If it happens, and it’s gonna happen
[Image by Ko Takeuchi, artist for the Rhythm Heaven series.]
Co-created by Justin Roiland, probably best known for voicing Lemongrab on Adventure Time, the comic book and animated television series Rick and Morty feels a lot like Back to the Future 2 filtered through a brain intoxicated by a gallon of 5-Hour Energy drinks and full tank of Jagermeister (or the equivalent dose of classic Four Loko, before they took out the caffeine.)
Unlike in the first film, Back to the Future 2‘s Doc Brown has reached a level of cosmic, meta-dimensional awareness that has diminished the value he might see in an individual human life. Less than ten minutes into the film and he’s already drugged his young friend Marty McFly’s future wife and thrown her onto a pile of future-trash, leaving her there to fend for herself in order to prevent her from potentially fouling up his plan to manipulate multiple people into moving that timeline forward in the ways he thinks are best.
[Justin Roiland might have done this in real life.]
All poor Marty can do in the face of his old friend’s seemingly empathy-free behavior is voice a neutered, token protest before going on with the plan. Not surprisingly, this plan also involved Marty nearly getting his skull caved in, as Doc Brown looks on from a safe location. Rick and Morty takes that dynamic and extrapolates on it in every direction. The first episode of Season 2 starts off with scientist Rick utilizing a white-board to explain to his grandchildren how pointless their lives are, which eventually leads to more that 60 concurrent timelines being displayed on screen simultaneously, all before a testicle-headed alien voiced by half of Key and Peele pops up to arrest Rick for crimes against fourth dimensional law.
Attempting to translate this genre bending, meta-science fictional show into video game form would be no small feat, but it’s inevitably going to happen. The series has already spawned a voice-pack for Dota 2, an admittedly rushed adventure title, a surprisingly deep Instagram based game, and a mobile game parody based on the stupidity of one its main characters, and that’s just over the past 12 months, when it became clear that the show was a hit. On top of all that, I also happen to know that Justin Roiland is talking to a few different game developers about something or other. It remains to be seen if that something ends up being a Rick and Morty game, a completely original project like Adventure Time creator Pendelton Ward’s collaborations with Double Fine, or nothing at all,
One thing is for sure though, a large scale Rick and Morty game currently hasn’t happened yet, so now is your chance to try to manipulate our collective future for the better. Knowing that there is a 95.3% probability that Adult Swim and Justin Roiland will eventually read this post, use the comments section below to inform them on what you want from a retail priced, fully featured Rick and Morty game. Maybe more importantly, also be sure to let them know what you would not like to see. I’m guessing you’ve already had enough mid-tier 2D platformers based on your favorite animated programs, so maybe we should encourage them to stay away from that genre for now.
