Should you take 'Torture' seriously?

The man behind the mayhem
With more than 200,000 views and a rating of 9.3 (out 10) from the 200 players who’ve reviewed it, “The Torture Game 2” has been more than well received at Newgrounds.com, a site that allows pretty much anyone to upload Flash games for pretty much anyone else to play, free of charge.

Here, the game’s many fans use the words “fun,” “amazing” and “totally awesome” to describe it. They post comments begging the creator to make a “Torture Game 3.” They happily suggest ways to improve it: “You need a samurai sword in the next one, a flamethrower, a fist, a mace, a grenade…”

And many of them insist that it’s a “great stress reliever.”

“Dude this game was soooo awesome it really helps to vent anger,” enthused someone going by the name Doomfire1.

But what I wanted to know was, why a torture game, of all things?

When I contacted the developer through the Newgrounds Web site, he told me that his name is Carl Havemann, that he’s 19 and lives in Johannesburg, South Africa.

“I never thought of it as a stress reliever,” he said. “The only thing I meant it to be was something simple and pointless meant only for entertainment.”

Pointless entertainment? Really? But what did he want people to get out of playing it?

“You're supposed to make anything you want out of it,” he told me more than once.

Havemann, who's entirely self-taught, said he’s not a professional game developer nor does he want to become one. He said he’s been surprised that so many people have liked his torture game so much. But what about the negative reaction to his game, I asked? What about the people who accused him of making something so vile and callous that, surely, its existence must be a sign that the end times draw near?

“I don't mind people disliking my game,” he said, “but some of them are too serious about something so simple and basically meaningless.”

I have to admit, I was disappointed. I wanted there to be some reason for the ugliness in his game. I wanted “The Torture Game 2” to have something to say. But it was as mute as the victim tied up on the screen before me.

I tried to explain to Havemann that torture is anything but meaningless to many people — especially here in America, where, every day, we learn more and more about how our own government has been secretly torturing people in places like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and in secret prisons around the world … how every day we hear our leaders tell us that, no really, torture is A-OK.

And then I decided to undo the bunch I’d gotten my panties in.

Yes, “The Torture Game 2” made me vaguely nauseous when I played it, and yes, the unbridled enthusiasm from some of its fans seems more than a little creepy (wrote GaryTheClown: “I like ripping off limbs, then before they can hit the ground I grab them and nail them back to the body”).

But it occurred to me, how could Havemann (or any of his fans, for that matter) be blamed for telling us not to take seriously the torture of a digital mannequin when members of the most powerful government in the world keep telling us the very same thing … only their torture game involves real people?

Come to think of it, maybe if some of the aforementioned government folks blew off a little steam tormenting a digital person or two, they wouldn’t feel the need to go about torturing real people. Clearly, not playing violent video games hasn’t made them any less inclined to do horrible, unspeakable things to people tied up in dark rooms from which they have no hope of escape.

While Havemann may not have had any ambition other than entertainment when he made “The Torture Game 2,” he told me I could make anything I wanted out of the game. Well then, here’s what I make of “The Torture Game” — I think it’s merely a reflection of our sick, sick, sick times.

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