- There's 27 different types of
ejaculant in the game,
[LAUGHING]
including feathers,
apology, and tears.
[LAUGHING]
The feathers are because you can
eat birds with your butt.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
- I'm Richard Pieterse from
Cape Town, South Africa.
- Evan Greenwood, also 
South Africa, Cape Town.
We worked on Genital
Jousting, Broforce.
[DOOR OPENING]
NARRATOR: Jon had
three months until the
reunion to turn
his life around.
First he needed
to clean up.
- Genital Jousting's 
very first form was
a drawing pasted
on a wall.
And with the idea of--
 It, you know, it
seemed revolutionary at
the time, of four penises
coupled up like a 
sort of car crash.
DANNY: OK.
[LAUGHING]
And I guess I was
convinced that that
was a good idea.
But it didn't
in fact, happen as a successful
prototype for, until
quite a few years
after that.
- Yeah, I think the space
where that sort of drawing
came out of was a larger
conversation we were
having in the office, where
I was sort of like,
I'd come out of like, a
boys school that was
quite toxic, I guess. And
I was trying to like
deal with a lot of my
feelings around that
and like, sexual repression
and stuff, and was just
getting really interested
In the idea of, like,
seeing penises touch,
and how that was so
hidden in the media
and just not something
you saw very often.
And I kind of
made this prototype
as a joke. And then
just found it, like, it was
called Wang Commander,
which was like a soccer
game, sort of, where you
have a bunch of
floppy flaccid penises
rolling, touching each other.
And I just found that
a very engaging sight,
and I found it
very interesting how
people reacted in a
public space when
they played this, how men
interacted when they
were playing together,
friends or couples.
- It was on this projector,
and there was like
four controllers or
eight controllers,
and people were
playing there, and
everyone had kind of
gone outside to talk,
have coffee, there's
drinks outside.
And there were, I think
four women that
stayed behind, and they
carried on laughing.
And it wasn't nec--
That wasn't the
result I expected,
and so I guess I had--
I would've anticipated that
the women would be
put off by this idea
and that the men would
be there kind of hogging
the controllers. And it
kind of, the women
were laughing
louder for longer.
And so in my mind,
there's something there,
something curious
about that, right?
[MUSIC PLAYING]
[SPLAT]
So Evan made the
original prototype
in Berlin, along with
Martin Kvale.
Yeah, it had no
game loop, or no
scoring system, which
was really interesting.
And when you put it
In front of people,
they assumed that the
goal was to kind of
try to not to
be penetrated.
- Yeah.
DANNY: Right.
And we were like, that's
very interesting.
So they decided to put
a score system in.
This was before I 
came on, I think.
- Mhm.
- You tried what if
you get a point
for penetrating, a point
for being penetrated,
two points for both.
- Yeah.
- But you don't ever explain
that to anyone,
so people have to figure
out why they're losing.
And it goes from this moment,
especially with sort of
a group of like, more
bro-ish people
being like, hey, get
away from my
butthole to being like, 
Larry, I need
you inside me right now,
shouting across a room.
- Mhm.
- Which is quite special.
- Mhm.
[DANNY LAUGHING]
- Every now and then,
some guy who
resists that urge
and decides the
rule of the game
is to lose.
DANNY: Right.
- Which is, you know
easy as having
to deal with that,
I guess, and other
people having quite a
time with it.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: Jon 
needed to shower and
wash off the
sweaty stink of
desperate sadness.
- I think the
story evolved
from just like an
idea of maybe
some sort of Goat Simulator,
Stanley Parable-esque
like, kind of sandbox, 
towards something
that was more meaningful
and kind of did have that--
Did get to contextualize
some of the
concerns we were
having with it.
- So when we made
the multiplayer mode,
it had been very, like,
sexual. Then we kind of
wanted to explore
other aspects
of, like, romance
between penises.
So we did a Valentine's Day
update, which was--
- I think it was penetration,
but two players going on
dates together.
- Yeah, the goals were,
like, to have
these lovely dates together.
Like there's rose picking,
where you have to go through
a bed of roses and pick them by
[LAUGHING]
impaling the roses
on your shaft, so,
once again very abject.
- Yeah.
- And from that we found this,
like, small vignette
format, where it kind of
cuts between scenes.
- Mm.
- And we decided to go back
to that and explore it more.
Evan was making 
these just strange
scenes where--
I don't know what
possessed you, but I'd come
downstairs and there'd be
a penis sitting at
a computer
with like a wastebasket
full of like tissues.
[LAUGHING]
And it had no context for
the game that we were making.
- Yeah.
- There'd just be a
sausage on the screen.
- Yeah, well.
[LAUGHING]
- Which was, at that stage,
a stand-in for pornography?
- Right.
DANNY: Oh really?
- I think you'd just be
able to touch the
button on the computer
and scroll through
an endless series of
different sausages.
[DANNY LAUGHING]
RICHARD: So the first one starts
with you basically going to work
and deciding you need
to get a promotion,
and then getting the
promotion and deciding
that because you have this
promotion, you can now
ask the person of
your dreams out.
So you burst into
a meeting,
that they are like,
involved in,
and just ask them out.
EVAN: Yeah.
RICHARD: And then out of like, 
 fear, they basically say yes.
- It's implied that you're 
asking Barbara out
at this point, and you know
that she's a colleague.
And you kind of realize that
you probably shouldn't ask
her out during a
board room meeting.
And she's also the only
woman in the meeting.
It's, like, really like--
This is like--
That's all like kind of,
you know, subtext.
There's clearly just like,
for the player.
If you're not thinking about it,
there's just this goal
to bump into Barbara.
