Developer of indie RPG YIIK: A Postmodern RPG, Andrew Allanson, has been called out as it seems his game uses text taken directly from Haruki Murakami’s “After Dark”.

To further evidence the developer having intimate knowledge of Murakami’s work, he stated himself in an episode of the “The Dick Show” podcast he was “trying to make the video game version of a Chuck Palahniuk novel, or a Haruki Murakami novel”:

“I was trying to make the video game version of a Chuck Palahniuk novel, or a Haruki Murakami novel. To try and do something a little different y’know? But it turns out, everyone just wants Ayn Rand-ian written characters, where the main villain is like Wesley Mouch. You immediately know what to feel about each character.” […] When you make an unlikable character, people expect Sherlock Holmes or Dr. House. They want flawed heroes, but only to the extent that they’re beautiful and intelligent and slightly Asperger-y. But they manage to be dicks to everyone and they get away with it because they bring some sort of savant-ism that saves the world. So if you make a character who’s just some hipster obsessed with the paranormal who hasn’t grown up yet and treats his friends like shit, people immediately feel- they don’t know how to process this. But if you put it in a novel, people get it in a novel. But gamers are, y’know. I’m just gonna say though, this is not to say my game is above any criticism, like I know my game has problems, it’s not perfect, it’s my first 3D game I ever made.”

Set up as an indie darling that was supposed to push the JRPG genre forward (despite being a Western-developed title), YIIK has been consistently followed by controversies and harsh criticism.

YIIK: A Postmodern RPG clearly failed to make the impact it promised and was hyped to make and now likely serves as a cautionary tale for every game developer out there of what not to do when trying to push the envelope.

YIK is now available for the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC.