Nerding Day: PETA's Super Tofu Boy

I dumped beef and got zero telekinesis out of it. This is horseshit. Who promised godhood for my ability to enjoy restaurants–comics or sepia grifters? Someone’s gonna pay.

Round Three it is.

You don’t see M.I.I. (mental illness per inch) this high every day, unless you look outside. But PETA hasn’t locked down three branches, so it’s still amusing. The name Team Tofu (a-la Team Meat) already tips this as a Ctrl-R parody. Then the art drains the original’s spunk and joy, as if butchers ran art schools. This point’s a bit technical, but you’re a smart crowd: Tofu Boy’s forehead looks like an ass. His Dreamworks face is mooning you.

But none of that matters. This matters.

Adults with dreams wrote that line. And its peers:

Meet the hottest mascot since Rayman. We all wanted to drill down Rayman, right? Right.

To be clear: those are all in-game dating tips. Imagine, as Earth becomes a beef-scented coffin, focusing on “Our mascot’s more fuckable.” Which Tofu Boy verifiably isn’t, given his forehead ass. If you dig that, you represent 100% of Tofu Boy’s fandom, and don’t exist.

Baffling, considering these aren’t purebred idiots. PETA gets provocation. Not when it helps or how to capitalize or if it's a good idea or why you do it, just results. A soulful approach to trolling, really. Theirs is not to question why, but simply to post. There’s a purity to the strike, like a tiger in a daycare.

It didn’t always land.

Some context, for those with productive weekends: Super Tofu Boy is Peta’s effort at nothing, because they didn’t try. But at face value, the flash game parodies Super Meat Boy. A platformer that looked like this:

Some levels took a few tries.

It plays like life feels.

Now, this might just be the food poisoning or imperial rot talking, but targeting Super Meat Boy seems extra pointless. There’s already a platformer playing slaughterhouse excess for comedy. Called Super Meat Boy. The normal game makes industrial meat gross. And every developer is either indigent or a greedsack–they could’ve pitched a crossover. It sounds like a reach, but so does Tito fucking Ortiz.

Super Tofu Boy repels merit. We’ll learn no craft, see no beauty, and find no wisdom. We’ll simply stuff another neuron with trash.

Let’s play.

Looks like a normal day: Tofu Boy’s fuck-powers have crushed another union. A common theme across web series. It’s exciting to see the first black PETA hero.

Yeah, they’re fuckin’. I’m finally enlightened enough to appreciate PETA cinema. I hope they start a streaming service soon.

But wait! Indie game mascot Meat Boy won’t let PETA’s self-insert wittol him without a felony! He’s followed the path of community pillar and 2025 Grammy winner Chris Brown, and kidnapped Bandage Girl. At first that sounded like the braying of a deranged idiot, but I typed it. I went to Princeton before the Great Negro Purge, so I must be right.

I almost feel called to adventure. But I need just a little more stupid to pull me along. No really, I’m still dehydrated. Simple, bolded words would be nice.

Dope. At my current speed, this is art. Or am I confusing it with water? How much Super Tofu Boy makes my head stop hurting?

Simple enough. Super Meat Boy was born in the Newgrounds trenches, so I can respect four chords and spacebar. I give PETA Games plenty of shit, mostly for existing, but there’s strength in the basics.

Rough basics. You might judge this for looking like ass. But it also feels like ass. Focus on the substance, or the gaping chasm therein. The controls are—

Hmm. The controls are—

Shit. The controls—

Christ’s fictional corpse. The controls suck monkey. The first world is a non-entity, so it scarcely matters. But the level designs start trying (e.g.: robbing the source material) in World 2, a subtle shot at McDonalds’ called “The Golden Arches.” There’s a dozen slick ways to riff on the softest corporate target in the world, but they involve paying developers more PETA merch. Or at least high-grade PETA merch. Maybe something Tito signed.

Cutting.

I’ll be a bit more specific. The controls hurt Super Tofu Boy more than the creative stillbirth, culty sponsor, or rotting seed of sloth in mankind’s heart. They’re slippery. Slope-of-human-standards slippery. After a week of cancelled flights, Bali Belly, and USAid implosions, they’re the main reason I don’t feel in control.

I’ll explain by typing in turbulence, with one finger, eyes closed. Thirty second time limit. Ready? Tjese contold ste like driving s mrlting cybertruc blibd in a torgnado whilfe getting toothy rosf head frim a werewoklf witg your fsther ib law baxkseat driving.

Note: the in-law is also a werewolf.

You can’t afford that in a masocore game, platformer, or parody of a famous masocore platformer. Or any game you want to deliver endorphins, really. That’s like a sport where each game lobotomizes a player. You’d need an even more braindead audience for it to catch on. Or one that simply worshipped braindeath.

Hence half these death shots starring one level.

It gets old.

A final note on the controls, before this becomes a one-note manifesto: Tofu Boy’s a little too focused on slamming ass. Understandable, with all that 4-bit sex appeal. His matches are so distracting that he’ll forget what the “left” key means. Homelier mascots just…go left. But pretty privilege gives Tofu Boy options. He’ll start left, reconsider mid-wall jump, and take you wherever the wind blows. Sometimes, that’s left. That’s when you get to move on. Otherwise, you’re cursing on an Air Asia flight, almost half as loudly as the other passengers.

Anyway, aside from responding like a son that hates you, the setup follows Super Meat Boy. You sprint across deathtraps to rescue Bandage Girl, the local non-union Princess Peach. More importantly, you scrounge for band-aids that unlock bonuses. Only I’ve played other fucking PETA games. So I know that the bonuses are horseshit at best, snuff films at worst. No sale.

World One has a slaughterhouse look, leaving Team Tofu nowhere to go.

World Two, as stated, riffs on McDonald’s. I’d like to leave this alone, since Mickey D’s only sells food in the most legalistic sense. But it’s somehow thinner than it is lazy.

World Three is the “Bacon Factory,” which is like the source material’s “Salt Factory” without the clever venom or themed hazards. It has less gamewall bullshit than World Two, so add difficulty progression to the memory hole. Anything can fit in the memory hole! I punt another year or amendment down there whenever things feel heavy.

Large “Bacon Factory” signs help you remember where you are, after picking the level and sprinting around severed pig heads. You might hope they’re a riff on the Oscar-Meyer logo. Close: they’re a riff on deadlines. A shrine to limited vision with even more limited time. PETA’s inured me to blood, but the sloth is fresh every time.

And I do laugh. Maybe fun’s where you make it.

Believe it or not, today’s grumbling had a semi-useful motive. See, I replayed Super Tofu Boy during a stomach riot. The kind undercooked fruits don’t cause. I’ll never be more vulnerable to Super Tofu Boy’s message.

This still sucks.

But there’s a fun coda.

Team Meat treated the sudden rush of headlines like any developer smaller than Nintendo—frenzied typing and manic laughter. Leading to Tofu Boy as a playable, canon part of Super Meat Boy. He’s a bit slower, and dying, but the left and right buttons send you left and right. And he still has raw sexual force.

I’d climb in that broth.

Man, I could crush some miso right now. Tofu’s fantastic, once you skip the recipes pretending it’s veal. I think I’ll tilt the green windmill this spring, as long as I don’t hit some kind of vampiric beef relapse before then. If I wake up surrounded by headless cattle, I’ll let you know.

Thanks, Team Meat! And not PETA Games, even a little!

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Jeff Orasky, a man with a forehead that certainly does not look like an ass.

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