Ok. I’ll bite. What’s a “wholesome game”? I watched the Wholesome Direct a few days ago, which gave me 53 examples of wholesome games, and I’m still not quite sure I know what falls under the label. Here are a few components of my working definition: wholesome games are nonviolent, often star anthropomorphised animals, and are soundtracked by ukuleles or a delicate piano line. They’re games which forefront feelings, often come from marginalised creators, and work with limited (typically pastel) colour palettes. As most genre-definitions go it’s a pretty vague smattering of characteristics, but it’s still managed to spark a lot of conversation on the ol’ internet.
As I trawled through Twitter, trying to make sense of the drive behind “wholesome games,” I kept coming across one pretty compelling idea: that “wholesome games” reject the popular narrative of gritty, first-person, hyper-realistic, super-violent games in favour of soft, gentle, and otherwise kind aesthetics. And so, in the interest of science, I set myself a task.
Here are the most wholesome unwholesome games I could find.