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I'm gonna say it - Penguin Colony is not a good game. It is not a deep game, and its commentary is surface level and somewhat offensive. It is badly coded with terrible collisions and level design, and it crashes. The models and art were good when they matched. The dialogue was well written. ++Music

I really liked the photographs' artwork. The word collection has sparked interesting discussion with my friends. What made the most discussion though is the baffling choices. I hate to say it, but if it wasn't vibecoded or AI ideated, I have a real concern for what that implies for Origame Digital.

Why are there stunts in this game? Why are random assets floating in the air? What's with the empty spaces? Why is there ocean blocks above ocean? Why are there different kinds of penguin but never placed in a meaningful way?

There is a lot to be said about Lovecraft and his eugenicist ideas (which aren't represented at all in his story Mountains of Madness), and the reviews all rave about how Penguin Colony discusses it in depth. All I have seen is that Nazis turn up and set up camp and go mad.

I cannot emphasise how much I liked hearing another dialect and the music which plays while exploring and was credited. I loved the organic 3D models. But somewhere in tying this thing together someone asked ChatGPT for gameplay advice and it gave a random list of bullet points.

I think I am most upset that this clearly represents a promising collection of people's ideas, art, voice acting, writing, and social commentary, and it was delivered so poorly and with such little oversight or quality check that it falls apart like wet mush.