Hi all. I present a short article analyzing the ideological message in the game Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion. At the same time, I’ll immediately make a reservation that I don’t know what ideas were put into the game initially – I will talk about what is ultimately read from the plot and narrative. If you are too lazy to read, there is a video – link below.
What a game?
Well, let’s take it in order, starting with what kind of game it is at its core, what mechanics it consists of, that is, how we interact with the world and what decisions we make. This 2D game with a top view in which we are offered:
unravel simple puzzles to interact with the environment. My criterion for simplicity is that I can solve them myself, without anyone’s help
It sounds easy, the game is not exactly hardcore, only the bosses can cause difficulties, but there are few of them and their behavior is quickly learned.
Stylistics games – pixel art, this is used either when it is not possible to make more complex graphics, or when they are trying to imitate games from long-ago consoles, or when this style is justified by the narrative and plays into the atmosphere and history. Here, in principle, all three points apply. Since team small, of which there are only three artists, one of whom is also a programmer, and there are overlaps in style and mechanics with the old Zelda. The chosen visual style also affects the atmosphere and perception, since visually the game looks infantile and naive, all the characters are drawn very cute, like in stereotypical children’s cartoons, but because of this, dissonance with the dialogues arises.
Plot
And so I got to plot. If https://royal-fortune.uk/mobile-app/ we try to describe it in a nutshell without spoilers – the mayor evicts the repchik for unpaid property taxes, we help him become more powerful because of which the mayor reveals his rotten essence and we kill him, happy ending. And from this angle one can see the message: this is what the state does, how bad it is, down with it and, in general, long live anarchy and libertarianism. But if you look at the plot in more detail, then not everything is so simple.
And it’s worth starting, in a good way, with the story that we learn from notes as you progress through the story. In short, there lived a family of farmers somewhere in America, they had a house, a barn with animals, a greenhouse, a vegetable garden, their own cemetery and a bunker in case of nuclear war. Apparently they started making it when they realized that the situation in the world was heating up after their son was drafted into the army and he did not return. And then the nuclear war started – era of great mushrooms, as the residents of Vegetable Town call this time, which was the result of a mutation from contact with “mucus"- radioactive liquid that formed after nuclear explosions.
At the time of action in the game It’s day 1105, that is, about three years have passed since the war, we even meet people, but due to the fact that according to the plot we have already been irradiated with mucus, the girl Liz, to whom we came too close, mutates and we kill her. (Everything according to the laws of capitalism – either you or you). So here it is. When vegetables (berries, fruits, and everyone who is not too lazy) gained consciousness, they began to cluster together, gather in communities – they immediately had a desire to buy real estate. This is shown to us by the example of acorns that have just come to life, who still don’t know anything, but are already asking to go to a realtor and purchase private property. I still don’t understand how to explain this from the lore – whether it’s banter over the desire of “vegetables” to take out something on a mortgage, or whether it’s due to the fact that the bomb is imperialist, so it infects everyone with capitalist philistinism – I don’t understand, most likely it’s banter for the sake of banter – why not. But if someone explains this in the comments I would be glad.
In addition, almost immediately the revived root crops (and not only) began to seize power. Stand out two families, at the head of one was a cucumber, at the head of the other was the father of a turnip, and its right and left shoots were an onion (now Mayor Lucas) and a killer lemon (now Old Man Lemon). By the way, I just now realized that lemon is consonant with Leon, who knows, remembers. Next, I’ll try to describe everything chronologically, as I understood from the notes. Greenhouse, which Mayor Lucas squeezed out of the younger onion – was the old house of the elder onion, in which he was overtaken by the era of great mushrooms. The greenhouse compared to other houses – garden beds, is a real mansion, that is, the original inequality is obvious. Moreover, under this greenhouse there was, apparently, another bunker in which pre-war books and, suddenly, undetonated atomic bomb, which, by the way, you can blow up yourself, with a natural outcome. In these catacombs a gang led by the elder repchik settled. There they also found a book “basic English for financiers”, as if this is where the root of all these real estate agents comes from, an abundance of words about business and the idea of “taxes” that absorbed Lucas. In the end, the struggle within the gang led to the murder of the elder Repchik and the taking of power by Lucas in the elections, where he alone was a candidate.
