The surreal psychological horror game Penguin Colony from Umurangi Generation developer Origame Digital offers a confrontational work of protest art, reinterpreting H.P. Lovecraft's At The Mountains of Madness from the perspective of penguins. The game challenges artistic cowardice and reclaims Lovecraftian horror, urging players to confront complacency in an era of violence.
At first glance, Penguin Colony might appear to be a simple gag game with a peculiar premise. Set in Antarctica in 1939, it retells Lovecraft's 1936 novella. The story is narrated by Lenval Brown, voice actor for Disco Elysium, who guides the player through an altered version of the narrative, incorporating elements from other Lovecraft stories. While familiar elements like Miskatonic University and Shoggoths are present, Origame Digital takes significant artistic liberties with the source material.
In this retelling, two forces are drawn to Antarctica: a mysterious tribe glimpsed in interstitial flashes and an expedition from the Third Reich. The Nazis believe they have discovered an Aryan God, adding a layer of mystery and terror to a story that has been widely referenced for decades. This narrative choice confronts the uncomfortable reality of Lovecraft's own ethnocentric worldview, which deeply influenced his writing. Lovecraft's personal correspondence and poetry reveal his racist beliefs, which are often reflected in his stories, such as his descriptions of mixed-blood cult worshippers as "foreign mongrels."
Many Lovecraft adaptations sidestep his racist themes, focusing solely on iconic imagery. This often results in shallow cosmic horror stories lacking thematic depth. Penguin Colony, however, actively reclaims Lovecraft's work. Instead of invoking the "death of the author," Origame Digital uses his stories as a weapon against his own prejudiced ideology. The game identifies an inherent colonization narrative within At The Mountains of Madness and extrapolates it to its logical conclusion, drawing a direct line between civilization-devouring monsters and the destructive history of European colonizers.
The gameplay centers on controlling a penguin traversing a war-torn Antarctic landscape. Drawing inspiration from games like Death Stranding, the core mechanic involves navigating the environment through swimming, sliding, and hopping. Players collect photographs and cryptic words that gradually reveal a fragmented story. This traversal, combined with the game's low-polygon visuals depicting a desolate Antarctica, creates an unnerving atmosphere. The visual style, reminiscent of a distorted PlayStation 2 aesthetic, enhances the otherworldly feel.
Early in the game, Penguin Colony presents some basic game design elements, such as swapping between different penguin breeds with unique traversal abilities like climbing or sliding. However, this mechanic is sparsely developed. The game also suffers from bugs, with penguins occasionally clipping through the environment or getting stuck on geometry.
Beyond the gameplay, the developer, Naphtali Faulkner, a Māori game developer, has framed Penguin Colony as an indigenous story. Faulkner explained that "indigenous means the original inhabitants under the context of colonisation. Not just the people, but the animals too." He views Antarctica not as "no man's land" but as a place where humans are simply another animal. This perspective highlights how European colonial powers annexed parts of Antarctica, mirroring the game's depiction of the Nazis as an invasive species.
As the game progresses, Origame Digital makes its message more explicit. In a moment that breaks the fourth wall, title cards directly address current global conflicts, criticizing the perceived lack of outspoken art from video game creators in response to contemporary tragedies. Penguin Colony implores players to confront present-day horrors with the same intensity they apply to historical ones, urging against waiting decades to address injustices that are apparent today.
The game serves as a stark piece of apocalypse art, a desperate attempt to reclaim cultural ground before it is entirely consumed. By reframing Lovecraft's writing as a tool for anti-colonial protest, Penguin Colony offers a vital commentary on history, horror, and the responsibility of artists in times of crisis.