Totally Accurate Battlegrounds started out as a late April fools' joke and parody of the battle royale genre. And then three million players downloaded it, including Austin, who punched cheese on his way to a no-kill victory (sort of). Now, as was planned, it's no longer free-to-play, and you'll have to pay $4.99/£3.99 for its shenanigans. 

For that, you get to take part in 40-way battles between floppy combatants in a large and surprisingly pretty map. Expect plenty of physics-based madness and lots of beatboxing, which you can start by pressing G.

In a Steam post announcing the price change, as well as the three million milestone, developer Landfall said it was working on making the servers more stable, and that it "recommends anyone who feels hesitant about getting the game to wait until we have it sorted". It is also implementing anti-cheat measures.

As well as being a joke game, TABG is a side project for Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, or TABS, which looks like a fleshed-out strategy-based version of TABG. It doesn't yet have a release date.

If you press G in Totally Accurate Battlegrounds, a newly released parody of battle royale games, your character starts beatboxing. That should tell you how seriously TABG, as developer Landfall has dubbed it, takes itself. It's got the bones of a battle royale game, but it's mostly a playable punchline. It's free on Steam right now, and if you get it in the next few days, you can keep it forever. It released yesterday, June 5, and Landfall says the price will jump to $5 once 100 hours have passed, so the freebie is good through Friday night, give or take. 

Apart from a parody of the most popular genre on the planet, TABG is also a sample of Landfall's next official game: Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, or TABS, which looks like a finished and fleshed-out version of TABG. "We took three weeks to work on TABG because we wanted to bring you something while you wait for TABS," Landfall explained on Steam. 

TABG isn't Landfall's first joke game, either. The studio is best known for ClusterTruck, a ground-is-lava physics-based platformer about jumping between semi trucks, but in 2016 they also made Super Truck, which combines ClusterTruck and time-slowing shooter Superhot to hilarious effect. For last year's gag, Landfall made Totally Accurate Battle Zombielator, or TABZ, which is exactly what it sounds like. TABZ is still playable on Steam, and you get a free code via its official site.

Curious to see what all the fuss was about, I downloaded TABG for myself and, after an initial crash (Landfall admits TABG is "possibly a bit buggy"), I managed to play a 40-man round of what could technically be called battle royale. The thing is, there wasn't much of a battle. I spawned in, saw a dude who looked like one of those inflatable tube men you see at used car dealerships, and immediately ran away to look for a gun. Imagine my horror upon looking down and discovering that I, too, am one of those inflatable tube men. 

After that flying start, I wandered around the needlessly huge and surprisingly pretty map for about 15 minutes, beatboxing and hoping to find a gun. I must've searched a dozen houses. No guns. I did, however, find some cheese wheels in a busted up shed, which I punched, obviously. Apparently punching cheese wheels is the secret to victory in TABG, because shortly afterward I noticed I was the only one left alive. But the game still hadn't ended. Where's my chicken dinner? I had to quit to the main menu manually. (Update: A commenter has informed me that I didn't find any guns because I hadn't actually entered a game, but was instead stuck in lobby purgatory, which is a common bug. I choose to believe I won the round by punching cheese wheels.) 

The good news is this gave me a chance to dress my inflatable tube man in wizard cosplay before entering TABG's shooting range. Finally: a gun. I tested out a big-ol' machine gun, a shotgun, and a crossbow, and I feel it's my duty to point out that TABG is, in fact, not a totally accurate battleground: its crossbow is actually worth a damn. Consider my immersion ruined.