Launching in 1988 as a daily comic strip before shifting to a weekly schedule in 2007, Bill Amend’s FoxTrot has been around for nearly the entirety of modern gaming history, and you can certainly tell! From referencing real-life consoles to recreating relatable moments that every gamer has experienced, Amend absolutely loves incorporating video games into FoxTrot, and many of these strips are absurdly charming and equally hilarious.
For those who don’t know, FoxTrot follows the, well, FoxTrot family, which consists of three children (Jason, Paige, and Peter) and their parents (Andrea and Roger). The strips reference all sorts of pop culture artifacts, and games appear in some form basically every month. As the comic basically chronicles the development of gaming over the decades, revisiting these strips is not only fun but also nostalgic.
While these are my personal picks for the “best,” my goal for this article is to celebrate FoxTrot in general. There are also a LOT of video game strips, so I’m sure I missed some of your favorites.
Gocomics.com has FoxTrot, if anybody is interested in reading more.
7
Playing SNES & The Ultimate Threat
The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same
Ah, we have all been there. Dinner is ready, mum is calling, but the controller refuses to leave our hands. As Andy calls for Jason to come down to eat, he pleads his case that he can’t at the moment, as doing so will completely throw off his momentum and rhythm. When you are in the zone, you must do everything in your power to preserve that feeling. Apparently, Andy knows exactly how to get through to her son, and we don’t even need to read the threat to know what she said.
Find the odd one out before the timer hits zero.
Obviously, the SNES era was a long time ago by this point, but this strip could easily be adapted to 2026. You might need to change “Nintendo” to “Fortnite,” “Elden Ring,” or “Xbox,” just because Jason would probably just keep playing the Nintendo Switch at the table.
6
Wii Semaphore
The Glory Days Of Nintendo Wii Shovelware
Nintendo spent roughly a decade pushing “Wii” as a video game brand rather than just a console. We got all-time classics like Wii Sports and Wii Fit, and then mostly a bunch of titles that were fun for a couple of minutes. Beyond just Nintendo, third-party developers could also throw “Wii” in the titles for their games, which resulted in a lot of copycat releases that took advantage of the console’s lax quality requirements.
Jason picked up Wii Semaphore, a game that would fit nicely into the console’s catalog of shovelware. Semaphore refers to the system where a person holds two flags at different angles, usually resembling a clock. Honestly, this could make for a decent mini-game, but it might not have enough meat to be a fully fleshed-out experience.
5
Nice City And The 12 Little Old Ladies
That Built-In Habit
Released at a time when Grand Theft Auto was the biggest thing in the world (again, the more things change, the more they stay the same), this strip makes fun of the typical way players tend to engage with urban open-world games; basically, let’s play every game like GTA!
Clearly, Peter is so used to stealing every single thing in a game that the thought of not doing so doesn’t even enter his mind. Even in a game called “Nice City,” his habit still kicks in, turning what I am assuming is a very easy mission into an impossible task. Not every game needs to be GTA.
Nice City actually featured in multiple strips in a row, all of which are equally great.
4
Paige’s Spring Break Destination… In 2021
A True Island Escape
While some of us might wish to completely forget that period happened, the pandemic was a traumatic time for millions of folks, and it was one of the rare cases when most people in the world were effectively facing the same challenges. Famously, Nintendo dropped Animal Crossing: New Horizons right when everyone was unable to leave their home, causing many to take a trip to the island to find an escape from reality.
This comic is a real snapshot in time; admittedly, not a great period, but an important one nonetheless. By March 2021, most stay-at-home orders had been lifted, so Paige could technically leave her house if she wanted. Plenty of schools canceled or altered spring break to discourage students from traveling, an attempt that didn’t do much as a lot of folks still went to the beaches. Hey, I guess, Paige took the safer option.
I guess this comic could also be a joke about ACNH‘s addictive nature, too.
3
Momio Kart
Sometimes, You Just Want To Drive Down Rainbow Road
If you want a real-life Mario Kart, the closest option would be to head to Japan and rent some street go-karts, although I believe that practice isn’t extremely well-liked by the locals. If you want the worst possible option, simply pick a road and go wild. You might end up in a ditch or in prison, but you also might end up winning a race that is only taking place in your head. So, really, the reward outweighs the risk.
Like so many kids who love video games, Jason wants to bring some of that Mario Kart excitement into the real world, although he needs Andy to play along for the time being. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to have that drive to win.
2
Wii Unfit
Look, Some Dreams Are Just Beyond Our Current Reach
For the most part, I included each comic’s publication date to make it easy to track them down; however, this strip becomes so much funnier when the January date is taken into account. It isn’t just that Roger is too lazy to put in basic effort into Wii Fit, but that he likely picked up the game as part of his New Year’s resolution to be a bit more active.
Naturally, nothing really changes on New Year’s Day, and Roger certainly hasn’t suddenly found that innate desire to touch his toes. Fortunately, he has also not lost any of his previously built skills, so he is still more than capable of pulling off absurd combos.
1
World of Warquest & Doomulus Prime
Blizzard Reads FoxTrot, Apparently
Bill Amend is such a massive World of Warcraft fan that he created an in-universe equivalent called World of Warquest, and Jason is absolutely obsessed with it. Throughout the years, the comic has poked fun at the MMORPG, parodying its culture, community, grind, and expansions. Frankly, all of them are incredible, but this particular one deserves a special mention.
The strip is, obviously, hilarious but also quite self-explanatory. What makes this comic particularly memorable is that Blizzard actually added Doomulus Prime to WoW, just a few months after this strip was released. The in-game version isn’t quite as OP, though.
