Pirate Software's claim about his game running on smart fridges leaves fans skeptical

Twitch streamer and game developer Thor "Pirate Software's" Heartbound is a choice-driven RPG developed by the streamer's self-titled indie studio. The game uses storytelling to explore themes of mental health and emotional bonds through a 2D pixel art medium, which also means that it does not require intense PC specs and can even be run on older systems.

Thor has often expressed the game's lightweight nature and dynamic compatibility, and has even gone so far as to say that it could "run" on a smart refrigerator with a display. The streamer has used this particular analogy multiple times over, mentioning that the game, which currently has "overwhelmingly negative" recent reviews on Steam, does not need an update because it can be played on a fridge.

Can Heartbound run on a smart fridge? byu/Difficult-Lack-8386 inLivestreamFail

Users on the popular subreddit r/LivestreamFail have allegedly debunked Pirate Software's Heartbound-running-on-smart-fridges claim, with evidence. User u/Difficult-Lack-8386 made a detailed post, looking into the game's compatibility from a practical perspective, stating:

"According to [the] game's dev Pirate Software (Jason Thor Hall) the game 'literally runs on a Smart Fridge'. He will also show a video of his editor recording the game running on a Smart Fridge. The thing is, according to the same video, we can see that the fridge DOES NOT RUN the game."

Overall, the user suggested that the fridge's utility, in this case, stopped at purely being a display for the game, which reportedly ran on an "Android virtual machine," using a laptop and a Raspberry Pi for network connectivity.

Other users in the comment section, like u/Terminal5664, wondered what Thor was trying to accomplish with this claim:

"Wasn’t the performance complaint specifically about the lighting system? I don’t get what he’s trying to prove just by the game running at a random point on a fridge..."

r/LivestreamFail was critical of Pirate Software's smart fridge claim (Images via r/LivestreamFail/Reddit)

Responses to Pirate Software's statement also included instances of criticism and mockery from other members of the subreddit:

"Yeah dude, some people just can't handle being wrong *stretch* insane behavior. My game could run on a smart fridge, the code is so efficient *checks phone* Anyway, I solved the puzzle while I worked at Blizzard in security," said u/warbling_wombat on Reddit.

"Insane behavior," said u/ShionTheOne on Reddit

The criticism continued, with users like u/John-from-accounting suggesting that a game being able to run on a smart fridge is nothing to be proud of:

"And???? Do you know how low a bar that is? It’s a f**king 2.5D pixel art story game, this is not impressive at all, this sh*t should have less computational demand than the original Doom, what is his point even supposed to be here?"

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YouTuber Quintheo claims Pirate Software mentioned Heartbound's smart fridge compatibility "nearly ten times" in one stream

[Timestamp - 35:00]

YouTuber Quintheo went live on July 15, 2025, and reviewed Thor's statements on how Heartbound can run on a fridge. In the stream, he mentioned how this particular reference was used multiple times by the Twitch partner:

"...the game has these issues. It doesn't matter that it was coded improperly or that it could have been coded better. What matters is that Heartbound can run on a smart fridge. Now, not only did he say this, like I said, he said it nearly 10 times..."

One particular instance showed Pirate Software claiming that it would be "stupid" for him to upgrade the game's performance, especially considering that it is comparatively lightweight:

"I've never needed to update the framework because it still works in [GameMaker Studio 2]. There's no reason to update it. Doing a refactor for the sake of getting more performance out of something that runs on a smart fridge is kind of stupid."

Another statement from Thor was more direct, as he said:

"There's absolutely no reason for me to update that framework because it is efficient enough to run on a smart fridge at maximum capacity."(Timestamp - 38:21)

As of now, the Twitch streamer has not responded to the debunking of his game's alleged compatibility with smart fridges.

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In other news, Thor has also been consistently outspoken against the "Stop Killing Games" initiative, which aims to "challenge the legality of publishers destroying video games they have sold to customers," even once asking his supporters to refrain from signing the initiative's petition.