Rune Hunt

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Merry Christmas.

No, seriously, I'm not playing some Christmas themed game that I know is going to be crap because, seriously, Christmas Mythos is crap, and at best a developer can only do some clone of a past game skinned with Santa shit.

So, here's a game that has shit that resembles an ice cave.  So, awesome I guess.  As you will see, it's a Christmas present about as passive agressive as End of Time but it will do.

Anyways, In Rune Hunt, you play the role of a child, I little boy I assume, but its kinda hard to tell.



Pictured: you

You are sent into a cave by your asshole Dad to be shown something awesome (and help him with his scientific findings) when... tradgedy strikes!  Strange creatures whom fear the light show up and great evil happens!

Pictured: great evil

So, you spend the remainder of the game gathering runes

... and avoiding the vash de narada.

So clearly this game has that Limbo thing going where you are a small child, alone, in a dark place where everything is trying to kill you, and you lose your innocences at some point.  However, there is more than that, which I find interesting.

There was a shitload of commentary in this game about the nature of death in video games.

Lets start with the savepoint.

During the game, if you get eaten by the vash de narada you get teleported back either to that point or to the portals at the start of every... level I guess.

Pictured: oh nom nom nom

The morning after

Every time your character makes a quip about how he he had died and came back to life, and that it was a nightmarish experience.  Here's the best part: you can revisit your corpse, wherethen your character quips about it being him and how he died that time, and how horrible it is that he can't escape through death.

The game has a fair challenge curve, and it is quite engrossing.  Its creeping and I have jumped out of my skin a couple of times because I thought I could walk that close to the shadows without the vash de narada eating me, or in later levels with a few other villian types.  Course, its a good thing there are glowing butterflies, rocks, shrooms, and bulbs off plants to help you along the way.

Overall this game is so much fun and it is really worth ones time to play it.  Mind you, it isn't really related to Yuletide, but seriously, this game is worth playing to the end.

Merry Fucking Christmas.

Reincarnation: Riley's Out Again

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Many of you might be familiar with Christopher Gianelloni's baby the Reincarnation series.  A series where you play a nameless demon from hell who is sent to reclaim souls that have escaped hell and thus are "reincarnated" back into living humans... by rekilling them so the reaper will take them back to hell.  The catch is that these souls have to be still evil, and the demon has to find evidence to prove their evilness before he can kill them.  After all, if the soul has redeemed themselves, they'll just go to heaven instead.

Its a departure from other 'kill the people' point and click games like The Visitor or Foreign Creature in that your character is not a mindless killing machine and the people he kills deserved whatever fate they get.  Its not to say that you aren't playing an anti-hero though, I mean the demon is not interested in delivering justice but in dragging a soul back to hell under orders of his boss Lucifer.

Do you have any idea what the demons do to souls in hell?  Look at that poor fuck who was made to swallow a magnetic key and was fucked with by a magnet!

So, the burning question on some of your minds might be "Why pick on Reincarnation 2?  Why not a more resent installment like The Unholy Clergy?"  Well, I have in fact played all the them, or at least up to The Unholy Clergy and I'm going to say that Riley just bugs me.

Its not because I think he's that vile.  I mean, in my opinion, Father Saul, the bartender, Madam Reaux and the hillbilly were the exceptionally vile ones, and they don't bug me in the same way as Riley does.

Let me explain this.  I warn you, its spoilertastic, and seeing that the trope doesn't work now we know all about it, a picture of Dr. Song isn't going to be put up anymore.

You see, Madam Reaux commited mass murder through an agent, the proof of corpses in crates.  She did it to clear out the building.  A pretty nasty way to do it, but she had herself set as a crime lord, and knew how to get away with it.  Father Saul's proof of evil was a drugged alter boy in his bedchambers, an act that he could have gotten away with over and over again if he knew how to be descrete about and threaten poor little Jimmy with enough fire and brimestone for squealing... if our friend the imp didn't get to him first.

Further more, proof of the bartender was a screenshot of him putting pills in the prostitute's drink... which, again, if he played his cards right, it would amount to a he-said she-said, and is a cop going to believe a prostitute over a bartender?  Than the hillbilly, who had a woman, bound and gaged, in his outhouse, and if no one things he had a shot of getting away with it, well, google "Vancouver Pig Farmer."

