Venerable InXile Entertainment celebrates its 20th anniversary by posting a new studio video in which key players talk about their journey to date. inXile was founded in 2002 by Interplay co-founder Brian Fargo, and its first game set a high hurdle set: The Bard's Tale is an APRG that breaks the fourth wall, a rare feat of a genuinely entertaining video game.

But quality doesn't always win out, and InXile had some rough times, including a period when it was developing games for cell phones and the Nintendo DS to keep the lights on. The project's cancellation didn't help: when I went to a Codemasters preview event many years ago, I saw a demo of "Heist," an in-depth bank robbery strategy game that never saw the light of day. It actually looked like it could be a great game, but it's clear that appearances are deceiving.

The studio's anniversary video showcases many of its highs and lows, but what really blew my mind was an incident I completely missed at the time: one of the avenues InXile pursued to keep things going was the huge Nintendo DS market and its "lite" style sim games.

"The world was moving under our feet. We got the rights to Line Rider. Then 'Nintendogs' came out and we said, 'Let's do cats,' and we sold about a quarter of a million. I mean, what else can you do: ...... Dogs are done. Well, everybody likes babies. ......"

This would eventually become the game "Baby Pals," but the events that transpired shortly after its release must have stunned InXile. The commemorative video shows footage (time stamped (opens in new tab)) from an American cable news outlet, and according to the reporter, the mother was distressed after buying the game as a reward for her 8-year-old girl, before "discovering" that it contained a hidden message. The baby appears to be saying, "Islam is light."

"We licensed the sound library. 'It was the same stuff Mattel used for their dolls, so we thought it was safe. If you listen closely, the baby is saying, 'Islam is light.'"

"The baby is saying, 'Islam is light.'"

"I thought, well, they must be kidding. Well... It's a little bit too much."

"It wasn't even a word," adds another voice, which is obviously correct. But a random baby voice makes for a strange approximation. [It was baby babble," recalls Elene Campbell of InXile. There were no hidden references, and it caused a lot of problems. But Baby Pals was great!"

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At the time, the publisher of the game noted that the Mattel dolls contained the same sounds, stating: "The sounds in question in this babbling may sound like the words night, right, and light, but the recorded baby, too young to pronounce these words, let alone the entire grammatically correct phrase, so it was just a coincidence."

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The controversy was eventually settled, and the forever offended cable news shows moved on to other targets, such as French Mustard.

Things seem to be going much better for InXile these days, with its latest title, Wasteland 3, receiving a positive response from players and critics alike; it is still unclear what the studio's next project will be after its acquisition by Microsoft in 2018, but the various here talking heads strongly suggest that it will be a game that the studio excels at. And it's not about Baby Pals.