Gross Games about Flesh and Stuff

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Kind of disappointed that he didn't mention how the news anchor went down the hole that is smoking with the game pretty much screaming it at you with how no smoking signs are everywhere, showing up more and more as the game progresses and his gradual decay is perfectly reflected on the left side of the screen with an ash tray filling up more and more with cigarettes, dying the same way his mother did, from smoking. Besides that I don't think anyone could have went over these games better.

I... that last line about how perfect vermin makes us ask 'why would the news anchor do that, didnt he know he cant take it with him?' And how fish is made answer 'no, he didnt know, and you dont either' sort of smacked me in the face hard about a lot of stuff about my dad's death. He was getting chemo for pancreatic cancer throughout 2019, but by early 2020 he was getting weaker and weaker and he couldn't think as clearly as before. We all wondered why he was doing this, when it was hurting him more... doesn't he know it would be easier for him to just stop? But he didn't know. And i don't really know either, if I'm honest. Maybe to him fighting it to the last was worth all the pain to be around us just a bit longer. Welp didnt expect a video about two gross games to hit me so hard i start crying during work but hey, you never know.

Id say another aspect of Perfect Vermin is a desperate, frantic attempt to return to normalcy despite debilitating illness- the newsman wanting to return to his job, live his life and glory even though hes dying. Especially given his anger toward his doctor.

How Fish is Made reminds me of a story I read in high school by Anton Koolhaas, called "De Trechter" (The Funnel"). It's about a group of turkeys on a farm who have built an entire religion out of the fact they're going to get slaughtered. Turkeys who have been selected to be slaughtered - they know because they're suddenly fed way more and more often - attain the status of king or queen and are honored by the rest of the group. One disgraced queen - passed over for slaughter, instead used as a breeding hen - walks past the shed with the little chicks every morning and shouts "At the end, the knife awaits!" They even have rituals where one older king asks the young ones: "Our head will get shoved into the funnel! By who?" and the answer is "by us!". "Our feet will be bound together, but held up to be bound by who?" "By us!". There is one moment where a turkey flies over the wire that's keeping them contained, and into the outside world, but he has no idea what to do there, so he just flies back. His whole life has been framed so much in the context of this turkey society, that outside of it he has no idea what he would even do. Sometimes he will fly to sit on top of one of the posts, and wonder outside, but then he becomes too fat to even lift himself off the ground and decides that he can see just as much through the wire as he can see over it.

"No one will care about my death if I don't prove to them that I lived." -Harold A. Shpitz, Perfect Vermin

I’ve seen a streamer play “how fish is made”, he chose up immediately, told everyone else that going up was the best the option, actually lied and said going down was best to some fish who failed the vibe check, when he found the fish under the crusher he said “those are the people who chose down”

i wish i had looked at the trigger warnings before playing Perfect Vermin, but at the same time, not doing so made it hit harder. Cancer is a painful thing for me to think about. It killed my brother right before he could turn 18, and even before the game was finished i knew. it felt like......i was finding globs of Wrongness. Growths that kept coming back and visually hurting somebody no matter how hard i tried not to smash the true objects(good cells). i felt like chemotherapy. i watched a man wither on screen, rotting from the inside out while i tried desperately to save him, and i really should have stopped playing, because i stopped seeing it as a game. i started playing like i was really trying to save my brother. i just knew instinctively what was going on. the end was predetermined and i still kinda hate myself for "losing". his death was predetermined, the cancer terminal, and i still hate myself for "losing" a fight against a monster i couldnt even hurt. at least the game gave me a hammer.

Perfect Vermin is a game I knew about before I was diagnosed with cancer. Looking back at the game now, it makes my very uneasy to say the least. What makes it worse is what the news anchor said near the end of the game, when he talked about how he doesn’t want to end up like his (presumably) abusive mother and how Ithe going to die like her. My cancer came from my father’s side of the family, and let’s just say he was also problematic, and at times abusive. He died a few months before my diagnosis… I was 18 when I was diagnosed, and as of writing this I’m turning 20 in almost 2 months. It’s a miracle that I’m alive now since my original due date was only a few months at best (at least that’s what my mother told me). Ever since that day my mind was focused on trying to live and doing the things I love, making art, making stories, making games, and making friends. I want to make a mark on this world, even if it’s a small mark, so I can prove to the world that I existed. I know that sounds dramatic, but that’s what I feel about my whole situation. I’m fine right now, but my future is still uncertain. What is certain is that I have tomorrow, and I guess that is enough.

The thing that kind of "closes the loop" in Perfect Vermin is that the ability to only interact with the world via a hammer works well as the nature of cancer treatment; all you can do is destroy things and try to only destroy the right ones. It also kind of highlights the absurdity of the whole process. Like, why would this ever work? You're not fixing anything. You're doing the opposite of fixing things.

My usual Jacob Geller viewing experience consists of watching for 30 seconds then running off to play the list of interesting games he’s gonna spoil before I watch the rest of the video

9:29 love the line, "its the first time you haven't held a hammer." instantly, it brings to mind an older man who has always solved his problems the same way, sitting in a doctors office feeling powerless.

I think How Fish is Made is actually about life; about how, when inevitably forced to make decisions that we are not equipped to handle, everyone is a “fish out of water”.

I can see the death analogy in How Fish is Made, but honestly most of every part of it, for me at least, feels like it's talking about life. Nobody knows where to go in life, what to do with their life, and you basically just have to make a guess. Many people are paralyzed by the choice, unable to lead fulfilling lives because they can't decide what they want to do so they end up making the worst choice, doing nothing. Nobody knows what the answer is, what it means, or why they have to make it, and nobody knows how to deal with it. That's my opinion on it anyway

While I was playing How Fish is Made, my mom bursted into my room and stood in awe while watching the parasite cutscene and actually enjoyed the whole thing. I could be playing the tamest game but whenever my mom decides to come around its always something unexplainable.

"No one will care about my death if I don't prove to them that I lived" is the final message from Perfect Vermin, and it just seems to hit me hard.

I've watched 3 loved ones battle cancer. My mom, my dad and my grandma. All handled it so differently that sometimes it feels like whiplash thinking about those years. Mom, fought it fairly conventionally and as doctor recommended with radiation and chemo. She was frantic and so scared up til the end. Dad did what he always did and kept drinking. Only ever voicing his fears when he was trashed. Died mad at me for not knowing when to pull the plug. And grandma told no one, refused treatment, and told us all 2 days before passing because she needed someone to take her to the hospital. Died relatively quickly and in good spirits. All of these experiences have taught me that you can't judge or predict anyone's behavior, you can just be there to see it all happen.

In How Fish is Made I decided I was going down, the intelligence that the trapped fish in the beginning made me decide “down” was the answer, I was so adamant in the beginning, then as I went on, talking to the other fish made me start to question, I was still going to choose down, then I got to the fish that needed me to tell him what to do, I told him down, I was going to go down, but then I got to the choice, and in a moment of self doubt, I went up

22:19 I also think it’s worth mentioning that as the news anchor gets more and more grotesque as the cancer takes over his body, the amount of cigarettes in the ashtray grows

“the real measure of a game’s longevity isn’t how long it takes to beat, rather how long it sticks with you after beating it” immediately made me think of OneShot, a game I played three times, once for each ending, then immediately uninstalled and refuse to touch until I forget about it