Harpooned

• Title — Harpooned • Developer — Conor O'Kane • Engine — Torque Game Builder • Released — 2008 • Genre — Shoot 'em up, serious game • Platforms — Windows, Macintosh

The player controls a Japanese whaling vessel. The game opens with the instruction "Perform research on the whales by shooting them with your explosive harpoons". After killing a whale the ship collects its meat and the player is rewarded with a higher score for collecting more meat before a timer runs out, triggering a "scientific combo". At the end of each stage the player's ship offloads its meat onto a research vessel which then performs research on the meat, producing various whale-meat products such as pet-food and cosmetics. Additional discoveries are then announced highlighting the hypocrisy of killing vast numbers of whales in the name of science, such as "Juvenine whales are greatly reduced in number. We must kill more pregnant female whales to determine the cause of this reduction". Hazards that the player must avoid include icebergs, protestors and news helicopters. The game does not have an ending, however after about fifteen minutes of play there are no more whales remaining and the player finds that they are sailing through the icebergs alone.

Harpooned was first released in January 2008. In 2009 it was updated with new features. The 2009 update included an online leaderboard and the ability to capture protestors. This feature allowed players to recreate the capture of Sea Shepherd protestors Benjamin Potts and Giles Lane who were held on the Japanese whaling vessel the Yushin Maru No. 2 for two days during the 2008 Antarctic campaign.