Henry Cavill, Hollywood star and man of the mustache, is making a game all about protecting male facial hair. Well, kind of, because it's vibe-coded in collaboration with Google, but the end product is still supporting men's mental health.
The game is called Mustache Protocol, and it's coming out on mobile and tablets. In it, you play as the former Superman and Mission: Impossible actor, who's on a mission to stop anti-facial hair acolytes using CGI to get rid of everyone's glorious taches.
Yes, the game is absolutely drawing from the infamous Justice League reshoots where Cavill sported a CG upper lip to cover up the mustache he was sporting for Mission: Impossible - Fallout. To make the side-scroller, Cavill employed a number of Google tools, such as Rambler, which turns speech into constructive notes, and, most prominently, Antigravity, a generative AI toolbox that can produce 16-bit visuals from your prompts.
"While refining the game, Henry used Rambler on his Googlebook to organize his thoughts as he brainstormed," reads a write-up from Google. "He mocked up different aesthetics, added accessories, and fine-tuned the design with Magic Pointer, which let him select and combine visual elements on screen."
It's essentially an advertisement for Google's suite of AI-leaning creative and organizational tools, including the ability to transfer projects across your phone and Googlebook. In the first of a three-part series documenting Cavill putting it all together, he calls the upcoming release a "fun game for a serious problem."
To encourage people to try Mustache Protocol when it's out, Google is donating $11 for every playthrough through November to Movember, a foundation dedicated to raising awareness of suicide, testicular cancer, and prostate cancer, as well as other issues affecting men. Donations stack up to $500,000. I respect the initiative, even if the gen-AI aspects turn me off.
