How About That Thing?

I confess, I’m not normally one for “listacles”, as we apparently call them now. You know what I’m talking about. The sort of top-10 lists places like Buzzfeed, or Ranker, or Watch Mojo fart out on a regular basis. I was never someone who actively searched for such fluff… But I didn’t mind when my favorite ranters from back in the day decided to unload such things.

At the same time, there was a topic I originally refrained from. Largely because I wanted to cover several board games from the past, but couldn’t decide on which one to do on the grounds they all kind of had the same overall joke: “boy, this game is actually kind of dark if you think about it long enough.”

After thinking on it for a while, I decided now would probably be as good a time as any to dish out my first official listacle, and just cover all of them in one go. I don’t plan on doing this ESPECIALLY often, so don’t get your hopes up for more. However, I’m not against doing more of these in the distant future.

So without further preamble, here’s some of the most morbid board games I’ve ever seen.

Up first…

The Grape Escape is a board game I never actually owned, but I remember the commercial quite well. The song they used, a parody of that stereotypical Italian song they always play whenever a very Italian character was on screen, was a lot catchier than it had any right to be. The commercial itself used claymated figures when not showing the kids playing the actual game, and I’m just a sucker for claymation. And if all of that doesn’t count, then how about all the grizzly ways the anthropomorphic grapes get MURDERED?

That’s right, kids, this game features some alarmingly gruesome fates for your little clay grape people if they happen to land on the wrong spot. Including, but not limited to, getting crushed under a giant boot, chopped up by some saws, and getting crushed by what I assume is a giant rolling pin mechanism of some sort. Sure, they make up some rule about how you can take the mangled remains of your murdered grape character, remold them back to life, and start from the starting space… But honestly, that really doesn’t change the fact your little guy just got squished to a pulp.

In fact, the fact they keep coming back after getting brutalized like that makes me think this game might be set in hell. I remember once hearing hell is a place where you basically get killed horrifically over and over again, bu keep coming back the next day for more. After aall, where else is there to go, Detroit?

And if that’s not the case, then I’m pretty sure this was the board game that inspired Jigsaw to build elaborate deathtraps. Just saying.

Next up…

Before people were torturing anthropomorphic grapes in order to get their jollies, there was Splat.

On one hand, the sadism on display was a bit more… Primitive. Or, at least, not quite as creative. Rather than elaborate deathtraps for unsuspecting grapes, you’re just hoping bugs land on just the right space. Then, you unleash your unholy wrath upon them, and squish them beyond all recognition.

Again, it’s not as… Inventive, as Grape Escape. However, every serial killer gets their start somewhere. Whether it’s pulling the wings off of flies, or torturing rats, or sniping the CEO of an insurance company, that’s always how it starts. Before long, the addiction becomes too intense, and something like that becomes too tame to satisfy that urge.

The next thing you know you’re in prison after murdering at least ten random people who didn’t deserve it, awaiting the death penalty yourself. And it all started with a game where you were told it was okay to squish innocent claymated bugs. The blood of the innocent is on your hands, you monster.

Okay, I swear, not ALL of these are about squishing claymated characters. For example, there’s…

Ah yes, the legendary Mr. Bucket. Apparently, this one was ESPECIALLY famous at one point. Primarily because 4chan got ahold of it, and because 4chan’s mission in life is to make sure nobody has any nice things ever, they warped an already unintentionally creepy character into something even worse. Don’t believe me? I’m sure Know Your Meme, or some other site just like it has an archive of it somewhere.

Though unlike CockMonger, or Pepe the Frog, they really didn’t have to try all that hard with this one. Because holy hell did this thing give me the creeps.

As a kid, I remember having legit nightmares about this thing. I don’t remember how they went specifically anymore (thank god), but I was pretty sure I had to feed him the colorful balls in order to keep him from eating ME.

And it’s right bout then that I realized that this was the third dream in a row where in something tried to eat me. Still mind blowing decades later finding out that there are people who spank it to this sort of thing.

Yeah, I really have nothing else to say that the rest of the internet probably hasn’t already. Mr. Bucket was one of those things that tried to come off as endearing and charming, but ultimately ended up being creepy and unpleasant.

And last up, we have…

Look, we’ve all had our fun. I make jokes about Splat being the precursor to one’s path to being a serial killer, and I’ve shared silly anecdotes about how I used to have nightmares about Mr. Bucket trying to eat me, and we all had a good chuckle. But Pop the Pig? This game right here just disturbs me.

The whole point of the game is simple. Feed the pig burgers until he eventually pops. If you make him pop, then I guess you’re the loser, but that’s beside the point.

They’ve literally made a board game where the objective is to make an innocent pig eat to death. This is the kind of gruesomeness I saw in Se7en back in the day. Except instead of being horrifyingly repulsive, we’re all supposed to have a laugh about the fact we just killed a pig by stuffing its face full of burgers.

Seriously, I can’t think of anything that out morbids this. And no, shit like Cards Against Humanity doesn’t count, because that sort of thing is morbid ON PURPOSE. It’s going out of its way to offend, traumatize, and alienate the normies, where as stuff like Pop the Pig managed to do it to me without even trying. I was in the minority when I saw this commercial back in 2014 (I think it was), and I wouldn’t be surprised if I’m in the minority now in 2025. Either way, my idea of a fun game doesn’t include feeding a pig to death like a fucking psycho.

But hey, I guess it could be worse. You could’ve been feeding it hot dogs the entire time.