Now, the others weren't quite as dispicable.  Christopher has figured that the easiest way to show the player that the reincarny is still evil is to put them in proximity with a corpse or dismenbered person.  Course, the body(ies) were also cleverly hidden away for our demon player to find.

Course, there's always the fry-cook, whose proof of evil was taking a shit in the deep fryer.  Compared to everyone else, that isn't so evil. Disgusting? Fucking hell yes, but at least... what is the chance of him getting caught?

Which brings us back to Riley.  His proof that he's still evil?

aka the Product

Riley is trafficking children on the black market to... whoever wants a child slave I guess.  Now, here's my problem with it: its stupid.

Not stupid in the sense that its just too silly... I'm a Whovian for fucks sake I can handle shit that's overtly silly.  This game series is overtly silly.  I mean stupid in the sense that... if the PC didn't get to him the police will.

Why?  First of all, it looks like Riley is teaching in a classroom somewhere in North America or Western Europe.  I can't think of a neighbourhood in either place that is so depressed that no one would miss a kid.  I mean, when he was talking about Product at first I thought he was dealing drugs to the children: a very real thing that can, and has, happened, and he could do it for a while before getting caught.  But selling kids on the black market?  Do you have any idea how quickly the police are going to respond to a missing child case?  And how much investigating they would have to do before they find out that Riley was involved in the disappearance of little Jimmy?  Its not like these are teenagers, where there would be a grace period to account for the fact they are teenagers.  This is a elementary school.  Amber Alert shit goes up in the first five hours of a young child's disappearance, and there would have been an exhaustive investigation prior to, mainly to ensure that the kid is genuinely gone.  Selling a kid in the given circumstances would be a one time thing he wouldn't be able to do twice.

Riley would be soooh screwed.

That's why he bugs me: he's stupid evil.  He's dumber than the fry-cook now that I think about it.

So, that out of the way, something I would like Chris to consider in a future installment.  He doesn't have to do it, but it would interesting if he at least attempted it.

All the reincarnies up to The Unholy Clergy have all been indisputably evil in some way.  I'm thinking, have one who is either morally ambiguous (where the demon has a tough decision to make about whether the reincarny is still evil) or has actually reformed themselves, leaving the demon in a tough spot of having to return to hell soulless but is offered a soul elsewhere by the reincarny whom is vile enough for hell to get Lucifer 'a' soul at least<gasp>.

I'm just sayin'. 

Two Princes

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This game makes me cry.

Not because its another pretentious art game (which it isn't by the way), or because its bail in Flash format (that makes me angry, not sad).  Its because this could have been a decent game I would like to play to the end.

Quick summary of game.  You have taken control of Sir Valiant Moustache and Steve: two... princes I guess... trying to rescue a princess that gets kidnapped in an opening scene.  Ok, so there is a partner system like in other games I've seen.

They look cute together

This game had some interesting moments.  The duality does open up some really interesting puzzling moments and outside some platformer hell moments the game does use its retro ascetic to convey the wacky humour that this game is about.

Its a shame that its broken.

Lets start with a boss fight early on where all you do is swing, run, and prey.

Go Steve

I'll admit there is a latter one that takes full advantage of the partner system, but really?

Now, there is an interesting system where upon death you can fill up your hearts based on the number of hearts you shoot down.

I shit you not!

I haven't figured out the formula for it though, but I was able to figure out the timing enough to get three or four when I became alive again.  At least you don't die and have to restart the level.

Course, the moments that really made me want to cry were the moments when I saw clear lag... in a game sponsered by Armor Games.  No, I'm serious, the game would freeze a bunch and unfreeze... which is a sign of incompetant programming... my duel-core 8Gb of RAM should be able to run a flash app without freezing or lag.  I've complained about Crystal Story taking too fucking long to load, and someone does this?

Meanwhile, there is a shopping system, alongside a minigame that can help you gain coins... and also gain coins from waddling around the game.

Seriously, what does any of it mean?

