Scientifically ranking the legs of French Kings
We are making an adventure game about the French Revolution. OK, technically not THE French Revolution, but this one. And in our research we have been looking at the shapely calf muscles of a lot of French Kings. Our parody adventure game 'Less Miserables' features a mini-game
We are making an adventure game about the French Revolution. OK, technically not THE French Revolution, but this one. And in our research we have been looking at the shapely calf muscles of a lot of French Kings.
Our parody adventure game 'Less Miserables' features a mini-game which is basically a top-trumps style card game, but with the French Royal Family vs. the Revolutionaries. For some reason, I can't see that this has been done before, but feel free to correct me!
Anyway, the ranking categories are obvious: Style, Power, Charisma and Agility.
But the real question is, how does one accurately assess the agility of members of the French Royal family who have been dead for hundreds of years?
Fortunately dear reader, there is a way.
At the time, when having a regal portrait painted, the style was to make sure you showed a LOT of leg. All the official Kings portraits of the time show copious amounts of leg, provocatively all the way up to the thigh.
Why? Well, as described in 'The Trousers and Research Methodology for Oppressive Design' not only are trousers oppressive (and colonial from a Scottish viewpoint), your power and prestige was graphically illustrated by showing off how muscly/dainty your legs were (again, depending on the style at the time). You think I'm joking? There's a legit research paper, right here!
Ory Bartal Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9310-433X
And what's more, check out these juicy calves! Phwoor!
These are the real leg portraits of 6 kings running up to the 1832 French Revolution, and Napoleon, because it's clear he was not going to get left behind on this thigh action. These are MEN, MANY MEN. I mean, it's likely that the dainty point of Louis XIV (third from right) is because he was also pretty much a professional ballet dancer. But it's still not a leg you'd want to receive an high-kick from in a dark alley.
Which is of course what this all boils down to.
When we assess power, we mean political and authoritarian power, and history records this well. When we assess style, well, some of these mink gowns are more gaudy than others. But raw agility: that's something more tricky to pin down. But just as we've put the highest levels of research into the history, characters and location of the time for the main game, we want to get it right for our mini-game too.
Thus the legs in portraits of the French Royal family give us an exacting, scientific measure for assessing the agility of long-dead monarchs, so that when you play our card game 'Heads Off!' you know with confidence and satisfaction that the statistics for each card are reliable, and definitely not plucked out of thin air.
Because, like all of us, we want to know which Royal would be triumphant in a dirty brawl (and yes, there's a card for Marie Antoinette too), and which would win in a hypothetical match-up with famous French Revolutionaries like Robespierre or Danton.
And finally, my patient and now traumatised reader, that's what we can soon offer you too. Should you play our point-and-click parody game 'Less Miserables' you can play a card mini-game that's not quite like Gwent or Balatro, in fact, it's more like top-trumps. But it has the same illusion of depth and strategy.
Even better, if you were to back our Kickstarter next year, you'd have the option in the luxury physical box reward of not only getting our amazing game on DVD (you've all still got DVD drives in your computers, right?), but also a beautiful manual, poster, stickers and a physical copy of our card game 'Heads Off!'. Then finally you can discover whether Louis XV or Brissot would win in an athletic contest, and bore your politely smiling friends with it as I have done with you.
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