While preparing a story about Tormentor X Punisher, a rad twin stick shooter with an inventive upgrade system, I realized something. Every time you die, a pair of enormous red hands emerges onto the screen, tears open a hole, and it's onto the next round. It looks like this, and it's only NSFW if your mind has been tainted:
It happens so fast when you play that it barely registered with me, but one of the official screen shots on Steam is that moment, and my jaw dropped.
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Dude,that's goatse.cx. If you're a younger member of the Internet, you may have been spared this particular meme, which I highly recommend you do not do an image search for. (You've been warned, at least.) The short version: It's a photo of a dude opening up his ass very wide, with the camera uncomfortably close. You can see, like, everything. People used it as a prank, a grotesque form of Rickroll.Many of us at Waypoint were convinced it was an intentional reference to goatse.cx, a way of tipping a digital hat to something most wouldn't pick up on. You: 'I don't know what goatse.cx is.' Me: 'I've been trying to forget for years. Let me be.'Normally, this would be the end of things, but after Danika tweeted our humored confusion, someone passed along a very interesting Steam message board exchange. The post suggested the developers had no idea their game was referencing an ancient sexual meme. It was a denial, and certain players were attempting to take advantage to help make the reference more specific.
(In the original goatse.cx photo, there's a ring on the person's hands. Just trust me on this. You don't have to look up the photo to confirm it. I'm a journalist.)But Raw Fury isn't the developer of Tormentor X Punisher: they're the publisher. That gave us some wiggle room on where this lands. When someone at Raw Fury tweeted at me, a thank you for writing about the game yesterday, I had an opportunity to try and set the record straight about this.
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You have to be shitting me. No one at Waypoint actually believed this. (Editor's Note: No one.)Daanish Syed, a senior UI artist at Mortal Kombat developer Netherrealm Studios, had a theory that Tormentor X Punisher was riffing on Contra III: The Alien War.
But speculation wasn't enough. I had to go to the source. I had to know."The honest answer for the 'goatse' reference is a no," said Tormentor X Punisher designer Joonas Turner.Turner bolded those words when he sent me an email yesterday afternoon, a brazen attempt to establish early credibility for his position. Turner claims he only wanted a "rad looking thing where a pair of demon hands rip apart the menu."This isn't the first time he's been confronted about goatse.cx, however."After showing the game around at events I heard people referring to it [as goatse.cx] and I just went 'Oh no…uh…well, if that's what they see let them see it that way."As it turns out, Turner did end up paying homage to the aforementioned scene from Contra III, but only in hindsight. When the transition was conceived, it was its own thing, but they later stumbled upon the image.
"After showing the game around at events I heard people referring to it [as goatse.cx] and I just went 'Oh no.'"
And while goatse.cx wasn't a reference—or so he claims—he's aware it exists."I did know about goatse before, oh indeed," he said. "I wish I didn't know more but I've seen too much, man!Oddly enough I did not catch goatse on our game, probably too close to it all this time."
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Too close to the game, not too close to a memory of goatse.cx. That's not so bad?The reference might not last for long. Turner plans to alter the game, adding growing nails to the fingers, because of the reaction. I'm not sure if nails will stop people from seeing a pair of hands creating a gaping hole, but good luck, man."Terribly sorry if it's caused anything horrendous," said Turner, at the end of our exchange.Mr. Turner, I've just been paid to write about goatse.cx. I'm proud and ashamed.Please don't tell my daughter about this.Follow Patrick on Twitter. If you have a tip or a story idea, drop him an email here.
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But speculation wasn't enough. I had to go to the source. I had to know."The honest answer for the 'goatse' reference is a no," said Tormentor X Punisher designer Joonas Turner.Turner bolded those words when he sent me an email yesterday afternoon, a brazen attempt to establish early credibility for his position. Turner claims he only wanted a "rad looking thing where a pair of demon hands rip apart the menu."This isn't the first time he's been confronted about goatse.cx, however."After showing the game around at events I heard people referring to it [as goatse.cx] and I just went 'Oh no…uh…well, if that's what they see let them see it that way."As it turns out, Turner did end up paying homage to the aforementioned scene from Contra III, but only in hindsight. When the transition was conceived, it was its own thing, but they later stumbled upon the image.Too close to the game, not too close to a memory of goatse.cx. That's not so bad?The reference might not last for long. Turner plans to alter the game, adding growing nails to the fingers, because of the reaction. I'm not sure if nails will stop people from seeing a pair of hands creating a gaping hole, but good luck, man."Terribly sorry if it's caused anything horrendous," said Turner, at the end of our exchange.Mr. Turner, I've just been paid to write about goatse.cx. I'm proud and ashamed.Please don't tell my daughter about this.Follow Patrick on Twitter. If you have a tip or a story idea, drop him an email here.