If you grew up in Bangladesh, you know them. The khala who asks for your exam result before she says hello. The aunty who compares you with Rupa from next door. The uncle who wants to know your salary, the one who wants to know why you did not sit for BCS, and the one whose son is settled in Canada, did you know? In Bangla we call all of this pera — the endless, well-meaning hassle. Pera nai, Chill! is a free comedy game where, for once, you get to answer it: you run down a Dhaka gali and slap the pera away before it reaches you.

Who is coming down the gali

There are twenty regulars, each with their own look and their own lines, all in Bangla: Result Khala, Comparison Aunty, Marriage Khala, the Matchmaker, Weight Aunty, Complexion Aunty, Facebook Aunty, Salary Uncle, BCS Uncle, Doctor Mama, Canada Uncle, Back-in-my-day Chacha, Mobile Chacha, Curfew Uncle, Advice Nana and more. Their speech bubbles are written the way they actually talk, so if you have heard it at a dawat, you will hear it here.

Every third wave the boss arrives: the Wedding Aunty Squad, one formidable khala with two backing aunties at her shoulders. She only goes down to a double slap — both hands across her face within about a third of a second.

How it plays

Jog in place in front of your webcam to run down the gali; step or lean sideways to switch between its three lanes. When an aunty or uncle comes within reach, swing a hand across their face, fast and level, and they go flying back the way they came. Slaps are forehand only — your right hand sweeps toward your left, your left hand toward your right — so winding up never counts as a hit.

Miss one and they latch on. A nagger who catches you slows you to about a third of your speed and launches into a long story, line after line, while your patience drains. Several can grab you at once and crowd around you from all sides. Keep running and you break free after a few seconds (the boss holds on longer), or slap them off. Every second someone is talking at you costs patience, and slapping wins a little back; knocking out the Wedding Aunty Squad wins back a lot.

When your patience runs out

At zero patience you snap, and the game picks one of three endings: you announce “আমি বিদেশ চলে যাবো!” and float off over the rooftops behind a plane towing a CANADA banner; you turn into a pressure cooker, whistle twice and pop; or you simply faint in the middle of the gali while the aunties laugh. The endings rotate, so you see all three before any one repeats.

See yourself in the gali

Pera nai, Chill! opens in third person: you see your own character from over the shoulder, with the gali and the aunties ahead. Your character copies your real arms — the camera follows your shoulders, elbows and hands, so the pose you strike is the pose on screen. If you would rather see the gali through your own eyes, switch to first person in the settings menu.

Why it is more of a workout than it looks

A run is a few minutes of jogging in place with fast two-arm swings mixed in, and getting clinched means sprinting to break free. It is the same mix of steady cardio and upper-body bursts as the rest of CamPlay, which we wrote about in do active video games count as real exercise? — just with more khalas.

What you need

  • A laptop or desktop with a webcam, and a modern browser. Nothing to download, no account needed to start.
  • About a metre of space in front of the screen and room to swing both arms.
  • Light on your face, not behind you.
  • No camera? Swipe across the faces with a mouse or a finger instead.

The camera picture never leaves your device — pose tracking runs in the browser (how that works). For multiplayer, open a room and share the code: everyone faces the identical waves of aunties and uncles, and the last one with patience left wins. If you want more slapping, try Zombie Slap for the horde or Slap Derby for one perfect strike in the arena.