DANNY: Right.
- Which means climbing
across the table
and nudging her.
This was like a
in particular scene where
we agonized over it.
We didn't know where
to draw that line.
DANNY: Right.
And there's lot of
bits like that,
but it becomes,
as the story progresses,
it becomes more clear
that that's the kind of
thing that's going.
NARRATOR: Jon tried 
to act as suave
as possible and listened
to Barbara
talk business.
He didn't want
to blow his chances
at long term love
and short term sex.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
EVAN: I mean, it's a very
physics driven game.
So every door 
that opens is
you bumping it with physics.
You know, there's lots of
objects that are kind of
falling around, falling off,
when you're knocking 
things over.
RICHARD: It's very interesting
trying to figure out
how the world of, like,
user interaction design
for penis in a world,
basically, like
how many buttons you
could have on a keyboard,
like how you
open a door.
EVAN: A lot of that got determined
in the multiplayer mode,
where two large peni-- 
like, testicles
would make it hard to
penetrate because you had
to be avoiding these
unwieldly testicles.
In the multiplayer mode,
penises-- penii--
start quite short,
and as they
score points by being
penetrated and pentrating,
they grow longer.
But at the smallest
kind of most
chub-like size,
the testicles couldn't
be so out of
proportion that it looked
completely ridiculous.
The testicles also add a
certain amount of drag,
so there's this kind of
physics to do with that.
And would need to roll
out away from
the asshole when it
was being presented.
Or for that matter,
when the penis was
reversing, so that it could
reverse onto another penis.
NARRATOR: Jon's
new purchases were
on the way to
his apartment.
All he had to do was
invite a date
over. One look at
all his stuff,
and they'd be
overwhelmed with
sexual desire.
- Jon, that main character,
gets his lowest moment
in the game. You've had
all these nightmares,
he's been rejected. 
He's kind of realized that
maybe he's done bad,
like he's not on a--
He's not been on a
good path, and he's
had this recurring character,
Sam, throughout the game,
which has just been
in moments where
Sam is showing some concern,
and in response,
John has been like,
why are you being such
a softy? But Sam
comes to help Jon
while Jon is lying in a park,
being attacked by penguins.
- By swans.
- By swans. At the point,
the game says,
do you want to pick
up another controller?
And it's suggesting that
you should, in fact,
ask a friend in the real world to
come help you finish the game.
And then from then on,
the game kind of
becomes kind of
increasingly positive,
and then a little meditative,
where Sam gets to kind of
talk maybe about his
philosophy, which is like,
our final kind of opportunity
to say what we've
really been thinking the entire
time. I think it's a
really nice to trick to--
For anyone who actually
got their friend to play,
'cause it is more fun
together. It always was
more fun together.
Jon's amazing, and he really
helped us and shaped--
RICHARD: Jon 
was incredible.
EVAN: Yeah. His
sort of theory about
what are some of the
worst aspects of
toxic masculinity
that we'd want to
at least portray,
and that using
another person as
a means to an end
was a thing that--
Being so concerned
about your own attainment
and success and
goals, and not about
supporting other people.
There's like a horrible
side of what can be
seen as masculinity, and he
kind of thought that was
an approach we could take,
that would be doable
and would also have 
an important message.
What we wanted, ideally,
and we can't really tell if we
succeed in this, was to
convince someone who
could've be-- could've harbored
some toxic masculinity themself,
that we were, like,
friends of theirs,
that we'd be telling jokes that
would be really crass and
funny, and we'd be
trying to feel like
the game wasn't trying to convince
anyone of a particular stance.
And then at some point
we would have to
kind of flip it on it--
Well, we'd almost earn a
trust through that, which we'd
then kind of burn by saying,
particularly towards the end
of the game, kind of showing
what we felt was a better
kind of masculinity.
But we couldn't just do that
and make the game about that.
Even talking about
toxic masculinity
right now is kind of a
problem in the sense that
someone who feels that's
like, a triggering term
is going to be then be like,
well, I'm definitely not going to
have my opinion changed 
through a video game.
Yeah, we didn't want
to make a game that
like, outwardly
says, hey,
it'll change your mind
about toxic masculinity.
Because you can't change
someone's mind about
toxic masculinity if you've
already told them that
that's what you're going to do.
And that's kind of terrifying
in itself, because we're saying,
OK, we're-- this is up our sleeve.
We're not going to reveal it.
And we're also going to hope
that the people whose opinions
we really care about
kind of get it,
and it doesn't
appear like we're just
a bunch of
douchebags making a huge
fart joke at the expense
of gay sex. Broforce, in its
own way, is also an
exploration of masculinity.
In that case,
the masculinity
is kind of
played for laughs by making it
completely absurd and extreme.
- Yeah. I think another
kind of interesting
point that Robby makes,
and he made in one of
his talks is how we have
this long lineage of,
like this big problem of 
over-representation of men
in video games.
But in actual fact,
there's no representation of
men in video games.
There's no actual representation
of like, real men
struggling with real male problems.
It's all those like, hero attainment
fantasies or success fantasies,
which isn't really--
- I mean, so much of video games,
I think so much of
in a way, some damage that
video games does is that
you can solve your problem
just by doing kind of
simple and repetitive,
and you can
in some cases get the girl,
or in some cases, you'll get 
esteem and fame  just
by doing this one thing that's like
in fact, quite a
trivial solution.
That's like, got to be
really frustrating, though.
Like in real life, then
all of our dreams and hopes,
so all the things that actually
give us, like, health and
substance in our lives
are much harder.
And we keep on 
being sold these stories
where it's like, you know,
just shoot some people.
That'll work it out.
