"The world is in the throes of global capitalism."
Tonight We Riot is a Beat 'em Up game with Real-Time Strategy elements, developed by the game developer collective Pixel Pushers Union 512, and released in 2020.
In the dystopic future of the year 20XX, the forces of capitalism runs rampant, led by the company Whippleco and their CEO, Chet Whippleton III. Across all fields and stripes, workers are being ever increasingly exploited and squeezed of their lifeblood by the rich, who owns the media and effectively controls the political system and the local law enforcement. Despite toiling for hours on end across multiple jobs, the pittance of a salary most workers receive for their thankless drudgery, means they can no longer make ends meet. At first, peaceful protests for better pay and working conditions were attempted, but they were only ruthlessly beaten to the curb by the police. There is only one way forward now, and that is for the workers to seize the means of production by force. It is up to you to command a ragtag army of rebels, as they liberate workers and fight for revolution across five different worlds.
This game was released for the Nintendo Switch, Steam, and GOG.com on May 5th 7th and 8th of 2020 respectively.
This game provides examples of:
- Advancing Boss of Doom: The second area boss is a massive self-propelled woodchipper that the workers escape from in an oversized monster truck.
- All the Worlds Are a Stage: The final level has you facing one type of hazard encountered in each world on each elevator while you attempt to get to the roof of Whippleco HQ.
- A Twinkle in the Sky: Whippleton's final fate when you bring his rule to an end — you punch him and send the despotic billionaire flying off into the distance.
- Author Tract: The developers of this game are unapologetically against capitalism, and your objective in this game is to overthrow the oppressive capitalist regime.
- Artificial Stupidity: The workers can get a bit... Over-eager if you aren't careful. "Charge solo into a pack of chainsaws" style over-eager.
- Bad Boss: Whippleton, naturally. He mostly spends the game sending other people to fight for him in dangerous conditions, and when that fails, insulting the heroes while running away.
- Big Bad: Chet Whippleton III, the CEO of Whippleco.
- Bilingual Bonus: Loukanikos the riot dog speaks entirely in Greek.
- Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: Openly referenced with one of the unlockable items, the "Haymarket Bomb". Other than that, there are still the molotovs cocktails.
- Boring, but Practical: Bricks. They're numerous and, more importantly, can't lead to any nasty friendly fire incidents.
- Bulletproof Vest: A Ballistic vest can be unlocked, that reduces damage from bullets by 50%.
- Capitalism Is Bad: The game makes it no secret that this its central theme. The totalitarian capitalist regime is oppressing the workers and destroying the environment. The description of the store page mentions this multiple times.
- Chainsaw Good: Used against you in the second area, and an unlockable weapon.
- Chummy Commies: Played with and downplayed. The heroic (although violent) rioters aim to seize the means of production, but have more of a social anarchist or collectivist anarchist vibe, without a party or hierarchy and with a definitely horizontal structure. The authors themselves seem aligned with those ideals, and not hard-on, traditional communists.
- Climbing Climax: The final level has the heroes storming the Whippleco Tower for a literal and metaphorical Boss Fight.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Whippleton, the Big Bad. He controls the media and the government through his wealth, is strongly implied to be (at least) a Quasi-Fascist, ruthlessly exploits, underpays, and oppresses his workers, and would rather have the world and everyone on it burn than miss out on a single tax break.
- Dirty Coward: Every time Whippleton, the Big Bad CEO, is defeated, he activates his jetpack and makes his escape to the next zone over. After you defeat him in the final battle, you get to punch him and send him flying away in a considerably less dignified fashion.
- Elite Mook: Segway-mounted shooter cops can be encountered in the last world. They are more durable and shoot faster than the pedestrian ones. Later, steroid-pumped, heavily armoured "Supercops" arrive, that pose a greater challenge.
- Hate Sink: Whippleton — a Corrupt Corporate Executive and asshole extraordinaire. A big part of the game's fun is intended to be about kicking him in the face and taking back all the stuff he and his company pilfered from workers.
- Improvised Weapon: All sorts. Including wrenches used as shuriken.
