By now you may have heard about Kyle Rittenhouse’s Turkey Shoot, an upcoming point-and-shoot web browser and mobile game from Mint Studios apparently supporting Rittenhouse’s legal fund to “sue the leftwing media organizations for defamation.” If you haven’t looked into who’s involved and what they’ve been up to, it’s quite a ride.
In Turkey Shoot, players appear to step into the role of Rittenhouse–the 19-year-old found not guilty of homicide and other charges following shootings during the August 2020 unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin–and fire a cartoony rifle at turkeys bearing names like “Fake News” and “MSDNC” (a conservative nickname for MSNBC). The website promises players will be able to compete with friends and unlock new levels, but only a few seconds of gameplay seem to be unveiled. Despite some reports to the contrary, Turkey Shoot is in pre-orders and does not appear to be playable at this time.
Creator confusion
Inexplicably, Newsweek reported that Rittenhouse has “made a game on a phone,” later saying he collaborated with “Mint Studios, one of the leading publishers of mobile games.” The article offers no explanation as to how Rittenhouse was personally involved with the game’s development, nor how The Mint Studios AZ, an LLC that appears to have been opened earlier in 2022, reached the top of the mobile market without any clear track record in games we could find.
So, who is behind the game?
For inquiries, the game’s website offers, “contact CEO Mint Chip on Twitter.” The linked account belongs to a conservative rap artist by the same name with music videos on YouTube including songs titled “BUILD THAT WALL” and “California SUCKS.” It may be Mint Chip rapping about Turkey Shoot in the game’s trailer at around 0:48.
It’s unclear how many people are associated with Mint Studios or what roles they fill.
A vanishing Alex Jones project
Turkey Shoot may not be Mint Studios’ first swing at a controversial game.
Archive.today hosts a cached version of a game marketing site previously hosted at AlexJonesGame.com advertising a game called NWO Wars featuring Mint Studios branding. The site said the game was slated for an April 25th, 2022 release, but its pages have since been removed or password protected.
The site was previously in a similar state to the marketing pages for Turkey Shoot, advertising $9.99 pre-orders and featuring an embedded YouTube trailer which, in the case of NWO Wars, has since been removed.
It’s important to note that not much news about NWO Wars exists, and these materials could have been put together simply to pitch or explore a potential game with the Jones camp. Mint Studios has not responded to an inquiry about the Alex Jones game site.
CodeWritePlay has also sent inquiries about Rittenhouse’s personal involvement in Turkey Shoot as well as the identity of the individual(s) who founded the studio. We’ll follow the story as it develops.
Todd Mitchell is a US Midwest-based comedy writer and game developer with bylines at Weekly Humorist, Fanbyte, Slackjaw, End of the Bench Sports, and more. He’s the author of Inside Video Game Creation, the founder of CodeWritePlay, and host of several podcasts including GameDev Breakdown and Fully Remote with Todd Mitchell. Follow him on Twitter @Mechatodzilla.