My Name is Mayo

Genre: Misc.

Players: 1

.

Review:

My Name is Mayo is a… game… maybe… released in 2016 on PC and PlayStation 4, and ported to Nintendo Switch in 2023. In this… thing… players are presented with an image of a jar of mayonnaise (labeled “Mayo”), and a cursor shaped like a hand wearing a wristwatch, and all they will be doing is using the hand to tap on the jar. Over and over and over again.

This might almost qualify as an Idle Game, except nothing happens while you’re idle. And even if it was an Idle Game, it’s be a pretty poor one, as you’re not building up abilities or gaining resources. You’re just making a counter go up. Every now and then you reach a threshold that unlocks a new in-game “achievement” with a small icon and a quirky little description or random “fact”. Some of these achievements can be “activated” to start “stories”, though these just take the form of unlocking a series of achievements with short descriptions that all fit within a theme, and are in no way interesting enough to form an actual story.

As a part of these “stories”, some of these achievements unlock costumes for your jar of mayonnaise to wear. So I guess if you find it amusing to see a mayonnaise jar with a handlebar mustache or a string bikini, you’re in luck.

The presentation here is fine, with static 2D images in a 1960s advertisement style, backed by an upbeat tune also seemingly styled after 1960s ads. Oh, and the jar makes a little “tink’ sound when you tap it. That’s about it.

Apparently there are some players out there who see My Name is Mayo as a brilliant art piece, or as I’ve seen it described, “anti-art”. I can only guess that the point of such an art piece is to mock videogames for wasting players’ time, the pointless rewards games are filled with, or to mock players for playing something as dumb and pointless as this. But… if a game’s entire point is to be a statement about how bad a game it is… that doesn’t stop it from being a bad game.

And yes, My Name is Mayo is indeed a bad game. It is pointless, repetitive, boring, and tedious. And if that sounds like the foundation for an amazing art piece to you, then… well, I guess enjoy your $1 admission fee for this… art. For everyone else, you are far better off spending that $1 on pretty much anything else. A candy bar, perhaps? Or a cold drink? Surely you’ll get more enjoyment out of whatever else you spend that money to buy than you would from this game.

tl;dr – My Name is Mayo is a pointless game where players repeatedly tap on a jar of mayonnaise… and not much else. I suppose some see this as an amusing art piece, but I can only see this as a terrible game, and one to avoid, even at the low $1 price it’s selling for.

Grade: D

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