Lisa: The Painful RPG goes classy
Remember when people cried “censorship!” when it was revealed that Naughty Dog decided not to make The Last of Us about a post apocalyptic world where all the women are either dead or turned into fungus people? Not long after that, an indie game developer made a game with a very similar premise, minus the fungus people. In Lisa: The Painful RPG, all the women appear to be dead, which causes radical changes to how society operates.
Austin Jorgensen, Lisa‘s creator, asked Jim Sterling, Conrad Zimmerman and me to appear in the game as versions of our characters from Podtoid/Dismal Jesters, as the world of Lisa is basically no different from the world depicted in that podcast. If you’ve ever listened to Podtoid/Dismal Jesters, then you know how severe of a compliment/insult that is.
I never fully understood the appeal of Podtoid/Dismal Jesters, and as such, I wasn’t sure that Lisa would end up finding an audience either. Thankfully, the game has done really well over the past two years, inspiring the release of both a sequel and now this limited edition vinyl soundtrack. The special edition version comes with two full color picture discs, an enamel pin, an embroidered patch, cover art by Karsten Schreurs, and custom insert from Jorgensen. If the price on that is too steep for you, there are two slightly less pricey SKUs which come with less stuff, but when you’re going for a collector’s item like this, it only makes sense to go whole hog.
