Day 72 - I MUST EAT CHILI OIL
Visual Novel, Short and Free, Actually Sad ·
Skeeter’s Take:
I MUST EAT CHILI OIL has to be one of the more unique experiences I’ve had in any game.
I MUST EAT CHILI OIL is a short visual novel with no choices and exactly 2 images used as graphics for the entire game.
The player takes on the viewpoint of the game’s protagonist who wanders into a store looking for Chili Oil. Our main character makes note of the shop, notices the various foods and sweets that other shoppers are buying, but states plainly that they are only here for chili oil. He mentions someone named “Mingming” and how the store is playing music that reminds him of her.
It was at this point, I was thinking I was just in for a silly, off-the-wall game about some guy who is just obsessed with chili oil. It seemed humorous. What a novel concept! Some guy obsessed with chili oil is nothing I have ever seen in a game before. I kind of love this idea, and there seemed to be some acknowledgement and “tongue-in-cheekness” to the whole idea.
But then, our main character kept talking about Mingming.
And as he keeps talking about Minming, his obsession becomes clear. It’s not the chili oil. It’s Mingming he’s obsessed with. We find out that Mingming made some tofu dish the first time she cooked for the protagonist, and she used chili oil that made it really good. I think it’s safe to assume that this is where the main character’s obsessive quest to eat chili oil stems from. And that becomes clearer as the he leaves the store with his newly purchased chili oil to hunker down in an alley and start scarfing that shit down:
It burns. He scrapes the jar clean as he remembers Mingming and her leaving back to Hongkong due to some illness, and some-
Oh.
Oh no.
Suddenly, the pieces all fall into place. We are meeting our character in the throes of grief. It seems Mingming lost a battle to cancer, and while we don’t specifically know the relationship between her and the main character, we can deduce that it was most likely romantic in nature.
So yeah, essentially I MUST EAT CHILI OIL is a story of a man who lost his lover to cancer, and we are witnessing him try to cope with the intense feelings of loss by obsessively scarfing down a food that not only reminds him of her, but also provides pain and doesn’t even fill them up. There’s something really tragic and poetic about shoveling a whole jar of chili oil into your mouth in an alley, only to still be hungry after that. It’s like the void in his stomach is matching the same one in his heart.
I was not expecting this from a game called “I MUST EAT CHILI OIL’. I think the ability to tell a story and visualize grief and loss like this with only two photos and a couple paragraphs of text is really impressive.
We get one last send off at the end:
It seems like this game was created for a visual novel game jam, so I’m hoping the “I’m tired” comes from the exhaustion of creating a game. I’m hoping this, because I feel like the alternative implies that this was a semi-biographical game - if that’s the case (I really hope it’s not), Kastel - I’ve got a couple hugs for you if you ever need them.
Recommend: It’s short and I found it interesting. Wouldn’t recommend it for everyone, but if you enjoy a brief look into a sad life, give it a shot.
Replay Percentage Chance: 1%
Time Played: 7 Minutes
Sam’s Take:
I want to thank Skeeter for taking care of dealing with the pathos of this game. It’s a weird ride, pretty basic but it does function. Unfortunately dealing with grief by chugging chili oil is still extremely funny to me, no matter how many times you mention chemo. Maybe it’s because of my own family history with cancer, maybe it’s because I couldn’t stop thinking of this video the whole time:
But I laughed most of the time. I’m not sure if this is a review of I MUST EAT CHILI OIL or a review of me. Either way I don’t recommend.
Recommend: I recommend Pink Alien Transplant
Replay Percentage Chance: -99%
Time Played: 2 minutes
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