It appears that the fine folks in the Hamilton Central Police Department are bigger fans of Scientologist nagging than actual freedom of speech: Zi-Xiao Liang, creator ofScientology Pwned, was recently contacted by Detective Chris Kiriakopoulos in regards to his “hate crime” of a game.

Liang was first called to the police station and questioned on his personal background and the nature of his game. Says Liang:

John and Molly sitting on the park bench

“A reoccurring question Kiriakopoulous kept asking was “Given that your game has offended people, what do you plan to do?” To which I initially responded “nothing” since I was under the impression offending people isn’t a hate crime. He didn’t like that answer too much…. anyways, in the end he ‘suggested’ I change the name of the game to something which made no reference to Scientology. He didn’t mind me keeping the sprites, bullets, blood etc.”

While the police do have a point — if the game revolved around killing Jews or blacks instead of a hilariously stupid cult of psychopaths, it wouldn’t be as easy to defend/laugh at — as a freedom of speech issue, it’s pretty open and shut. The game openly advocates nothing, and the cops have no legal right to force him to change the name (that’s what I assume, anyway — Liang lives in Canada, and I know very little of that place other than the fact that it’s much cleaner, nicer, and more moose-filled than the US). Liang only created the game for his personal website, Scientology has no standing as a recognized religion in Canada, and the only “crime” he committed was offending some whackjobs who believe an evil alien emperor rules the universe.

Close up shot of Marissa Marcel starring in Ambrosio

Sadly, he has not onlypulled the game from his official siteafter censoring its title, but he’s alsolooking for alternative names for his game. C’mon, Zi-Xiao; fight the power and/or stick it to the man!

[ViaGameSetWatch]

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Overseer looking over the balcony in opening cutscene of Funeralopolis

Edited image of Super Imposter looking through window in No I’m not a Human demo cutscene with thin man and FEMA inside the house

Indie game collage of Blue Prince, KARMA, and The Midnight Walk

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Silhouette of a man getting shot as Mick Carter stands behind cover

The ghost at the end of the hallway