Tux and Fanny, based on the Instagram movie, is a delightful surprise

Fanny, Tuxed and Fanny, the 2019 film by Albert Birney, begins with the two characters — both pixelated in a striking, blocky style, one purple and the other pink — kicking around a soccer ball before a cat with fleas strolls by. In a series 79 of one-minute Instagram clips, the characters were created. They explore friendship and other hijinks. The New Yorker described it as possessing “giddy inventiveness” that’s both “precise and emotionally calibrated,” its simply-drawn world and characters toying with a sweet and strange story.

This idea was later adapted to a videogame, also known as Fanny, Tuxed and Fanny, and it’s something of a prequel. Birney and Gabriel Koenig, Ghost Time Games (Test Tube Titans), Fanny, Tuxed and Fanny once again stars Tux and Fanny — still purple, pink, and pixelated — who want to kick around a soccer ball. But they’ve found it deflated. Of course, it’s not as simple as just finding a pump and filling the soccer ball with air. As in the film, Fanny, Tuxed and FannyIt is always exciting. It all starts with inflating the soccer ball. Fanny, Tuxed and FannyThere are so many questions. Their journey begins inside their small, shared home. Then it spreads outside to a ever-expanding, new world.

It’s both a puzzle game and an exploration game, clearly inspired by retro point-and-click adventures. Fanny, Tux and Fanny are all characters that the player controls. A flea is also included. Each of these characters can be played, and I must swap between them if I’m to solve the game’s mysteries. There are many puzzles, stories and exciting new games that can be created quickly. For instance, I’ve been following the consequences of one simple action — making a cup of tea — for hours now, and somehow, that quest has led me straight to a pair of vomit-soaked boats. Although sometimes absurd, silly and even surreal, it is often funny. Fanny, Tuxed and Fanny’s various story threads balance humor with genuine joy and a dark bleakness, interspersed between sweet moments of discovery and introspection.

These threads can be followed Fanny, Tuxed and Fanny transcends its original art style by introducing new games — literally found on floppy discs hidden in the world — that are essential to Tux and Fanny’s lives. These games allow the characters to enter surreal worlds, become claymation or be rendered in watercolor. Heck, there’s even a home simulation video game that has me playing a looped section over and over again; the loop changes slightly each time, eventually descending into nonsense. It makes perfect sense.

Fanny, Tuxed and FannyIt may seem like there is no structure. But that’s not how it feels to play. It’s structured around the joy and surprise of discovery, and it’s clear that every seemingly random detail — down to a worm in a digestive tract — has a purpose. It is important to know this. Fanny, Tuxed and Fanny has an appealing sense of ease; it’s not that the game’s puzzles aren’t hard, but it’s comforting to know that every piece of them has a purpose. Sometimes, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with a certain object, but instead of stressing out or getting stuck on an idea, I simply move along and keep searching the world. Fanny, Tuxed and Fanny is leading me to something, somewhere — I just haven’t found that particular something just yet.

Fanny, Tuxed and FannyThis allows us to discover for the sheer joy of discovering. I’ll hear birdsong and pull out my binoculars to find a robin or an owl, which is then lovingly catalogued in hand-drawn detail in a birdwatching book back at Tux and Fanny’s home. In real-life birdwatching is also a joy. The same goes for bugs, other critters, and even plant life: I’ve felt delight in finding a crayon-drawn flower, or a complex pixel bug. I imagine I’ve played about 10 hours of the game so far, and there’s so much yet that I don’t know. More importantly, there’s so much that I still wantFind out. Fanny, Tuxed and FannyIt is an unexpected delight that makes you wonder: “What is the answer?” There are endless answers.