critical as the game’s thesis is, it knows you can’t be too critical a penguin. The jumps make a precious little anime noise. As Nazi soldiers skin their faces and tear out their intestines like paper napkins, you’ll be too busy doing belly stunts. The deeper strangeness is in the scope. The game is narrated by Lenval Brown, whose voice is like honey in your ear as in Disco Elysée. The landscape is vast, dark and screaming. There are secrets and hidden sites everywhere, often requiring you to guide specific penguins to the best platforming challenges. These levels are built to accommodate existing junk (the rockhoppers seem to have magnetic feet), but admittedly there were at least three times where I found myself hopelessly stuck in a crevasse in some unnatural way.
When I spoke to Faulkner for my zine last year, he told me he would never make you watch a penguin suffer. This is largely true. Although their isolated position could be mistaken for ominous prayer, they are not phased by the infiltrating mass of older gods as humans. You may fall into a pit or be corrupted by the shoggoth, but the game will direct you to the next available penguin. A bit like playing the role of a photographer in an apocalyptic war in Umurangi Generationyou are here as an observer more than as a speaker. You walk through impossible architecture just to witness it. It’s your world. He is upset by idiots. But defying the fabric of time and space out of hubris is not for birds.
Gn tech