Then there is the dept in the duality.  Deep as in Steve can't swim because he's armor is too heavy and Sir Valiant can't go into caves because... he's a giant pussy apparently.  Other than that they are identical.  Take from that what you will.

I stopped playing when they get a "your princess is in another castle" in the form of a fat princess and a bedroom code-monkey that equates fat to ugly because he's never heard of Anna Nicole Smith.  Fucking around in the realm of "I don't know what to do next so I'll hurl myself onto spikes" later I decided I wasn't engaged enough to bother continuing.

Did I mention this was a platformer?  Lord knows that it controlled just like a flash platformer.

Course, back to the point.  This game could have been amazing if just more competent in its execution.  I'm a programmer in training and I know how syntax works and how algorithms work, and I know that the game didn't have to have technical failures, like bounce jumping and button presses at times being ignored.

This is why the game made me cry.

Rebuild 2

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Anyone whose played the original Rebuild shouldn't expect the gameplay to be that much different, as it is send soldiers to kill zombies, send leaders to recruit more survivors, send builders to reclaim blocks and build things... keep doing this until you win.  This is why I'm not reviewing the first game.

Course, calling this a review would be rather... well, dumb.  As I don't really want to review the game, I just want to talk about my experience with it.  You'll get the idea several paragraphs in what I'm going about but first.

This is spoilertastic.  Proceed at your own risk.

Ok, so far it seems that I'm just going to do what I did in the last game, with odd window dressing of pretending my first real leader person is me!  Course, a major difference between this and the prequel is as opposed to having fixed classes everyone has five stats to represent the various jobs one has to do in the game (soldiering, sciencing, building, leadering, salvaging) which can be grinded up as the surviver goes to do various things.  There is also equipible items you can give to your peeps when appropriate (including a dog... just cuz).

That wouldn't make the experience stand out for me.  No, this would:

This had me actually sit there and think.  I totally did not expect to see this, and I was shocked when I read it, not sure what to do.  I had to keep up stats like happiness and food supply, and this just floored me.

The question of censorship came up.  I mean, think about it, most of us, if asked, would be against censorship in the sense that there were outright ban-able things.  That is easy for anyone of use to say... until you bring up ideas such as Nazism, religious fanaticism, and anti-democracy.  Would you support censorship then?

At a mechanics standpoint, would saying "The Zombie Condition" has a right to exist cause the happiness meter to decrease as people are angry that an unpopular idea is being put out there?  Or could be unhappy that I was imposing censorship in our new nation?

I said no, don't ban it, in the end.  The result?  Happiness went up 10 percent.  Apparently, where some were outraged, others were excited to read this thing.  Happy!

Course, later the book author wanted to create a church surrounding his controversial idea, and I drew the line there.  He quietly dropped the subject, but I didn't want to have people waiting in line to get bitten.

There were more of these.  So, lets go.

I hesitated as there might have been something wrong with our friend the scientist.  Course, looks can be deceiving and I let him in.  He annexes the lab I was using for pesticide research... jerk, and just stays there researching... something.  Its not made clear until later when he get an assistant from one of my sciency people, requests that we monitor the behaviour of the zombies while we fight them (which we did) and then he and is aid get killed by zombie test subjects and make me have to reclaim the square.

Course, it is one path to one of the many endings this game has.  The mad scientist was finding a cure for zombism using some rather amoral means.  So... hooray?

I was having constant food trouble, ontop of being a woman so the answer was easy.
 

I did say yes once, but it didn't give me happiness bonus (cuz the men did nothing but fight over the sickly whores).

There are two gangs running around in conjunction to what I'm doing: The Riffs, who seem to like blowing up zombies for shits and giggles and therefore ok in my books, and the Last Judgement, religious zealots who raid me and steal the town's food and are therefore not on my good books going into this.  Seriously, you would have to be having real trouble at this point to say no.

Alas, she explains that the Last Judgement is a cult ran by a sadist where women are slaves (cuz it says so in the bible).  Why this trope keeps popping up in zombie things beats me, though it is misandristic to think there would be men who want to have women slaves.  As I've already hinted: surprised?

Which makes this awesome!

