Our Games of 2022 series continues with Betrayal at Club Low.
Right from the beginning, Betrayal at Club Low wants me to know that things aren’t going to go my way, thanks to a spontaneous blast of sewer vapor that drenches me in hot rancid filth. It’s this hapless surrender to chaos that drives me forward – I smell and probably look like shit, but the show must go on. The show, in this case, is me turning up to my job as a pizzaiolo/covert operative, dishing out pies at Club Low while trying to help a fellow agent trapped on the inside. This isn’t just a game about work, but a game about the unbeatable universal high of getting away with shit while working.
The act of performing labor – busywork, paid work, side quests for extra coin or experience – is an essential part of many games, and more and more we’re seeing artists and developers use their work to mutilate the rigid seams of capitalism (one game I’m particularly excited about is Joel Jordan’s subversive work/life sim Time Bandit). Betrayal at Club Low takes a basic gig work premise and elevates it into a higher state of consciousness – this dice-rolling adventure is an exercise in surreal survivalism, using the familiar trappings of a popular nightclub.
