Trivialize an Anti-Gay Riot With This Bizarre Facebook Game

Two weeks ago, priests in Georgia (the former Russian state independent republic, not the US state) led a mob that attacked about 50 gay rights demonstrators, hurling rocks and, if this YouTube video is an indication, swinging furniture. Someone's cooked up a nearly unplayable side-scroller lampooning the chaos.

This is Call of Taburetka, the latter word meaning 'stool,' which is what a black-robed priest from the Georgian Orthodox church was swinging as the mob descended on the marchers, ending the rally before it could begin. The game's creator, on its Facebook page, insist that the game is not homophobic. "Dear friends, this game it not anti-gay. it just describes what happened on May 17," he says in one post. "i wanna say that this game isn't anti-gay this is for funny," he says in another.

I suppose I could believe that if the satire involved is how idiotically uncontrollable the priest is, and how he always fails his mission within about 10 seconds of beginning a game, exploding into what looks like a fart cloud. People are lobbying Facebook to take down the page as a violation of its anti-hate speech policies. Assuming it's not taken offline altogether, the game's creators are considering "disabl[ing] this game for foreigners because they can't understand meaning of this game."

Fend Off LGBT Activists in ‘Call of Taburetka’ [Gay Gamer]

To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

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Hey, Facebook. Your 'Like' Button Is Ugly. Here Are Better Options.

Can you guess which games each of these icons represent?

I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty tired of seeing the bulky, medical-blue 'Like' button on every website and, increasingly, coffee shops and other random locations boasting their profile pages and begging for interest.

But if they were video game-themed, like those above, they might be more fun and less of an eyesore. Maybe Facebook could take some cues from the artist, Lucas Felipe.

Now you just have to guess which icon matches which game, using our nifty image annotation feature.

A Mutant Crop Of Plants Vs. Zombies Blooms On Facebook

While fans of the war between plant life and human undeath wait anxiously for July's Plants Vs. Zombies 2, the eternal battle has spilled over into Plants Vs. Zombies Adventures, a Facebook game where planting virtual crops could save your life.

Rather than the corridor-based battles of its big brother, Plants Vs. Zombies Adventures reverts to more traditional tower defense. Multiple lanes snake about each playfield, your plants (for the most part) placed on the side instead of directly in the path of the oncoming hordes. And be careful what you plant, because those seeds aren't endless anymore.

In order to facilitate free-to-play social game features, the plants you plant in Plants Vs. Zombies Adventures are picked fresh from your ever-expanding home base. You've got a row to hoe if you want to go toe-to-toe with the hungry forces of evil, and while standard peashooters and sunflowers bloom in under a minute, more powerful ordinance takes time to cultivate.

Along with growing plant battlers for the war, your base also features upgradeable buildings offering power-ups and coins. As you progress through the game you'll unlock new lots, giving you access to advance buildings and — most important — more places to plant.

When you're ready for adventure you'll set out in your RV, battling back the undead on stop at a time. You're driven by a sense of justice. You're also driven by the need for gold and a regular stream of quests that pop up along the edge of the screen. Mainly justice.

Plants Vs. Zombies Adventures is quite different from regular old Plants Vs. Zombies, but it's a good sort of difference. The fresh format gives players a chance to get to know some of the characters inhabiting this comically tragic world, perhaps paving the way for things to come. It is a Facebook game, and I've already had to badger friends to unlock a new episode, but I've yet to feel pressured to buy virtual goods, so there's that.

PopCap has planted the seeds of a rather nifty little Facebook game with Plants Vs. Zombies Adventures. Give it a try, or hate it simply because it's on Facebook. Your choice!