‘An anthem for the co-dependent’: Bad Magpie’s corvid carnage with a side of existential angst

Going by the mantra, if you want to make someone laugh, make them cry first, the game's developers have created a lonely magpie who fills the void by wreaking havoc

Amid the gleeful anarchy of Bad Magpie's debut trailer, there's a striking note of melancholy. The game's protagonist - a wounded corvid that creates havoc wherever she goes - calls out forlornly as a flock of her kind passes above, with a conspicuous gap in their formation.

Milktooth games designer and co-founder Daisy Fernandez has had this particular image in her head for years. Lying in the grass one afternoon during the 2020 lockdowns, she looked up and saw a V-shaped pattern in the sky, poignantly incomplete. It really stuck with me," she says. I posted about it online and someone told me about a missing man' formation, which is an aerial salute to a fallen pilot."