The Indie Game Magazine October 2015 | Issue 54 | Page 11

taking Joy and beating up on Downers,
and how everyone on Facebook is happy
all the time, and kids have to take Ritalin
so they’ll sit still in class, and millions of
people are on Prozac, well, that is your
right, innit?”
This seems to be a fair point. In many
games, the meanings that the stories
impart on players are either vague due to
the game being merely for fun, or deeplyspecific because the gameplay relies on
the details. Even games that share the
same amount of background story as We
Happy Few may not have the element of
repression and revisionist history, leaving
those who play this game with a unique
perspective. If modern parallels are to
be drawn between those who wish to
shelter themselves from unpleasantness
via medication and selective sharing, and
those who want to forget an awful bit of
their past using the same methods, it’s
difficult to deny that privilege.

This is a real city that underwent a real
trauma, and these are real people dealing
with it in a really nutty but plausible way.
I don’t think Wellington Wells is much
more outlandish than North Korea, say, or
the Moscow Show Trials. We’re showing
how people remember what they want
to remember, and forget what is too
uncomfortable to remember, and what
is the cost of that? So I think the game
aspires to address real issues. But we’re
not selling an ideology. That would make
it propaganda, not art.”

strict regulations. Of course, the point is that a
very extreme form of censorship and a rigid ruling
hand would be required to achieve a Wellington
Wells-ian state.
One very clear delineation, figurative and literal, is
the gate that divides Wellington Wells from the ruins
of the Garden District, a stark physical reminder of
the past being called into question. A small population of former Wellies live there, driven mad by Joy
consumption and addiction. These Wastrels serve
as a warning to the player as to what can happen if
Joy is abused in the game. Memories lost, forever

A key word in this explanation is “plausible”—and indeed, it may be that element
that has led to comparisons between We
Happy Few and another utopia-driven
narrative, the BioShock series. While the
art shows the world of Wellington Wells
to be outlandish, giving players enough
distance from any sort of uncanny valley,
there are elements of the town that show
the compartmentalization necessary to
achieve an outer facade of perfection;
Discussing more of the thematic elements it also shows the steps necessary to
at work, Epstein also touched on some maintain those compartments (and the
points that are at once unsettling and consequences if those steps fail).
intriguing to many about We Happy Few:
While Epstein and the other members of
“One of the early decisions we made was Compulsion Games say that We Happy Few
that although the game is highly stylized, is not meant to be a political statement,
the people are all real people. There is no it’s easy to view the game as, at the very
magic, no dead gods, no hideous Eldritch least, a satirical take on a culture concerned
rituals in the catacombs. It’s not Dark City. with saving people from themselves via

www.indiegamemag.com

11