Banshees: The Game — The 8-Bit Pac-Man Tribute to The Banshees of Inisherin

A Pac-Man Style Browser Game Based on The Banshees of Inisherin

Irish experiential agency Cogs & Marvel has released Banshees: The Game, a free browser game inspired by Martin McDonagh’s acclaimed 2022 film The Banshees of Inisherin. Launched in time for St Patrick’s Day on March 15, 2023, and playable at bansheesthegame.com, the game is a top-down arcade experience in the style of Pac-Man, built around a deliberately simple premise: guide Colm Doherty through a maze-like village while collecting five bloody fingers and avoiding the inescapable Pádraic.

The game is Cogs & Marvel’s way of celebrating one of Ireland’s most prominent recent cinematic exports. “It was an interesting challenge,” said Creative Director Jon Hozier-Byrne. “What is the most basic way to tell a complex story?” The answer, it turns out, was a pixelated chase game with chiptune audio, Celtic typography, and a faithfully rendered version of Colin Farrell’s instantly recognizable eyebrows.

How the Game Works

In Banshees: The Game, you play as Colm Doherty — Brendan Gleeson’s misanthropic musician character — on a quest for a quiet pint at the tavern. The maze mirrors the film’s core dynamic: Colm is trying to avoid his former best friend Pádraic, who refuses to accept the end of their friendship. Each level introduces new adversaries from the cast: local garda (police officers), Dominic (played in the film by Barry Keoghan), and Jenny the donkey. If Pádraic catches you, he delivers one of Colm’s famous put-downs from the film: “I don’t like you no more.”

The primary collectibles are five severed fingers — a direct reference to one of the film’s most disturbing plot devices. It is a dark joke rendered in 8-bit pixels, and it works precisely because of the absurdity of the format. Cogs & Marvel built the 8-bit aesthetic deliberately, using the visual language of vintage arcade games to strip a melancholy, character-driven story down to its most primal elements.

What the Creator Wanted to Explore

Jon Hozier-Byrne framed the project in cultural terms as well as creative ones. “St Patrick’s Day explores Irish socio-cultural identity, much like the film that inspired us,” he explained. “Every year on one day, we set aside all political and historical baggage to make room for drinking and brilliant green hats. So we intended to treat such rich cultural content with the same severe oversimplification.”

The game reduces the film’s exploration of male friendship, legacy, and the cost of stubborn conflict to a single mechanical loop: run, collect, escape. What makes it work is the affection Cogs & Marvel clearly has for the source material. Celtic typography replaces generic pixel fonts. Character designs carry specific visual details from the film. The chiptune soundtrack echoes the sparse, mournful tone McDonagh built across two hours of cinema — compressed into a minute or two of looped 8-bit audio. Much like how the Jaws board game takes a horror film and turns it into an asymmetric tabletop experience, Banshees: The Game proves that the right mechanical metaphor can translate a story’s emotional core into a completely different medium.

According to IGN’s coverage of the game’s release, the project was received warmly as a playful and affectionate tribute. It also generated press around St Patrick’s Day as a neat example of experiential marketing that doubles as genuinely playable content rather than just a promotional stunt.

Why It Works as a Tribute

The genius of Banshees: The Game is the match between medium and message. The film itself is about reduction — about stripping away the comfort of a long friendship and being left with something raw and small. The 8-bit format mirrors that stripped-down quality. Big, complex emotions get compressed into pixelated sprites and one-line dialogue triggers. The juxtaposition Hozier-Byrne called “really interesting” is the joke and the point simultaneously: a gloomy, profound piece of filmmaking becomes a two-button arcade game, and somehow that translation is completely coherent.

The game also does what the best licensed interactive experiences do — it rewards fans of the source material with specific references (the fingers, the donkey, the put-down dialogue) while remaining accessible to players who have never seen the film. It works as a curiosity on its own terms. Other IP crossovers into new media have found similar success: the Cyberpunk 2077 live-action project is another example of a creative property attempting to preserve its tonal identity while shifting format entirely.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Banshees: The Game?

It is a free browser game released by Irish agency Cogs & Marvel in March 2023, inspired by Martin McDonagh’s film The Banshees of Inisherin. It is a top-down Pac-Man-style arcade game playable at bansheesthegame.com.

Who do you play as in Banshees: The Game?

You play as Colm Doherty, Brendan Gleeson’s character from the film, navigating a village maze on the way to a quiet pint while avoiding Pádraic and other characters.

What is the objective of the game?

Collect five severed fingers — a reference to a key plot element in the film — and reach the tavern without being caught by Pádraic or other adversaries from the movie.

Is the game free to play?

Yes. Banshees: The Game is completely free and playable in a browser. No download or account is required.

What themes does The Banshees of Inisherin explore?

The film uses the sudden collapse of a lifelong friendship as a lens for exploring legacy, isolation, the lingering bitterness of the Irish Civil War, and the self-destructive cycles that small conflicts can trigger when pride and stubbornness go unchecked.