Esophaguys is exactly what it sounds like: a game where you play as guys who have esophaguses. Okay, actually, typing that out, maybe the title does warrant a bit of an explanation.
Let’s try that again.
Esophaguys is a deeply sillyindie co-op game, the kind where you and your friends get up to all sorts of funny, physics-driven mayhem while attempting to accomplish normal goals in a ridiculous fashion. Inthis particulardeeply silly game, you play as old people with long necks they can stretch at will.
You can walk, too, but the obstacles in your path are mostly solved via Extend-o-Neck. When you reach a gap, you can bet you’re going to use your neck-stretching powers to reach across, grab a mouthful of whatever is nearest, and swing your body across the gap. It might have made sense for this game to star brontosauruses or giraffes, but you know what? It doesn’t. It stars elderly dudes with mustaches.
A Fast And Frantic Start
The team behind it is aptly called Esophaguys Team, and this debut title offers an interesting twist on multiplayer mayhem. During my time demoing the game last month at Double Fine and iam8bit’s Day of the Devs in San Francisco, I tried out two different game modes — the co-op campaign and a multiplayer free-for-all — but the final game will ship with four, all of which will be playable by up to four players.
Together, they’re billed as having “the first video game soundtrack dedicated to jews-harp music in a variety of strictly traditional and experimental styles.” But more on that later.
Co-op felt like I was working together with two other Mr. Fantastics, forming stretchy chains to reach new areas. Except, unlike Mr. Fantastic, we had to bite each other to form that chain, and could stiffen our necks to allow other players to walk on us as a bridge. The competitive multiplayer was fast, frantic, and goofy as I faced off against two devs in a deathmatch that involved swinging around and chucking environmental objects at each other. A single hit will kill you, and having a long neck means that you can be a pretty big target if you get too wild with it. It also means that you can win in seconds if you play your cards right.
Peyton Blake — the jack of all trades heading up audio and serving as Esophaguys' producer and game designer — describes the game’s beginnings as similarly frantic. “This game actually started as a pitch. I was a game design student [at] Sheridan College in Toronto and we had a pitch class. It was just like, ‘Pitch us whatever game you want,’ pretty much freeballing. And I just drew up this mechanic really quickly on my sketch pad: long necks, old dudes, Jew’s harp. I’m like ‘boom, there it is.'”
Those foundational aspects of the game came together quickly, but Blake has spent years researching the game’s central instrument, which seems to play an important role in the story.
What’s In A Name?
“When I was starting to develop this game I was looking for a unique sound to match the unique mechanic and I thought, ‘What better than an instrument that uses your neck and your mouth?’ So… I went down a rabbit hole for three years and I traveled to Norway to learn how to blacksmith this instrument and [learn about] their traditional music [which has] a really strong tradition and all different styles.” Norway isn’t the only country whose music shows up, though: Austria, India, Kyrgyzstan, the British Isles, and America are also represented.
While talking in the noisy hallway that serves as Day of the Devs’ main thoroughfare, Blake plays me a note on his Jew’s harp, and I can only describe its aural quality as: sound effect-y. Its “Boi-yoi-yoi-yoing!” noise sounds like it could have come right off a talk radio soundboard. Even with all the noise in the hallway, it comes through clear as a bell on my audio recorder as I listen back to the interview a week later.
“That’s just the basic sound,” he explains. “But you’re able to get all kinds of cool, unique melodies out of it if you practice really hard.”
You may have assumed that “Jew’s harp” was an outdated term for the instrument. I know I did. But Blake — a member of the International Jew’s Harp Society — explains that it’s still the best available name.
“Jew’s harp is the oldest recorded English name, and nobody knows why it’s called that. There’s theories like maybe some Jewish people were selling [the instrument] in England at the time. The thing is no one knows,” he says. “If you look online, there will be a bunch of different names for it. In English, the most international name is still Jew’s harp. It is a peculiar name, and there’s problems with all the alternatives.” For example, one option, ‘mouth harp,’ is also an older name for the harmonica, so Blake says it can complicate academic research. “And so the best term for it, the most accurate, is Jew’s harp, even though it’s weird and doesn’t make sense.”
In that way, the instrument’s name is a little bit like Esophaguys' own name. You might not get what it is without explanation, but talk it through and you can see how they landed on it.
Esophaguys is launching onPS5,Xbox Series X|S,Switch,Steam,GOG, and theEpic Games Storelater this year.
