Once more you can explore the depths of The Mystery Flesh Pit, in yet another extension of this wonderfully macabre metanarrative.
After a period of maintenance, the Mystery Flesh Pit National Park has reopened in Roblox. The game was flagged and taken down by Roblox moderators back in August, but now it’s made a welcome return following a few changes.
If you’re not familar with the game, it’s an ongoing and wonderfully macabre metanarrative created by illustrator Trevor Roberts. The idea is that at some point back in the 1970s, someone stumbled across a giant, living pit in Texas and began excavating it. The pit soon became a tourist attraction, and then later became part of the US National Park system.
The genius behind the Mystery Flesh Pit is how it combines the utter horror of the pit itself with matter-of-fact, National Geographic-style examinations and cheery, anodyne advertisements for family visits as if it were no more insidious or weird than the Grand Canyon. The narrative has also evolved to include mining companies burrowing into the flesh pit and extracting its juices for use in things like detergent, as well as the health-giving properties of amniotic pools. It’s all delightfully weird.
Roberts has himself endorsed the Roblox version of the Mystery Flesh Pit, but this is just one part of the pit’s metanarrative, which is centred on the r/FleshPitNationalPark subreddit, but also encompasses Robert’s Twitter feed and a blog. There’s even a tabletop RPG in the works, which smashed its funding targets on Kickstarter within a few hours, and Roberts has said he’s preparing a book.
But in the meantime, I suggest taking a browse through the brilliant trove of images and backstory on the Mystery Flesh Pit homepage, before taking a dip yourself in Roblox.
