Exploring Itch.io's Weird Meme Games With 'Mr. Krabs OD's On Ketamine,' 'Meme Fighter' And 'Meme Messenger'

If you're looking for games a little off the beaten path, itch.io is many gamers' first stop. Itch.io allows anyone to upload their games in any state of development for any price. It's become one of the top spots for indie games on the web, and it's home to plenty of breakout hits.

One of the most recent hits is Mr. Krabs Overdoses On Ketamine, a video game based on a meme that's become somewhat of a thing in the speedrunning community. Not to mention, it's free. Who could resist? But Mr. Krabs Overdoses On Ketamine is just the tip of the meme iceberg on itch.io. There are hundreds of games based on and inspired by memes in the catalog. Better yet, the vast majority of them are free (as memes should be). But are they any good? We had a look at a few to find out.

Mr. Krabs Overdoses on Ketamine

Of course, we're starting with the big boy. Mr. Krabs Overdoses On Ketamine is a game by itch.io user ThrillDaWill, who's responsible for a number of other short meme games on the platform, including a constant runner game called Ride Wife, Life Good.

Mr. Krabs Overdoses On Ketamine starts off nice and fast. You hit "Play" and you're dropped into Bikini Bottom where you have quick access to a bottle of ketamine and a boat to drive. If you hit "1" you can take the ketamine, which gives you a temporary speed boost. If you hit "E" you can get in the boat and cruise around the cursed wasteland that is Bikini Bottom filled with zombie-like citizens. It all looks pretty good, honestly, and recreates the SpongeBob atmosphere (albeit extremely cursed) quite well.

The whole game can be beaten in under 10 minutes, but what a 10 minutes it is. First, you visit a hopelessly addicted SpongeBob, who tasks you with collecting five bottles of ketamine hidden across Bikini Bottom. After that, you visit Patrick Star, who ups the ante by tasking you with ending a man's life. Kill four citizens of your choice in town, return to Patrick, and he gives you your next task, which is to, umm … "orally pleasure" Squidward over at the Krusty Krab. The amateur voice acting is consistently hilarious and the way the game takes these dark turns keeps the experience exciting — not to mention the gags are great. One standout section has you talk to Sandy Cheeks, who speaks like an Animal Crossing character. Honestly, the dialogues are so great it's worth playing for them alone. This game was made with all the intentions of a top-tier shitposter, and it shows in every way.

The climax of the game has you face Plankton in a coin toss, after which he dies an explosive death and the game is over. Honestly, by the end, I felt a little bit disappointed that at no point does Mr. Krabs actually overdose on ketamine. Maybe Mr. Krabs is overdosing on ketamine the entire game, which is why all the characters are so grotesque, and the atmosphere so uncomfortable. Deep, right?

There's a reason why this is such a well-loved meme game. Not only is it considerably more well-made than many meme games (the bugs and glitches are mostly intentional, adding to the cursed atmosphere and making for a better experience), but it's funny. Based on just how many speedruns there are of the game, there's clearly some level of skill to it, even if unintentional. Mr. Krabs Overdoses On Ketamine isn't just a great meme, it's become an admirable game thanks to its dedicated community. Good compared to a AAA title? Definitely not. But worth playing? Absolutely.

Meme Fighter

One of the more popular meme-based games on itch.io is Meme Fighter, which is, you guessed it, a fighting game where you play as memes. It sounds and looks intriguing straight from the get-go, especially thanks to its cover art depicting a selection of the characters in the game in all their amateur 3D-modelled glory.

Unfortunately, beyond the hilarious character models, there's not much that's interesting about this game. Yes, it's a functioning fighter. You can perform combos and special moves, you can block and there's a wide array of characters and stages, but the moves are the same for every character without anything special put into each individual fighter besides their models. What's more, the game is extremely difficult on the "normal" setting and far too easy on the "easy" setting, to the point where it's immediately frustrating.

It's a fun and novel idea to be able to pit Shrek against Trump, Shaggy against Big Chungus or Doge against the entirety of the Me and the Boys meme, but it's also one that gets old fast. You can tell that the developer wanted this to be more meme than game, slapped together as a novelty and little else. It's something you might have a fun afternoon with, pitting various fighters against each other just to see what each stage and character model looks like, but even doing that becomes tiring. There's a lot of potential content here, but nothing that makes it engaging beyond the surface level. The game is free, and it's worth trying for a laugh, especially if you have a friend around, but you probably won't be coming back for seconds.

Meme Messenger

This last selection is an Android game made for the VGDC Spring 2020 Game Jam. Meme Messenger is essentially a flashy version of rock-paper-scissors with a meme twist. The whole game is built to look like a text messenger app. First, you tap "add contact" in the top-right corner and an opponent spawns. You then click on that opponent and you're brought to a messenger UI with them. By sending "start!" to your opponent, you begin a "meme duel."

Your meme arsenal sits across the bottom of the screen. Duels are exactly like rock-paper-scissors, except in this case it's "Reaction Meme-Text Meme-Deep Fried Meme." Reaction Meme beats Text Meme, Text Meme beats Deep Fried Meme, and Deep Fried Meme beats Reaction Meme. Every duel is ranked best two out of three, and each time you win you get a new, random meme to add to your collection. The game goes on like this until, assumedly, you collect every meme, after which you can compete in duels to your hearts content.

This is a meme game that does almost everything right in terms of being a better game than it is a meme. It's not based on any one specific meme, making it much less dated and restricted than other offerings. It's also fairly original in its presentation, despite being rock-paper-scissors at its core. The messenger theme is unique, and so is the gameplay surrounding the duels.

Sometimes it can just be fun messaging the AI player and seeing what strange pre-written retort they'll come back with. This isn't a game you're going to come back to endlessly, as the grind gets tiring, but it's fun for what it is and marks the start of what could be a really fun meme game with more polish down the line. That probably won't happen since this is just a quick game made for a competition, but hey, if you have an Android device, you could do a lot worse than Meme Messenger, a game that shows off what a meme game should look like.

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