Bechdel Test: The Video Game Asks ‘Where Are My Girls At?’

Where are my girls at? Comedy duo Hotel Art Thief attempts to answer this question in their sketch for Bechdel Test: The Game, an experience rife with glass ceiling-shattering mechanics like beating “pick-me girls” to a pulp with a golf club and dating one of the game’s two creators.

Those who stumbled across the sketch for Bechdel Test: The Game while scrolling social media may have already been familiar with Hotel Art Thief’s pitch-perfect parodies of video game mechanics from their similarly viral trailer for The Bear: The Game. But rather than spoof the tropes of an existing intellectual property, the comedy group tackles the broader concept of feminist theory in their latest video game spoof.

Contrary to fictional feminist scholars Joe and Mike’s assertions, the Bechdel Test derives from cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s 80s comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, where it was first introduced as a quippy metric to measure female representation in film. The Bechdel Test has since taken on a life of its own far beyond Bechdel’s intent, making Bechdel Test: The Game a fitting and hilarious skewering of the test’s imperfect legacy.

In the fictional Bechdel Test: The Game, players navigate the world as Rachel, a woman desperately seeking conversation with another woman about anything other than a man. The game’s plucky hero runs into obstacles ranging from hard-to-clear curbs to a woman hellbent on discussing her missing brother. The delightful live-action rendering of the fictional game’s mechanics is interspersed with commentary from the game’s two male creators, Joe and Mike, who developed Bechdel Test: The Game as amends for their previous project, Jerk It! 3 Crankfest 2k24.

The Bechdelian fun doesn’t stop with Rachel’s main questline either, as Mike and Joe announce two extensions to the Bechdel-verse in a controversial Bechdel Test: Civil War online expansion pack and an Aileen Wuornos DLC.

The masterminds behind Bechdel Test: The Game are portrayed by Hotel Art Thief’s Joe Miciak and Michael Kandel, with Rachel Coster, Danielle Clarke-Fisher, and Whitley Watson embodying the game’s undeniably dynamic women. Though Hotel Art Thief’s growing catalog of parody video games may not be available on Steam, the duo can be found on X, Instagram, and in person for their upcoming live show. 

The Bechdel Test seems to be making the rounds in comedy circles as of late, showing up as a prompt on the latest season of Dropout’s Make Some Noise. The conversation between Vic Michaelis and Talia Tabin in the improv series would undoubtedly have insta-killed Bechdel Test: The Game‘s Rachel.