Analysis
From all this it turns out that there is essentially no there is no state, there is a group of people who do nothing and force all other residents to pay taxes through fear. There is a suitable name for such people – fist. I hope in our time no one has any myths left that a kulak is such an active, economic owner. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Perhaps at the beginning of his journey he is a solid middle peasant who has worked hard. But he becomes a fist at the moment when the neighbors around him are unlucky and he begins to benefit from it. First the neighbor will die horse from illness and a good fist will rent one of his horses to a neighbor for an exorbitant rent. It will happen another time drought and this good fellow will lend a bag of grain, of course not for nothing, but having given one, he will demand two next year. If you didn’t manage to give it away – “no problem, earn the price of these bags at my mill.”. Oh, you won’t have time to work in the field then? Well, work for me for grub. And if you don’t want it, your hut might suddenly burn down, or your cattle might die, or your legs might break, who knows.”. The worse it is for the neighbors, the better it is for the fist. At some point one fist becomes local king.
And at this stage we meet Mayor Lucas – the government is legitimized by pseudo-democratic elections, the residents are under his subordination, one of his accomplices in the organized crime group was killed, the other is too decrepit and broken for active action, there are radish guards who double as tax collectors. Moreover, if we look at how the citizens of Vegetable Town feel, they are not very happy. Small shopkeepers and service providers are impoverished, even a realtor says he is broke, while those to whom he sells real estate also do not feel satisfied. Hired workers try to avoid work as much as possible because they have no motivation to work. Drugs are common (for some reason according to the lore this is wood). One part of the population is simply excluded from society and sits in the freezer. There is no adequate work with children, so some watch the equivalent of TikTok, others engage in vandalism in attempts to self-realize. One resident is so marginalized that he openly robs graves and doesn’t take care of himself so much that he walks around with a dove shitting on him. Most residents also suffer from memory problems (perhaps this is a veiled lack of the institution of reputation – short memory). We meet such an orange, and the youngest turnip is clearly not all right with his memory. How else can one explain that he doesn’t remember anything that he learns about his father, about his greenhouse and about the world around him, he’s clearly not living for the first day.
No funds are allocated for science; scientific avocado was provided with assistance only when a breakthrough was needed military affairs. But like all capitalists, the so-called mayor is not trying to improve the situation of citizens, but is trying to increase his military power. Throughout the game as Repchik Jr., we provide this power to Lucas. And after we defeat the strengthened mayor, the mayor, as befits any self-respecting bourgeois, decides to end the military conflict, if not with his own victory, then with the death of everyone. He explodes nuclear bomb. Which, by the way, is symbolic, because, apparently, this is also what ended the human war, which was also imperialist. But suddenly we find ourselves on a piece of land, which was thrown into outer space by an explosion and Mayor Lucas, who was reborn as "God of Taxes", which we defeat with the help of selfless radish guards who realized what they contributed to. At the end, the turnip returns the greenhouse and that’s it, credits.
Conclusions
The annotation for the game said that we would have to overthrow rotten government, but in fact this is not really true. What essentially changed in the society of Vegetable Town, provided that they somehow miraculously survived? Globally – Nothing. Their dictator died. A mafioso pickled cucumber can easily take its place. Will this make any of the residents feel better?? There may be some kind of redistribution of property, but in general, in this situation, it will be a great success for ordinary residents if everything remains as it is. Perhaps, in order for something to change, it is necessary to change not the vegetables at the top, but the very structure of interaction of society, for example, so that citizens themselves take part in politics and economics, in decision-making, so that not as now – vegetables for the state, but the state consists of citizens, so that a general plan is developed..
Okay, I got a little carried away. By the way, about what individuals this society reproduces within itself. We meet a small rentier, a berry, who rents out his plot to the snail Jerry, but the rentier himself does not know the snail language, and asks to talk to Jerry about the fact that he does not pay the rent. Of the negotiation tools, we only have a sword and we kill the snail, while he still ends up with money, which we give to the owner of the site, which is why he is shocked at first, but very quickly leaves after learning that Jerry was going to pay. And it goes something like this: “Jerry, of course, was cool. But you know, I bought chips with this money – they’re really tasty.”. I don’t know, comments are probably unnecessary here, it seems to me that the petty-bourgeois, selfish logic here is quite clear. If such consciousness is present in majority, then no coup, no revolution, no matter how technically perfectly thought out it is, will bear any fruit. Yes, we meet one unhappy fruit, but he essentially only grumbled and expressed dissatisfaction with the government without taking any action. This is very similar to the standard opposition in many countries, which cannot offer anything more than facade improvements without addressing the very system that allows such problems to exist.
Here’s the game for me I liked it, I recommend it to everyone, it’s short, speedrunners can complete it in 17 minutes without any cheats or glitches. I didn’t notice any special tricks in terms of complexity either, but experienced players can even handle it in two hours of thoughtful playthroughs, tearing up all the notes and collecting all the hats. Plus you can enjoy references and satire on our society by reading the dialogues. And that’s all for me, love, kindness, bye.