Fleshy Disorder

Imagine you are living in Russia in the 1990’s. The Soviet system, a tragic farce toward the end, has finally imploded, leaving you liberated. You are a newly minted capitalist rational free agent and anything is possible.

On the other hand, your country is literally falling apart. Services simply stop; infrastructure crumbles. Pensions are not paid. Employees of the effective, no-nonsense Soviet public healthcare system work on as it collapses around them due to an absence of funding for equipment and medications. The prison system, suddenly engorged, is a massive breeding ground for drug-resistant tuberculosis, a death sentence for the criminal, the destitute and the unlucky. The roads fill with cracks and potholes, and no-one is coming to fix them. No-one may ever come to fix them.

Now imagine that you are a game developer with a penchant for science fiction and entomology. Vangers is your game.

Many years ago, my brother said, “I got this new game in the bargain bin. It’s cool, It’s like Frontier but with cars.” Elite plus Mad Max? I was intrigued.

I was not ready for Vangers. No-one was ready.