Irish experiential agency Cogs & Marvel has brought Oscar-nominated film The Banshees of Inisherin to life as an 8-bit arcade game.
The video game boils the film’s plot down, having the player take on the role of Brendan Gleeson’s character and embark on a quest for a quiet pint.
Throughout the video game, the player must elude his former best friend (played by Colin Farrell), dodge the “local gobshite”, avoid the unavoidable neighbour and collect five bloody fingers.
The game features a number of characters alongside Gleeson and Farrell, including Jenny the Donkey.
The Banshees of Inisherin is an elliptical study of male friendship. It was directed by the Irish director Martin McDonagh and received nine nominations at the 95th Academy Awards, including best picture.
“It was an interesting challenge,” said Cogs & Marvel creative director Jon Hozier-Byrne. “How can you tell a complex story in the simplest narrative form?”
“St Patrick’s Day, like the film which inspired us, is an exploration of Irish socio-cultural identity. For one day a year, political and historical baggage is cast aside, leaving only bright green hats and drinking. We wanted to apply the same kind of dramatic over-simplification to such rich cultural material.”
“There was something really fun about taking such a dark, atmospheric piece of storytelling and representing it through the saturated optics of retro gaming. That juxtaposition is very entertaining to me,” he said.
