If you’ve been on the internet at some point in the past few years, you’ve seen the meme: a cartoon of cute dog in a nice hat, sitting calmly as the room around him is covered in flames. Unfazed, the pup merely says “this is fine,” a perfect encapsulation of our collective acceptance of the chaos and dread surrounding us.
Turns out, that lil guy is moving beyond the memes. Comic creator KC Green revealed on Wednesday that he’s partnering with Numskull Games to make a video game based on Question Hound, the dog in the meme. A Kickstarter campaign for the game, fittingly titled This is Fine: Maximum Cope, will go live on September 26.
Folks… @NumskullGames and I are makin’ a game. And we’d like to ask for your help: https://t.co/2ly2r5oGyp pic.twitter.com/nJofVhesEq
— kc gr ee n (@kcgreenn) September 18, 2024
According to the Kickstarter page, This is Fine: Maximum Cope will be “a charming platformer where our beloved character faces off against the manifestations of his fears and anxieties.” Green elaborated a little further in the Kickstarter’s description, saying Question Hound will dive “deep into his subconscious to fight the monsters and demons we all similarly have running around our brain.”
“Run, jump, and use your new skills to explore Question Hound’s crowded mind and help him knock back the nasties!,” the description continues. “Help him keep the waves of depression at bay! And shine a light on his darkest fears! Maybe we all might learn some kind of coping skills along the way?”
Man, I hope so. If there’s any lesson we can take from the ubiquity of “This is fine,” it’s that we could all learn some more coping skills. Green created the comic all the way back in 2012, and in a 2017 interview reflecting on the popularity of the meme, he said it was came from “a very simple feeling that we all have, of things going bad around us and ignoring that feeling because there’s not much you can do about a house on fire.”
Numskull Games, meanwhile, is a UK-based game publisher known for titles like Coffee Talk, TEVI, and the upcoming Blazing Strike.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she’s not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