Apparently the Riffs hated them too.  Attacking the Last Judgement is a way to an ending, though, as it makes everyone feel better to thump religious zealots and free women (is that it, rescuing women is something boys like to do last I checked) it doesn't solve the problem of the fucking zombies.

There is a helipad in the game that has a helicopter on it that gets broken at some point.  So, we get this witch-hunt scenario pop up where someone in the camp who might be just weird like the author of "The Zombie Condition" is being accused of sabotage.  I decide that there will be no witch hunt and said that we will not "round up some guys to get the 'truth' from her."  We simply had an eye on her.

Conclusion

I just loved this!  It added to the experience, of bring issues to a leader person that, at first sound easy, now are as hard as they actually are now that we are living it and not armchair quarter-backing while we watch some smuck making these choices (and sometimes the 'wrong' ones like censoring the book).  I think this is an elegant way to implement this, as when the question comes up you start thinking how this would effect what score I would get in certain places... which in a way is like real life.  As a choice you make has consequences, and making decisions in a leadership role impacts the society that you run.

Weighty, but brilliant.  Bravo!

Crystal Story

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Here's another time sink.

Crystal Story is a drungeon crawler where you control four people in turn based anima-tastic combat.

There, I've saved you the trouble if that line scares you.

Alas, the game's storyline.  Your a band of mercs tasked by this narcissist to hunt down this witch, incapacitate her, and take a photo of her and your new employer being all badass and slaying her.  Yeah, it promises to be one of those wacky-shit humour games.  It even has all the hallmarks of a silly anima game, where your party consists of a dumbass, a serious chick, a greedy dude, and this girl with a bigass hammer that is obsessed with beating the shit out of things with said hammer (though she does remind me of Presea from Tales of Symphonia).

Guess who's who?

Course, you crawl along the dungeon known as the Evil Cave chasing this bitch's ass, to help an incompetent rich dude.  This all the while crawling a 'dungeon' with JRPG music blaring through the speakers.  It isn't terrible music per say, but it is blantant midi JRPG tunes.  Again, I've saved you the trouble.

Crawl, crawl, crawl... course I played ahead!

So its pretty obvious that this is a JRPG flash title, that had to make compromises like a town that's a menu screen and the dungeon crawler mechanics.

Its my happening kind of town!

Course, it has the 'well duh' amenities, like a place to 'sleep and magically be healed of wounds,' go though my stuff and characters, get quests to go ontop of the overriding storyline, shop, and go to the Evil Cave for some hot witch and monster action.

Now, there are some things that I like in the game that I think are awesome.  For one thing, the game lets you augment weapons and armor up to your current level, making them more powerful and doing amazing things with your character's builds.

I also really like that there are four character classes (fighter, mage, rogue, and healer) to get skills from, and that every character can put ability points in any three of these classes.  Points they earn from doing side quests and leveling up of course!  Now, as a character's build matters to what they can do you have the opiton to re-spec the characters (for a fee of course).

Now, there is a reoccurring side quest where a woman keeps losing her cat in dangerous dungeons, and there is one about shit getting stolen, that you can get at the tavern.  You can also go to randomly generated dungeons outside of the Evil Cave and feed your pet slime for new items.

Or play timed Bejeweled.. cuz doesn't everyone love Bejeweled?

Oh, did I mention:

Turn taking encounters!

It isn't quite so bad.  There are monsters in the rooms you are in, and if you can avoid hitting them you don't have to fight them... though hitting one monster will cause all the monsters in the room to fight you.

This game is an epic that takes a really long time to load (I though Sonny was hard on a computer) which I should expect from a flash game that wants to be a console game coded my Otakus on Newgrounds (yes, I know the link takes you to Kongregate, shut up).

It is one of those, where either you like it or you don't.  I had some fun with it, and while the difficulty curve is sloped so that the later game actually gets easier and not harder, I have to say this addicting adventure is worth a peek, but only if anima RPGs and crawlers are your thing.

Saving the Company

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Here we have an odd puzzle-plateformer with shifting mechaincs to keep the player on its toes.  Now, from my experience playing these games, I've noted that they either have point and click monkey-moon logic and asks for too much outside the box thinking, or the game treats the player like an idiot with puzzles that amount to "pull this retard."

