The Epitaph of Anything Goes
I decided that this morning I would talk about The Museum of Anything Goes and the subject of lost media.
For the uninitiated, The Museum of Anything Goes is an obscure "game" released in 1995 by Wayzata Technologies, a company that is so far under the radar that I was unable to find any useful information about it outside of TMoAG.
All I could uncover is that they published a few multimedia projects (which are essentially lost now) alongside some asset discs (clipart, SFX, etc.). That's it.
The brains behind Wayzata are even more difficult to locate these days: there are only two main names credited inside of TMoAG - Michael Markowski and Maxwell S. Robertson.
The game alleges that Michael and Maxwell are well known in the art world, but any additional information about the duo is scarce beyond the confines of the museum. Attempting to search for either name online turns up plenty of rabbit holes - but none of them have anything to do with the Michael and Maxwell responsible for TMoAG.
This is particularly fascinating because it essentially means that TMoAG is the only accessible record of their lives. Before we dig any deeper into that statement, let me step back and actually address what this game is.
The Museum of Anything Goes is, by definition, a virtual art museum. Functionally it's a prerendered point-and-click adventure game where you can explore a bunch of multimedia exhibits that give the surface-level impression of a children's edutainment game, but once you start exploring further it reveals a side that firmly plants the game's feet into a haze of substance abuse and surreal humor.
Many exhibits are essentially just toying around with the astonishing new powers of CD-ROM. Everything has to make noise. Everything has to spin and flitter around. There's an air of genuine excitement for the medium, and I can't help but find it extremely charming.
The game also functions as a scrapbook, filled to the brim with photos of random trips to the zoo and snow-mobile rides with friends. At one point we even get insight into something as specific as Michael's one-year job as a tutor at a Chicago middle school, where he talks about how it opened his eyes to how poorly funded and mismanaged the school system is.
It's simultaneously quaint and chilling to see so much personal history packed into a world doomed to obscurity. As I explore the deeper parts of the museum, I contemplate if the creators are still alive today. It's a bit morbid, but imagine that - you create a single obscure game with your friend and it's all the world can see. TMoAG is currently the only surviving piece that gives any insight into who these two men were.
While many exhibits are lighthearted or nonsensical, there are occasional moments where the game dips into the eerie.
One exhibit has the player kill a man by dropping him from the sky, and after burying him you open the coffin to a video of a rotting pig carcass being put into an incinerator.
Other exhibits just feature simple 3D renders shifting around a dark screen while haunting groans play in the background.
While I would never refer to the game as "scary," its darker moments combined with the occasional mature subject matter definitely begs the question: Who is this game for?
You have to remember that this game came out long before the concept of "alt-games" had become codified in the digital space. Sure, unconventional digital art had been around before the advent of 256 colors, but TMoAG was being sold on disk as a game! It came out 2 years after DOOM hit shelves!
The trend of using the PC for entertainment was certainly on the upswing around that time, but It's not like TMoAG had a massive audience to find a niche in. With its mature themes it certainly wasn't suited for the kids market either, so who was it for?
At the end of the day, it's a moot question. We already know the target audience for The Museum of Anything Goes: Nobody. It doesn't have an audience because by its nature, TMoAG wasn't being made FOR someone, it was being made BY someone. It's a raw, unfiltered form of personal expression.
I think games like these are pivotal, because they question why people assume a game has to exist for the sake of being a consumable product. TMoAG certainly has the shape of a product: it features an intro cutscene, it has a tutorial, it features intuitive UX, it even has a map! These are all features that are solely integrated to provide comfort to an end-user. But once you actually wander around the museum for a bit, you realize how bizarrely its packaging fits its contents.
I think TMoAG is criminally underrated. It's not because its core content contains some earth-shaking truth, it's because the game defied all odds and cheated death.
How many thousands of other personal projects were deemed a little "too exotic" to be archived? How much history was lost these past 40 years as the digital space evolved and ate its old skin?
God knows how many other TMoAGs we'll never learn about because they weren't lucky enough to be preserved.
The Museum of Anything Goes isn't just some nonsensical art piece, it's a grave marker for so much lost media. Its existence is a reminder that some people's lives were fossilized, then macerated into nothing because a construction company built a skyscraper over them. The only evidence we have of those other games existing is this little fossil that somehow slipped out from under the skyscraper unscathed.
Even though so much has been lost, TMoAG survives as an epitaph.
