Punchline was founded by an ex-Love-de-Lic employee, a company known for developing three extremely creative cult-hits (that never saw the light of day outside Japan). Punchline’s previous (and only other) project was Chulip, of all things, a game about kissing other people in order to make friends and get ever closer to the love of your life. Rule of Rose is a project that has quite a bit of creative pedigree in its blood. Wanting to make something different from the usual Resident Evil fare, that’s when the idea of a game about children came up. It all started when Sony asked Japanese company Punchline to make a horror game. Yet while the game is not tame, it doesn’t live up to these absurdly lurid descriptions. After all, the game was inspired by Grimm’s fairy tales (the original ones).
RULE OF ROSE. FULL
In the interest of full disclosure, there really are sexual undertones to the game, not to mention violence.
Two little girls smiling complicity while holding hands and touching forehead to forehead. It really must be some game, huh?įor example, here is the most explicitly sexual scene of the game: The one who has acted with the most heinous ignominy, the most disgusting, wins the game.” In fact, Rule of Rose was directly mentioned in a bill of the French National Assembly and described in the following words: “The goal of the game is an unacceptable incarnation of sadism and perversion: raping a little girl in the most horrible conditions then torturing her before killing her in the worst of sufferings. Mainland Europe also did its part, with many journalists and public official writing frenzied articles about the game. Release of the game was cancelled in the UK and delayed in Australia. There were also demands for the creation of a European Observatory on childhood, whatever that is. The future of the European video game industry’s rating system, the PEGI, was put into question (the game did get a PEGI rating of 16+, though, meaning it was not meant for children). European Commissioner for Justice Franco Frattini called for censorship of video game violence and a ban of Rule of Rose in particular. The connected article heavily criticised the game and video game violence in general.Īfter that, the rumor of the “child torture game” caught like wildfire. Things got worse in a hurry when the Italian magazine Panorama featured the game on its front cover with the caption “Vince chi seppellisce viva la bambina” (“He who buries the little girl wins”). Troubles seem to have started when Sony dropped the game for localization in North America, apparently feeling that the “sexual undertones” of the game clashed with the company’s brand image (Atlus, who doesn’t mind this kind of stuff, picked the game back up). If Rule of Rose is remembered at all, it is usually for the moral panic it inspired. Not just a game with a vulnerable or young protagonist, but a game set in a world filled with the fears and idiosyncrasies of children. Rule of Rose is a rarity among survival-horror games: it is a game about children. Innocence can be the mindspring from which absurd rules and cruel behaviors are born …
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