- Loyal Animal Companion: Loukanikos randomly appears in some levels and fights alongside the workers. Clear the last level with enough surviving workers, and he's permanently unlocked.
- Meaningful Name: The second area, Bootlick Bayou, is so named because you primarily fight capitalist-lapdog Mook Lieutenants there.
- Molotov Cocktail: You can throw molotovs that you find to burn enemies.
- Mook–Face Turn: By taking out the Mook Lieutenants first, you can get certain enemies to join your worker army.
- Mutagenic Goo: The "harmless goo" in the harbour levels is highly mutagenic and turns any human exposed to it, be they rioters or policepeople, into horrible abominations that attack everyone.
- A Nazi by Any Other Name: Whippleton is implied to be one of those, to show that Capitalism Is Bad, though it's somewhat downplayed. He doesn't espouse any kind of Master Race ideology and didn't come to power via The Coup or deceiving the common people to sweep him into power, instead simply inheriting/buying the system — but he's still a blond blue-eyed totalitarian dictator, the opening cutscene introduces him with the "One Nation, One People, One Leader" Nazi slogan, and his answer to everything looks to be some variation of "Kill the Poor".
- No OSHA Compliance: The main gameplay hazard in the third area, The Dockyards. The second one — Bootlick Bayou — isn't much better. Justified, as Whippleton and his company proudly don't care about industrial safety.
- One Nation Under Copyright: Whippleton's country is portrayed as this, de-facto if not de-jure.
- Police Brutality: The intro cutscene shows a non-violent protest getting crushed by force and tear-gas.
- Red Shirt: Downplayed. The Rioters wear red face scarves over blue jackets, and can easily die en masse, but you should try to preserve them.
- Retraux: This game is done in 16-bit pixel art style.
- Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: The majority of the enemies in the second area. One of the newspapers remarks about a flag having a yellow fringe, a reference to a subset of sovereign citizens who believe that any court that uses a flag with a golden fringe is not a real court.
- Rock Beats Laser: Almost literally. The first boss uses "Laser fists" and at that point in the game you'll be doing most of your damage with thrown bricks.
- Shout-Out:
- In level 2-2's newspaper article, it claims that unions are under a communist plot to take precious bodily fluids.
- In the final level, a random worker may yell "Yippee-Kai-Yay, motherfuckers!", sparking a conversation about the movie and the quote's relevance to the situation.
- One of the last unlockable items is the Cheeky Breeky running shoe, which increases every worker's running speed. As a bonus, if you survive long enough in "Permanent Revolution" mode, messages from the authors will be displayed, in which they apologize for the number of "stupid meme jokes that were barely relevant at the time we made them".
- Take Up My Flag: You only directly control the current leader of the rioters. If they die, another takes the flag, until all the rioters are dead or the area is liberated.
- Trumplica: The Big Bad, Whippleton, has some similarities to that president. Blonde hair, interesting hair style, inherited his wealth, and being the leader of a capitalist society. His headquarters is even a giant tower-skyscraper, and Trump has plenty of those.
- Tyrannical Town Tycoon: Whippleton is the owner of Whipple Co., which owns all businesses and buildings in the city. His respect for his employees is precisely nil.
- Villainous Breakdown: As you progress further into Bowling Green Estates, the newspaper begins getting more and more afraid of your advance, and by the time you storm Whippleco HQ, it's apparent they're completely scared of you.
- Unlockable Content: Perform well enough in each level and you unlock a bonus.
- Unstable Equilibrium: You're stronger the more workers you are, so if you lose some early in a level, you'll struggle throughout. At the same time, assembling a big pack can let you power through easily.
- Upper-Class Twit: The people of Bowling Green Estates are portrayed this way, hiding behind massive pop-up walls when the workers come around to seize their wealth.
- Working Class Heroes: The workers, duh.
- Wrench Whack: One of the many Improvised Weapons used by the workers. They come in two types, unlocked early on in the campaign. The pipe wrench is your standard thwack-them-on-head melee weapon, while monkey wrenches (though they look more like combination wrenches) are thrown like shuriken. They even make a whooshing sound as they fly through the air.
- Zerg Rush: While the workers that you command are not so strong, they are numerous.
