The Hungry Fly
Release Date: October 23, 2024
Developer: Erupting Avocado
Publisher: indie.io
Price: $9.99
my playtime: 3.8 hours
PSX-style graphics, ultra-weird, and ambiguous story full of symbolism. Sign me up! First and foremost this game is oppressive. It’s aesthetic, it’s story, everything. There is something about this era of graphics that lends itself so well to horror themes. The grainy visuals. The blurred distinguishing features.
A dark, twisted fairy tale in the vein of Aesop’s Fables. The Tortoise and the Hare. The Greedy Fox. The Hungry Fly. Lesson? You decide. I unfortunately never got to play Mister Mosquito on the PS2 but always wanted to. The Hungry Fly is like Mr. Mosquito’s backward cousin. My American Cousin.
Fly around talking to Caterpillars, Spiders, and Plants that look suspiciously like Venus Fly Traps. Go into a Plant’s mouth to be transported to a room whose time is relational to “Bath Time”. Explore around the room, eat everyday items that pulsate… memories.
What is “Bath Time” you ask? Well, its you playing a mutilated human covered in scabs. One armed, left along by your Mother who needs to answer the phone. Phones seem to be a common element in these dark, symbolic, no straight forward answer, open to interpretation games. Maybe due to the unknown on the other end of the line. A disembodied voice.
Left alone to scrub-a-dub-dub in the tub. A painful, bloody affair that doesn’t end so well. At least in my first playthrough. The second ended slightly different. More… positive? One more run to go.
7/10
CM 4/14/25
Links:
https://eruptingavocado.com/the-hungry-fly/
(addendum 3)
I’ve found a variety of analysis on The Hungry Fly but all of them seem to be based on the demo and not the full game. In addition, they really zero in on the idea of the Fly representing a serial killer, with the caterpillars, and their memories, representing child victims. I see the validity in this point of view but also read an interview where the developer states thy purposely left the underlying meaning vague, as to be open to interpretation. Therefore, here are some alternative hypotheses:
Life feeds on life as Joseph Campbell expertly asserts in his book/interview “The Power of Myth”. Flies eat poop. The “end” product of life feeding on life. The memories, if you will, of the consumed. As the Plant within the game expounds, nothing ever dies here, it just changes. Life does not end with death, it just changes, feeds new life, a transformation into fuel. A repeating cycle that begins at the macro level and trickles down to the smallest of creatures, like our buddy The Hungry Fly.
We find out in Bath Time that aside from the Fly, we play an apparent invalid. Covered in scars or boils you can’t seem to speak or even move except a single, skinny, slow-moving arm. Your “Mother” seems to be your caretaker, the one washing you during Bath Time. What if? What if you are not a serial killer but rather an individual suffering from a debilitating virus, slowly killing you.
From a lack of stimulation you retreat into your memories, playing outside in the yard, the freedom of movement afforded a Fly. A yo-yo you can no longer play with. A lollipop you can no longer suck on. Your childhood memories.
In this state your Mother grows weary, the phone rings and she looks for any excuse to break away, exhausted and seeking reprieve. Alone you lay in the tub, watching insects slowly pass by. You attribute personalities to these insects. It gets dark. It’s all on you. Can you get up? Can you overcome? If you don’t get up your Mother never returns. You lay in the tub for 100 years, left to rot. Another memory to be eaten.
Hell, let’s abstract this another level and maybe it’s a perfectly normal person who feels the world has beaten them down. Depressed they reminisce about their childhood memories but even their memories are twisted and destroyed through manipulative influences such as the Spider. Wait a minute… is this game reminiscing on mine and other childhood memories of PlayStation games? Of Childhood Fables? Is this game, is The Hungry Fly… the spider? Mother?
Is this game telling me I have the option to wallow in memories, forever playing video games… and never getting up?
On the flipside what if your “Mother” is the serial killer, caterpillars represent child victims you lured to her reach, and now you yourself are her victim. Back at square one.
CM 4/16/25
This game has really stuck with me, huh? As I replay once again I am struck by the Plant’s initial statement. The Fly is searching for “dead” things to eat and the Plant says nothing dies here it just changes form. What does the Fly end up eating? Memories.
Is this game a statement on consciousness and duality? A complete reversal of the traditional religious sentiment that the flesh dies but the spirit lives. The Hungry Fly says the consciousness dies, the memories that form “you”, but the flesh continues on feeding worms that feed birds that feed larger animals and processes that produce everything around you today. All crashes into formlessness and forms anew.
I’ve officially finished with all three endings and the second (which oddly feels like the canon ending) is by far the most depressing. The feelings and the narration evoke the book Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. A story about a World War I soldier who gets deformed by an artillery shell such that he is only a torso. is face burned such that he has no way to speak or even see. He as no way to communicate that he’s even conscious. He jus wants to die. This novel was made into a black and white movie in 1971 (the novel was published in 1939). Coincidentally Metallica made a song called simply “One” that mirrored the story and its reflections to an uncanny degree. It was only after making the song they became aware of the novel and movie, ultimately buying the movie right completely and making one of the greatest music video movie mashups.
CM 4/17/25
