Do you like Pac-Man? Are you a fan of Adult Swim’s completely irreverent selection of browser-based flash games? Does the title Lesbian Spider Queens of Mars entice you? Yes? Good, now head over to the game’s website and experience the hilarity of an 8-bit game starring a lesbian spider queen, attempting to stop the revolt of her harem of slaves, by shooting them with webs and reclaiming their slave hoods.
You know, I could go all women’s studies here, talking about the subjugation of power and gender roles, and exploitation, but really, I don’t think that’s the intention here. All of the Adult Swim games poke fun at something (often religion or pop culture or damn near anything else), and if you’re taking it too seriously, you’re doing it wrong.
It plays like an offense-based take on Pac-Man — you control the queen in a simple maze, using your “web” to poke at slaves running the corners. You need to avoid more powerful enemies (and shoot them in the back), and you’ll rack up higher scores by snatching up all the slaves in a stage and picking up score-multiplying diamonds.
It’s actually a solid little game with addictive gameplay, and it was developed by lesbian game designer Anna Anthropy; so don’t feel too bad about the exploitation elements.
The best part, by far, is the “story” and the humor. From Geekology:
The story, such as it is, goes a little something like this: You play as the titular half-lady, half-spider queen, who rules Mars with two iron fists and eight iron… crawly claw-things. You’re minding your own business, oppressing the scantily clad women of your harem, when a slave rebellion goes into effect and pandemonium breaks out in your extraterrestrial palace. It’s up to you to prowl the halls, crystal scepter in hand, and recapture the fleeing humans.
The graphics, a wonderfully trashy take on 8-bit nudity, have to be seen to be believed, and the audio is in a league of its own:
I’m also a fan of the digitized voices you’ll hear as you catch the enemies — the Spider Queen sounds kind of like Sinistar’s phone sex operator or something.
I can’t think of a better advertisement than that.
