Strange Skin: The games of Joshua Roland

Content warning: Please note that some parts of the article discuss sexual abuse in the context of the depiction of these themes in the game GAG.

Joshua Roland is a British animator and independent developer who has been publishing games on itch.io and GameJolt since around 2019. Roland's works carry similar motifs, and many explore the potential to use animation to shape and deform faces and bodies. These strange forms, misshapen and contorted, are often the subject matter of Roland's games and the source of connotations with horror.

Roland clearly has a seasoned background in animation, and has created animations for music videos for underground bands, with a filmography including videos for Buffet Lunch, Crimewave, Me Lost Me, Mumbles, Peeping Drexels. There's also Roland's contributions to their own outfit Self Love. Many of these use simple face, limb, and body meshes, stretched to their absolute limit.

Roland's games, similar to their animations, relish in the uncanny. Publishing seven short but impressionable games over the past few years, much of Roland's output has a broadly experimental character, with many games premised on uneasy or absurd concepts intended to elicit discomfort from the player. This article explores the games that Roland has published over the years. Naturally, horrors await.

CRASH (2020)

CRASH simulates the historical use of cadavers as crash test dummies. The imagery of bandaged bodies with limbs propped up with planks turns out to be not a product of imagination, but based on a real practice and image of a crash test cadaver. Naturally, dummies being the creepiest things on Earth, Roland's short interpretation sees the cadaver turn the tables on their unfortunate tester.

FLUE (2020)

On an even darker note is FLUE, where the player crawls through the brick flue of a chimney whilst a short narration is told about the arduousness of the task and the history of child chimney sweeps. The controls alternate between mouse buttons to move, suggestive of the gradual, painstaking actions of climbing. The dark, fixed perspective primes the player to expect a jumpscare, but the game is smarter than that, and lets the anticipation of fear alone do its work.

FLUE has a far nastier trick for the player. The narration first appears to be from the perspective of the player and their escape from the flue. Coming closer to a corner that appears to be a sign of light, the narrator says how they gratefully escaped, ran home, and hugged their families. As the light is revealed to be from a flashlight and the endless tunnels continue to torment the player, the narrator clarifies that they wish the player also experiences the taste of freedom someday.

DOWN HORSE (2023)

DOWN HORSE sees players operate a mechanical horse in a riding simulation game named Ranpo Riding Simulator. Trotting through the virtual paddock, a man appears who asks the player to let their horse crush and eat him. Some time later, needing to perform 'emergency maintenance' on the horse, the player opens it with a scalpel to discover the man now inextricably twisted within. The concept is an indelible mixture of strange and, to be honest, kind of hilarious, due to the obvious dissonance between the colourful game and the miserable formless horse.

GAG (2020)

GAG is a "psychological-based horror-drama" situated on a studio stage, and is clearly Roland's most sophisticated and experimental game. The canned laughter and sterility of the stage quickly lead the player to intuit they are participating in a sitcom. The idea of the sitcom as simulation is reinforced by the player's interactions with the other 'actors' - Cassandra O'Brien type skin malformed over a metal pole, like abstract placeholders seen as props when filming CGI.

The game becomes deeply uncomfortable as it becomes clear that GAG is largely about the power dynamics of sexual abuse. The premise is that the player is the show's co-host, enduring the morning after an unwanted night with skin-faced Andrew, a toxic comedian and fellow host who has a reputation for misbehavior. The player is threatened with violence in no uncertain terms if they try to leave, and some of the dialogue to reinforce this is skin-crawling and difficult to hear.

But the 'show' that is GAG must go on. Characters enter and exit in the sitcom to interact with Andrew. Tom and Paul raise concerns about the implications of his behaviour on his career and the show, although Paul backs down as he doesn't 'seem like someone that would do a thing like that'. Tammy exchanges vacuous pleasantries with Andrew. In the end, the player is presented with choices to either confide in and disclose Andrew's abusive behaviour to the others, or deny it.

GAG is intentionally confronting and provocative. I imagine opinions strongly differ on whether it handles its representation of abuse well. I think regardless it takes a sincere creative risk. GAG, which I now realise has a double-entendre, uses the conventions of the narrative game - the sterile lack of player interaction and meaningful choice - and deforms them into a grotesque sitcom where the player is powerless to escape as the actors carry on their own accord as if nothing is wrong.

GAG could also be interpreted as a commentary on entertainment culture and its tendency to commodify or excuse wrongdoing. The game's dialogue and additional scene-setting in the trailer reinforce the notion that it aims to represent the trend of 'casting couch' practices in the industry. Sex and Celebrity, two virtual reality pieces using the same motifs released around the same time, also suggest that Roland had an intent to explore the interrelationship between the two concepts.

On a lighter note, PC Gamer described GAG as a little like "a Seinfeld episode from Hell" and compares the game to Rabbits, which is right on the money.

OTHER GAMES

Some of Roland's other games sit comfortably within the more traditional horror game paradigm, with each set in the trope of things going bad in domestic spaces. BOX (2020), a static frame point-and-click game, sees the player obtains a "very heavy and oddly warm" box that proceeds to hunt the player, for it to be revealed that it contains a misshapen Uzumaki-like corpse that is very, very noisy.

WRONGED (2021), an "item-based adventure-puzzle", engages players to collect and combine items in a dimly-lit house to either attempt to escape or nurture a demonic little baby. Despite what direction the player takes in the game's multiple endings, blood is ultimately shed. The game is an evolution from CREEP (2019) which broadly uses a similar environment and interaction system.

You can check out Joshua Roland's games on itch.io or GameJolt.