I think one of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever cried at is the my dinner w andre episode of community lmfaoo. I’ve never even liked that show either so maybe I’m just a crazy emotional bitch

this is good :-) I like this :-) feeling like this as someone who gave up their original career path in the arts many years ago now at this point :-) the game def might be seen as romanticizing the artistic path which I think can be dangerous but I don’t think it pats itself on the back too much at least I was able to look over that

(also I finally got a laptop so that I could play weird obscure stuff like this and rpg maker games so if anyone has any good recs a cheap laptop can handle pls comment them)

Genuinely a fascinating idea for a game, and the end result had me love it even more than I expected. I played this short game (around 15 minutes) because I knew of the joke from the Simpsons. I didn't know the film the joke was based on, but for the game, I quickly read the plot synopsis on Wikipedia which helped me appreciate this playthrough much more.

It's all the little details that made "My Dinner with Andre" on the Game Boy so clever. It's a film between two playwrights who discuss their different views on life on how the industry has treated both of them. Andre misses his freedom of being able to express himself artistically as his success has made him feel as though his work was too commercial. Wally, not having the same opportunities as Andre, envies his financial security and lack of worry for money, and can't relate to Andre's need for the big and large when Andre's life has been what many people are not lucky enough to be able to experience.

It's a film that is less so a fictional story that the directors wanted to tell, and more so an excuse to use the art form to express their loves, fears, and general livelihood of always living, working, and being surrounded by film. The characters themselves are just named after the directors, and their personal lives they talk about are descriptions of their actual lives and the troubles they go through. It's a very, very experimental (and if we're talking video game terms; very 4th-wall breaking) artsy film. I can see why it was used for the original Simpsons joke as there are and always have been video games that were made simply to cash in on people playing it just for the name being familiar, but a video game being made on some random artsy film where the characters literally just sit and talk the whole time sounds hilarious, and worked perfect for a literal 5 second joke in the show.

But holy crap, I always underestimate just how insanely passionate Simpsons fans are and I couldn't be happier to see how the game worked, especially given the small amount of screen time the joke it was based on was given. At first I was confused on why the game was themed around the Game Boy when the joke was based around an arcade game, but after playing the game for less than a minute I recognized how brilliant the change was. The creators filled the game with clever inside jokes from the Simpsons, as well as making the game focus around the game developer's experience instead, which is based around making modern indie games for the Game Boy. It's brilliant, as My Dinner with Andre was a film with the directors talking first-hand about their experiences in writing, the indie game variant talks about the actual game developers loves, fears, and general livelihood of working in video games. It takes a joke from the Simpsons, and brilliantly keeps the joke going while also entirely keeping the message of the original film for the medium the creators know and love.

My Dinner with Andre on the Game Boy is a delicious treat. It's accurate to the joke it was based on, it keeps the message of the original film while expanding on the different medium, and doesn't overstay it's welcome. A very fun game for fans of both the Simpsons and film, and absolutely opened my mind to the idea of taking messages from different mediums and seeing how the message can be overlapped to different art forms.

It’s funny how two video games based off classic Simpsons gags making fun of licensed movie games came out around the same time last year, Kevin Costner’s Waterworld and My Dinner with Andre, and how both are quality beyond being just mere gag games. Waterworld is more intentionally a gag game, but the creator, streamer Macaw45, is an actual fan of Waterworld and not only manages to extend a couple of second long gag into a fleshed out arcade game but infuses it with a loving attention to detail and easter eggs to the film. My Dinner with Andre is similar, taking a short gag and also making a quality game with it, but I think it goes one step further by really tying into what the original film was about.

I just recently finished watching the original film for the first time, playing the game thanks to Nerdietalk’s review is what finally pushed me to watch it. Having seen the movie really gives a clearer understanding of how well this ten minute game manages to capture the spirit of the film but shifting it in a different, yet similar direction. Wally and Andre are veterans of the stage both in the film and in real life, a major focus of the movie and the conversations Wally and Andre have is Andre’s disillusionment with modern theatre and the alienation of capitalist Western society and how he tries to persuade Wally to be more perceptive of the world around him. In the game Wally and Andre are changed to be game developers; this could be construed as being on the nose at first blush, but it recontextualizes the themes and discussions of the film in a new light. The modern video game industry is rife with problems akin to what drove Andre away from theatre in the film which the game version expresses; how commercialized and alienating the corporate AAA industry is, how the industry degrades and predates on those who have passion for expressing their craft in the medium, how hard it can be to struggle as an indie dev, similar to how Wally struggled to get his plays performed or getting acting gigs etc. The game ends on a much clear-cut and tidier bow at the end than the movie did, but it still fits with how the movie ends with Wally gaining a better appreciation and awareness of his life and the world around him.

Overall way better than a game based on a classic Simpsons gag deserves to be and a genuine solid video game adaptation of a movie. Check it out.