Topic: Kongregate / Ban [removed]
To help decide whether we should ban [removed] or not, I will review what seems to be his most controversial game, Undress The Mom
Undress The Mom: A Critical Analysis
The first impression of Undress The Mom must come from the game information. The name is Undress The Mom, and the image is one of a non-nude woman in a barely sexual position. The game’s rating as of the time of this analysis is 1.32, and thus people who are searching for games are likely to pass this one by. However, the title and the icon hint at erotic activities contained in the game, luring anybody desperate enough to look for it.
When you load the game, you are allowed to read more descriptive information about the game. In the case of Undress The Mom, this is not necessary. The game info says “Undress The Mom” and the instructions say “Undress The Mom”. These help further cement the idea that the game will be erotic and centered around undressing a mother. The game itself takes some time to load, showing a green background while it loads. This is due to a feature in Adobe Flash, the application that was used to code Undress The Mom. Adobe Flash allows you to set a background color that will appear if nothing else is in front of it. We see that [removed] chose to use green. This is where the player obtains the first hint that something is wrong. Green, especially such a bright shade of green, is not very erotic, and gives a player desperate enough to play it a hint that this may not be the erotic game he suspects.
The hint is made much more blatant when the title screen loads. The title consists of four things. The first is the words “Girl Undresser” written using Adobe Flash’s brush tool. These words further cement the hint that this game is sloppy and may not provide the erotic experience the game information promised, due to the title being inconsistent and written using a drawing instead of text. The words being “Girl Undresser” are important. They contradict the experience promised by the game title, as the game title promises undressing a mother while the title screen promises undressing a “girl”. A game where one undresses a girl would be extremely illegal and would certainly be removed from the website immediately, and this fact is another contribution to the player’s suspicion that this may not involve the promised undressing. This idea is made explicit by the second thing on the title screen: cartoonish clip art of a girl that appears to be around 9 years old, alternating between two frames of movement that are horizontal flips of each other. In addition to supporting the idea that this game will not deliver on the undressing, this cartoonish clip art suggests that even if there will be undressing, it will not be of a real picture of a person, and instead be a clumsy drawing.
The third thing on the title screen is the “play button”, a crude, misshapen rectangle drawn with the same tool as the title, supporting the idea that this game is crude and amateur. The fourth thing is perhaps the most interesting. It is two lines of text written with Adobe Flash’s text tool on the bottom right corner. The words are written in a font that is not packaged with any computer and has to be downloaded independently. The first line of text is the author’s name; “[removed]”. The second line of text says “420 smoek weed”, which is derived a popular saying among those who regularly smoke marijuana, “420 smoke weed everyday”, which itself is derived from the popular rap song “The Next Episode” by rap artists Andre Young (known as Dr. Dre) featuring the rap artists Calvin Broadus, Jr. (then known as Snoop Dogg, formerly known as Snoop Doggy Dogg and DJ Snoopadelic, now known as Snoop Lion), Ricardo Brown, (known as Kurupt, also known as Kurupt Tha Kingpin, Kurupt Young Gotti, and Young Gotstra) and Nathaniel Hale (known as Nate Dogg), released in the year 2000. By writing this text at the bottom of the screen, [removed] subtly reveals his association with the culture of those who smoke marijuana. This serves to indicate the the game will be more relaxed and laid-back, as opposed to well-developed. In addition, “smoke” is spelled incorrectly, which once again reinforces the idea of the game being clumsy and badly-made.
At this point, the player’s expectations have gone from thinking there will be erotic content in the game to thinking there is a large, almost certain chance that there will be no erotic content in the game. When the play button is clicked, the player’s expectations are shuffled yet again. A badly drawn cartoon woman is shown from the waist-up, black bars covering everything below her mouth. The woman slightly resembles the woman in the game icon. The player now believes that the girl on the title screen was a red herring, and his expectations go to believing there will be some badly-drawn cartoon pornography. This forces the player to compromise, for he has been led to believe he will receive pornography and then disappointed, and then given a chance at (albeit cartoonish, badly-drawn, and only from the waist-up) pornography. With this, [removed] is given control of the player by manipulating his emotions and making him accept what he would not have accepted before.
There is nothing else on that frame, so the player must wonder for a split-second on what to do. There are no instructions, and waiting does not remove the black bars. The player is left to correctly assume that he must undress the woman (which the title tells him to do) by dragging the black bars with his mouse. When the player drags the first bar away, he does not see anything new as there is another black bar underneath. The player must place the first black bar somewhere, even though there is no room and the black bar must then overlap the face of the woman. The then drags the second black bar away and sees the woman’s next and a hint of a purple shirt. The player is now crushed, he expected a glimpse of cartoon pornography and instead sees a purple shirt, which indicates that the woman is clothed and there will be no erotic content.
However, there are three black bars left. The player now thinks to himself that it may be a trick, and the third black bar may reveal something more explicit. However, when the player moves the third black bar he sees a fourth black bar underneath. Underneath the fourth black bar is a fifth black bar. Every time the player removes the black bar, his suspicions that this is a trick increase. The player believes that it would make sense to promise you pornography, make you think that you are not getting it, and at the last second deliver it to you. This reversal is a standard pattern and has become ingrained in the player’s mind from sources that have been present his entire life.
When the player removes the final black bar, he sees nothing explicit. The only thing new he sees are the words “Replay?” there. The player has now been taken for quite a ride at this point. He had expected full pornography, then made to think there will be none, then made to think there will be some poor pornography, then made to think that there was no pornography, then made to think that at the last second, pornography will be revealed only to be crushed by the outcome which results in no pornography. The words “Replay?” taunt the player, they stand for the explicit content that the player expected to see but didn’t, as well as angering the player who is thinking why anybody would want to play this terrible game.
But “Undress The Mom” is not terrible. While it is not a very fun game, it is a very powerful psychological tool that, like most great video games, toys with the delicate emotions of the player. Undress The Mom takes it a step further by toying with the player’s sense of lust, one of the most powerful emotions once can access through a simple game. While others may call this a badly-developed, idiotic game, don’t be fooled. This is one of the most fascinating and intriguing games out there, and the bad development is necessary to make the player’s emotions change upon realizing this game was not one that the expected. I do not think this game should be removed from Kongregate, and I give it a rating of:
4 out of 5 stars.
