3 ms·

I like the concept a lot but the game is just too rigid to be realistic. It's essentially a propaganda piece and the choices it gives you are no-win by design (

I like the concept a lot but the game is just too rigid to be realistic. It's essentially a propaganda piece and the choices it gives you are no-win by design (so that the game has opportunity to lecture you on the plight of low-wage workers). Real life is not so restrictive. It seems a bit involved to get across what could have been an infographic. I'd really like to see someone take a more serious and/or interesting approach to this concept. This game plays like an old "choose your own adventure"; you have "choices", but everything is pre-determined and there are only a handful of available story routes, which in this case are designed to make it difficult to complete the game while selecting any of the presented moral options and then to show that you'll only have a few dollars left in exchange for abandonment of all principles.

driftsumi-e 15y ago
>>It's essentially a propaganda piece and the choices it gives you are no-win by design (so that the game has opportunity to lecture you on the plight of low-wage workers). Real life is not so restrictive. Agreed. From a design standpoint, it's structured closer to an advergame that way - get your point across (scraping by on a low wage while dealing with what life throws at you) and quickly before the player loses interest. The events of the game over the course of a month are more indicative of what could happen spread across a wider span of time. I think there is some value in presenting statistical data as a narrative. I love Choose Your Own Adventure!
Natsu 15y ago
I had no problem getting to the end of the month with cash left over. Of course, I also work for a factory so I know an awful lot of $9/hr workers and how they live, so it wasn't that hard. You have to make a lot of hard choices. No, it's not easy. While this is a bit overdone, there's a lot of truth to this thing. I've seen the results of an unplanned child, days people come in sick because they really can't afford to miss work, and things like that first hand. Some of the people really have dug themselves into holes all on their own, but there are other folks who are just trying to scrape by with the crappy hand they've been dealt. It depends on the person, really and I could give you examples of both.

driftsumi-e 15y ago

>>It's essentially a propaganda piece and the choices it gives you are no-win by design (so that the game has opportunity to lecture you on the plight of low-wage workers). Real life is not so restrictive. Agreed. From a design standpoint, it's structured closer to an advergame that way - get your point across (scraping by on a low wage while dealing with what life throws at you) and quickly before the player loses interest. The events of the game over the course of a month are more indicative of what could happen spread across a wider span of time. I think there is some value in presenting statistical data as a narrative. I love Choose Your Own Adventure!

Natsu 15y ago

I had no problem getting to the end of the month with cash left over. Of course, I also work for a factory so I know an awful lot of $9/hr workers and how they live, so it wasn't that hard. You have to make a lot of hard choices. No, it's not easy. While this is a bit overdone, there's a lot of truth to this thing. I've seen the results of an unplanned child, days people come in sick because they really can't afford to miss work, and things like that first hand. Some of the people really have dug themselves into holes all on their own, but there are other folks who are just trying to scrape by with the crappy hand they've been dealt. It depends on the person, really and I could give you examples of both.