The famous meme about the anthropomorphic dog Question Hound drinking coffee in a burning house has been transformed into a full-fledged game project. The game, called This Is Fine: Maximum Cope, combines elements of a metroidvania and a surreal platformer, and has been released on all major gaming platforms.
The famous meme about the anthropomorphic dog Question Hound drinking coffee in a burning house has been transformed into a full-fledged game project. The game, called This Is Fine: Maximum Cope, combines elements of a metroidvania and a surreal platformer, and has been released on all major gaming platforms.
The project was realized thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, during which the authors raised over $50,000. KC Green, an American artist and animator who is the author of the original Question Hound comic, personally worked on the creation of the game.
The game’s plot unfolds in the protagonist’s inner world, which has become an amusement park built from human anxieties. Players, playing the role of the famous dog, will have to explore five worlds, each of which represents a certain negative emotional state: Humiliation, Fear, Defeat, Loss, and Regret. The enemies in the game are also thematic — from «biting toilet monsters» to flying textbooks symbolizing school failures.
The gameplay is based on collecting coffee beans, which serve as in-game currency for purchasing bonuses and restoring health. The game features 6 bosses, 28 collectibles, and 27 equipment bonuses. In addition, there are special «burning rest points» where the character can drink coffee and save progress.
The game is currently available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4/5, and Xbox. Despite the visual appeal and cult status of the original source, the project received mixed reviews at launch — currently only 74% positive reviews on Steam (based on 34 reviews). The game does not yet have Ukrainian localization.
The original Gunshow comic strip that spawned the «This is Fine» meme appeared in 2013. Since then, it has become a universal symbol of denial of catastrophic circumstances. The meme recently came under fire when AI startup Artisan used an image of the dog for its advertising campaign without the author’s permission.
KC Green reacted sharply to the company’s actions, calling for the posters to be defaced and saying he was already looking for lawyers to protect his rights. The conflict highlighted the acute problem of illegal use of creative content by artificial intelligence developers.
