Joshua Krause
The Daily Sheeple
July 28, 2016
In the United States, it seems like there is no shortage of folks who are more drugs than people, if you know what I mean. They are like Rx zombies, and it’s unbelievably how many of them exist, wandering from one moment to the next in a haze of drug induced euphoria. At any given moment you have about 70 million Americans on mind altering drugs like opioids and antidepressants, and that’s not including the other 60 million Americans who abuse alcohol or the other 22 million that partake of illegal drugs like marijuana.
While there’s no doubt that the War on Drugs has been a total disaster and should be ended immediately, it’s obvious that America has a problem with drugs, both legal and illegal. There are a hell of a lot of people out there who are desperately trying to dull away the pain; perhaps more people than any other country on Earth.
And if that’s not depressing enough, we seem to be fast approaching a Brave New World scenario, where the government simply mandates that everyone takes drugs to keep them happy, passive, and unconcerned with the status quo. If you think that’s crazy, consider the fact that now the medical community believes that being persistently defiant towards authority figures is a mental illness. These days it seems like any normal behaviour can be deemed a sickness, and drugged into oblivion.
We already live in a society where at least half the population is drugged up to their eyeballs at any given time, and we already live in a society where previously normal human behaviors are considered deviant and in need of medical treatment. Plus, we already have laws that force people to undergo certain medical treatments like vaccinations. We can’t be far off from a world where the government decides that our normal human emotions are a threat to them, and forces us to take our happy pills, or else.
But what would it look like if our society carries on with this path for too long? What if we really were forced to undergo pharmacological induced obedience? It’s been written about in books, and seen in movies, but until recently no one had ever tried to portray that kind of dystopian future in a video game.
Enter We Happy Few, a new first person survival horror game that places you in the fictional town of Wellington Wells, which is located in an alternative timeline in 1960’s Britain. The citizens of the town, who all wear creepy clown makeup, are forced to take a mind altering drug called “joy,” and those who don’t take their joy are deemed “downers.” Downers of course, are either force-fed their pills, beaten or killed by strung-out mobs, or ostracized into ghettos.
As the player, you get to see the effects of the drug first hand. Joy forces you to see the world with rose-colored glasses, as everything appears brilliant and colorful, and not a thing in the world seems wrong. This makes everyone blissfully unaware of the fact that this dystopian society is falling apart, and faces severe shortages of food and joy pills.
You play as Arthur Hastings, whose day job is to go through old newspaper articles and redact unhappy stories, in much the same way that the Ministry of Truth operated in the book 1984. After seeing an old article that reminds him of his deceased brother, Arthur becomes distraught and can’t bring himself to take the joy pills any longer. Slowly, the drug wears off and Arthur begins to see just how nightmarish his world really is. (Warning, the video is quite graphic)
Don’t forget to take your joy!
Joshua Krause is a reporter, writer and researcher at The Daily Sheeple, where this article first appeared. Used with permission. He was born and raised in the Bay Area and is a freelance writer and author. You can follow Joshua’s reports at Facebook or on his personal Twitter. Joshua’s website is Strange Danger.
