Play the Twin Peaks Video Game: Retro Fun for David Lynch Fans

They made a video game out of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalk­er, so why not Twin Peaks.

Twin Peaks is, of course, a sem­i­nal cult TV series, a sur­re­al­ist soap opera spun out of the mind of David Lynch. When it came out in the late 80s, Amer­i­ca was seized with the show’s cen­tral mys­tery – who killed Lau­ra Palmer? A tor­tured blonde beau­ty queen who wound up dead, wrapped in plas­tic. Its first sea­son (US view­ers can watch it on Hulu) was eas­i­ly one of the best ever on tele­vi­sion with great char­ac­ters, inside jokes and just enough Lynchi­an weird­ness to unnerve a main­stream audi­ence with­out total­ly freak­ing them out. Too bad, then, that the qual­i­ty of the show’s sec­ond sea­son went off a cliff.

You would expect a video game about the series to be about the search for Lau­ra Palmer’s killer, but no. Instead, the game, an Atari 2600-style work called Black Lodge 2600, is a riff on the show’s final angry episode. In that episode, FBI agent Dale Coop­er delves into the oth­er­world­ly Black Lodge, which, in spite of its name, is dec­o­rat­ed pri­mar­i­ly in red cur­tains. There, Coop­er is con­front­ed by his dop­pel­ganger. Lynch’s Jun­gian obses­sions have nev­er been as bald as in that episode.

Basi­cal­ly, if you felt like your well-worn copy of Pit­fall was strange­ly lack­ing in busts of Venus De Milo and a per­vad­ing sense of the Unheim­liche, then this video game might be for you. The game’s man­u­al, which has way too many excla­ma­tion points, sets the stage:

A day in the FBI was nev­er like this before! You are Spe­cial Agent Dale Coop­er and you’ve found your­self trapped inside the Black Lodge, a sur­re­al and dan­ger­ous place between worlds. Try as you might, you can’t seem to find any­thing but the same room and hall­way no mat­ter which way you turn. Worse yet, your dop­pel­ganger is in hot pur­suit! You have no choice but to keep run­ning through the room and hall­way (or is it more than one?) and above all else, don’t let your dop­pel­ganger touch you!

[…]

You’ll find quick­ly that you’re not alone in the Black Lodge, though your friends are few and far between. Not only that, the Lodge itself seems to be active­ly try­ing to trip you up at all times! You’ll be dodg­ing chairs and crazed Lodge res­i­dents all while try­ing to keep your own san­i­ty. How long can this go on?

Based on this descrip­tion, I can’t tell if this game is com­pelling or if it will mere­ly evoke the same feel­ing of exis­ten­tial futil­i­ty I feel every time I call Time Warn­er Cable. Watch a video of the game below and judge for your­self. Or start down­load­ing the game and the man­u­al here.

Note: If you have prob­lems get­ting the game going on a Mac, then fol­low these Black Lodge trou­bleshoot­ing instruc­tions: Go to “Sys­tem Pref­er­ences”, open “Secu­ri­ty & Pri­va­cy”, click the pad­lock to allow changes, then click the “Any­where” option under “Allow appli­ca­tions down­loaded from.”

via Wel­come to Twin Peaks

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Lynch Presents the His­to­ry of Sur­re­al­ist Film (1987)

David Lynch Explains How Med­i­ta­tion Enhances Our Cre­ativ­i­ty

David Lynch Teach­es You to Cook His Quinoa Recipe in a Weird, Sur­re­al­ist Video

Dum­b­land, David Lynch’s Twist­ed Ani­mat­ed Series (NSFW)

Jonathan Crow is a Los Ange­les-based writer and film­mak­er whose work has appeared in Yahoo!, The Hol­ly­wood Reporter, and oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low him at @jonccrow. And check out his blog Veep­to­pus, fea­tur­ing lots of pic­tures of bad­gers and even more pic­tures of vice pres­i­dents with octo­pus­es on their heads.  The Veep­to­pus store is here.