Fork Parker's Crunch Out is a homebrew business management Video Game developed by Mega Cat Studios and published by Devolver Digital. Based on a fictional character that Devolver presents as their CFO, the game was developed for the purpose of raising awareness of the abuse that game developers face during crunch
, with all profits made from the game being donated to the mental health advocacy group Take This.
Fork Parker is the CFO of a video game company, so his aim is to make new games to make sure it stays profitable against the new video game company, Cashcow Games. To that end, he works his employees (or "minions" as he calls them) to the bone to make sure the games are the best his company can provide. To make sure that his developers are working round the clock coding games, he has to keep them fed by bringing them food, bring them coffee so they don't fall asleep, whip them back into reality when they start losing it, and reviving them when they work so hard that they pass out. Also, he needs to keep distractions out of the work space, and try to keep himself from cuddling with his pig, Pork.
The game was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System on February 19th, 2019.
Fork Parker's Crunch Out contains examples of the following tropes:
- Bad Boss: The game is all about playing an abusive employer who forces his employees to work nonstop through physical abuse (whacking them with a cane to keep them focused as well as shocking them to resuscitate them) as well as keeping them from taking lunch breaks by personally bringing them food.
- Continuing is Painful: If you get a Game Over and continue, you will lose all upgrades you purchased up to that point, meaning you have to save up money in the later, harder levels to buy them again.
- Cuteness Proximity: Coming into contact with Pork will cause Fork to drop everything to play with it.
- Expy: The games Fork's company makes are such titles as "Alley Fighter" and "Wyvern Quest".
- Minigame: Two.
- One has the player pushing random buttons to fix the company's internet connection.
- One has Fork using Pork to catch food dropped by a delivery drone and shoot it back at the drone to bring it down.
- Overworked Sleep: Your employees tend to fall asleep at their desk. Fork can wake them up by bringing them coffee.
- Piggy Bank: Pork is a living example, always walking around the office. Touching him will make Fork pick him up, forcing you to mash buttons to put him back down.
- Sprint Shoes: The Wingtip shoes, which cost $7,000.00 to purchase from the upgrade screen, allow Fork to be able to move quicker.
- Timed Mission: You have a time limit in which game development must be completed.
