Semantron Hero announced for Wii, PS3

From the Onion Dome:

Anaxios Games has announced, just in time for the holiday overconsumption season, a new game that is playable either on the Wii or the Play Station 3:

Semantron Hero

In this game, the player holds a dummy semantron (a plastic cylinder about the size and shape of a paper towel tube) on his left shoulder, and strikes its rubber-coated playing surface, not unlike that of an electronic drum, with a wooden mallet held in his right hand.

This elicits (an electronic approximation of) the familiar semantron tone from the game system's loudspeakers. The television/monitor screen shows a group of sleepy monks halfway between their cells and the monastery church. The object of the game is to play the call to prayer so well that the monks wander from their cells to the church. If the player does a poor job, the monks throw up their hands and go back to their cells.

"It's genius!" says Father Yuri ("George the Great, of course!") Granger, abbot of Holy Anguish Monastery of Mountain Crag, Kansas, USA. "Now Brother Tom can practice his semantron without waking the rest of us up, or making us wander to church when it's not time for a service. He can just put the headphones on!"

"I love it!" says Brother Tom ("the Apostle Thomas, the doubter") Blagovest, monastery bell-ringer and weeder of the onion patch. "Now I can get real good on the semantron, and sometimes get out of working in the garden, which I hate."

"Ahem," said Father Yuri, peering over Brother Tom's shoulder.

"Oops," said Brother Tom.

"Is outrage!" cried Father Vasiliy, in town promoting Anaxios Games' other great Orthodox game, Subdeacon Hero. "Was it plastic semantron --"

"No, hold it like this, your hand pointing this way," advised Brother Tom. "Now strike it. Good!"

"This is fun!" said Father Vasiliy. "Why are those monks going to sleep? What kind of game is this?"

"You're not doing it right. You're going too slow, and your rhythm is irregular," suggested Brother Tom.

"What is this game!" said Father Vasiliy. "Was it plastic semantron in XIX Century Russia? No, it was not!"

Reaction to the game among the game's target audience, 15-45 year old males, is mixed.

"Who wants to call monks to prayer?" asks Bob ("I don't have a saint because I'm not Orthodox but if I have to put something here I'll pick His Royal Bobness") Rymer, 47, senior stocking clerk at Home Depot in Emporia, Kansas. "I'd rather kill bug-eyed monsters."

"This is cool!" said Tim ("St Timothy") Teremaki, 12, of Lawrence, Kansas. "Look, I can make the monks go sleepy -- or I can make them go to church! Go sleepy! Go to church! Go sleepy! Go to church! Maybe when I grow up I can become a monk and play the semantron!"

"Hmm, maybe is not such outrage after all!" said Father Vasiliy.

"In Semantron Hero 2.0, set for release next summer," said Rajesh ("Basil the Great") Pashwali, senior game designer at Anaxios Games, "we are throwing in a crotchety Australian parish priest with the monks -- you must not only get the monks to prayer, but keep the priest from being outraged."

"Ha ha. Is very funny," said Father Vasiliy drily.

"We think so," said Brother Tom, Father Yuri, your intrepid editor, Bob Rymer, and Tim Teremaki.