Exploring The Weird World Of Steam's Meme Game Community

No online platform exists today without memes, whether that platform is explicitly built for them or not. If you need proof of this, just head over to the Steam store and type “meme” into the search bar. Upon doing so, you’ll see way more games based on and featuring memes than you could ever hope for. Even more surprising, the majority of them are positively rated. Just look at this review for the game Anime Memes, a $2.39 title featuring a half-naked anime girl toting an AK-47 whilst killing Nazis and collecting memes.

You’ll hardly find a negative sentiment on any of the Steam pages for these meme games. Surely these positive reviews are just a part of the meme, though … right? There’s no way anyone actually thinks a game called Anime Memes is that good. Curious, I downloaded four of these games to see what all the praise was about and to find out if these are good games, good memes or possibly both.

Simp Slayer Simulator 2K20

Simp Slayer Simulator was developed by 2GenPro, a company with a number of other meme games like Trump 2020 Simulator, Wagecuck vs. Karen and Jesus Strikes Back. They all seem to be the same thing — reskinned wave-based shooter games.

In Simp Slayer Simulator, you play as a slayer of simps taking on wave after wave of zombie-like simps across five locations. It’s a barebones FPS shooter that gets old fast. The first thing you’re greeted with when you start the game is a sound byte stating, “Been hearing all this talk about me being a simp. Yeah, I'm a simp. I'm a simply slamming your girl with this big old horse meat ding dong.” It’s up to you whether that’s funny or not. The simps in the game all have neckbeards, nerdy glasses and are incredibly skinny. Aiming down the sight of your weapon hardly works. Throughout the game, you’ll hear a litany of pornographic moans, ear rape screams and notable meme phrases like FHRITP that quickly make the game grating.

It’s all very forced, and the game lacks any sort of polish. The sound clips repeat way too often, and the heavy metal soundtrack gets very old, very fast. The game just wants to shock, and it doesn’t even do a great job of that. This is not a good start.

Anime Memes

Anime Memes is another shooter, but this time in third-person. You play as a half-naked anime girl in a Russian hat with an AK-47. In this one, you have to run around a jungle setting and collect posters with various memes on them.

The graphics and textures are bad and the map is small. Shooting feels terrible — your bullets never seem to go where you want them to. Thankfully, you don’t have to shoot much. You can usually get through the game without killing anyone as long as you’re sprinting. If you die, the Dark Souls death sound plays. It’s funny to see memes like Cheems and Joker Cat pasted up on buildings like Slender pages … but there isn’t much variety. Again, the game is just too simple.

When you collect all the memes, a huge ogre spawns and a Shrek dubstep remix plays as you fight it. This was unexpected for sure and got a bit of a chuckle out of me, but it’s not exactly the peak of game development. It’s better than Simp Slayer, but that’s not a very high bar. The reviewers are definitely trolling.

Bad Meme

This one is quite a hidden title, with only three reviews on Steam and almost zero coverage anywhere else online. That being said, imagine my shock when I play Bad Meme and actually have a pretty good time with it.

Bad Meme is an endless runner where you play as a selection of memes (or at least their heads) and try to make it through a procedurally generated course. There’s a twist though — you can travel on the top or bottom of the screen by flipping your character around. It’s hard at first, requiring skill and timing to master, but this one is actually fun. You start with only Wojak, but can unlock 28 other memes, including Pepe, Pedo Bear, Coomer and a marijuana leaf.

There’s a lot of style here, and the memes all look great. Each character has a unique special move and a fun graphic to go with it. Pepe, for example, has ‘"KEK":https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/kek’s GIFT, which lets him phase through walls. The KEK’s GIFT bar at the top is presented in 4chan green and has a post number underneath. The Coomer has a sperm bank icon at the top of the screen. By mashing the skill button, you can “fill jars,” which go to the bank and get you extra money.

This one has a lot of great little details, and there’s actually a decent game underneath it all since it was made by a meme-lover. It’s not perfect by any means, but it makes you want to keep playing just to check out the other characters' special moves. This is the best one so far, and the positive reviews make sense. It’s not just a good meme, but also a good game.

Karen: An Outrage Simulator

Finally, we get to Karen, a game where you play as a Karen, named "Karen" (shocking), and do typical Karen things that feel as if they were pulled from the most infamous viral stories online revolved around the concept.

The game is essentially about conversations. You're put in volatile situations, such as trying to use an expired coupon or return an incorrect coffee order. Your enemy (a cashier and a barista in the case of the first two levels) has three bars, confidence, indifference and patience. You need to drain one of these by picking the right dialogue options while trying to avoid letting your "freakout meter" fill up.

This is the best game out of the bunch, despite the enjoyment I had with the previous title. It’s something vaguely original. The game looks like a classic RPG, complete with detailed sprite work and locations, and well-drawn character portraits throughout. A lot of time and effort has been put into this, and you can tell it’s more than just a meme to the developer.

The game is filled with genuinely funny situations and dialogue, and you actually feel like a Karen when you’re playing. One of the funniest things I saw happened in level two. In a fit of rage, I asked the barista if I could speak to the manager, only for the barista to reveal he is the manager. The music shifts, the manager pushes his glasses up, and Karen lets out a REEEE before smashing a woman’s phone and throwing coffee in the manager’s face. The game over screen is a fake /r/PublicMeltdown post with 6,900 upvotes bashing Karen. I failed the mission, but I’m glad I did just so I could see that.

While some of these titles feel like merely one-off jokes intended to be humorous more than enjoyable to actually play, this one feels like something almost anyone would have fun with. It’s more than just a meme — it’s a meme come to life.

What Have We Learned?

So, are the meme games of Steam more meme, or more game? The answer isn’t so cut and dry. Like any other meme, the quality and intent is different from case to case. Games like Anime Memes and Simp Slayer are memes before they’re truly games. Sure, there are entertaining aspects to them. Just the fact they exist is entertaining, and this is highlighted in the overwhelmingly positive reviews. Unfortunately, the gameplay isn't one of the more entertaining aspects, making these hard to take seriously as games.

However, titles like Karen and Bad Meme prove that meme games aren’t all more meme than game. They may not be AAA titles, but these are made to be played and enjoyed. They prove that there is a market for such games, and that market doesn’t have to be made up of crude shovelware. Check out these games if you can, and support the meme market on Steam. Maybe we'll get some genuinely great games out of it.

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