So, where does Saving the Company fall?

Well, the premise of the game is that you are this guy who works for Fuck U Industries and its going belly up so you decide to save the company (and your fellow workers from being laid off) by going into a dungeon, solving bullshit puzzles and at the end slay the evil dragon... I think.  Trust me, you will forget about the open-scene nobody gives a shit about as you play a game that makes no hint to this 'storyline' at all.

Pictured: scene you will not care about

So, with traditional fantasy music playing in the background a nausuam you go out and solve a bunch of puzzles in various test chambers that the game have for you.  Course, I can't take away from the fact that in each chamber the controls and mechanics change up, adding puzzle solving variety.

No noes!  Anitgavity... and spikes!

At any rate, there are invisible platformers, a moment where certain controls are locked, and this one really obnoxious scene where I had to double-jump, but I couldn't for the love of me time it right.

Course the game also had a moment with mouse control, with will throw you off if your using the arrow keys to direct your character, course, unless you suck and own an AZERTY keyboard, you can still use WASD to move around.  Its a tiny nitpick but its a peeve of mine nevertheless.

The platforms I mean, shame I didn't put my mousie there.

 Now, I just want to note that at that point when I couldn't figure out the double-jump was when I stopped playing, partly cuz... well, I wasn't immersed and engaged enough with what I was doing to care.  I don't have an e-penis that I need to prove the length of by beating platformer hell games, nevermind this.  While I can commend the amount of variety in each test chamber and one can do far worse in the flash scene, this wasn't enough for me, or my cup of tea.  Though I likely described what some of you would jizz at the thought of, so go nuts, its worth a peek and a nod, though not much else.

Sissy's Magical Ponycorn Adventure

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This is going to be one of 'those' games so bare with me.  Fortunately, it isn't a bullshit art game, or at least I hope not, else I would have to question the pixel art skills of the dipshit that made the game.  Course, as this isn't the case calling the creator a 'dipshit' is going to be a huge mistake on my part.

In summery, in the game, you play a girl named Sissy, who decides to go dimension hopping through magical rainbow portals in search of the illusive 'ponycorns.'  What's a ponycorn, you might ask?

A cross between a pony and a unicorn if I understand this

Now, for anyone that's thinking the premise of the game sounds like a five year old girl dreamt it up, well, that's because it was literally dreamt up by a five year old girl!

As the mythos goes, a little girl named Cassie and her dad Ryan decided to make a computer game.  Now, while the father handled all the technical things like operating flash and typing the actionscript, the kid did the rest: the graphics, the layout of the hotspots, the puzzles, and whatever overarching storyline this had while voice acting duties are divided up amongst the two.

The game doesn't exactly hide this from the player either, I mean, duh!  Look at the graphics!

Ok Sissy... I'll take your word for it

Though from a technical standpoint I'm wondering why Ryan decided to put a drop shadow on everything, with the only explanation being that he is not a programmer and couldn't figure out how else he could have put the cut out and scanned in crayon drawings and fit them without it looking weird.

So, you walk into the rainbow where a magical thingie gives you a bunch of jars where you can store the ponycorns that you collect along the way.

I would totally trust a murmuring wtf

So, gameplay involves some light puzzle solving while exploring through the rainbow portals to stuff ponycorns into jars.  I am not sure how a ponycorn is to fit into a jar, but then again, who am I to question the logic of a five year old?  She's at that age where the morality of putting creatures into jars in the first place wouldn't cross her underdeveloped mind.

So, use key on cage, flip over tortoise, turn dino into mouse (she did it with magic, now put your arm down) and stuff ponycorn into jar.

That is a red ponycorn

Now, there is even a moment in the game where a character claimed to be testing Sissy to see if she was nice to her ponycorns, which has me wondering how exactly is it nice to stuff the fuckers in jars!?

Ok, so the programing is sound, if not simple, and the gameplay itself is easy but it works and it is an entertaining experience that makes me a little sad that I didn't have a project that my dad and I worked on like this.  Graphics are what I expect a five year old to be able to shit out, and the premise is what I'd expect said five year old to dream up and be itching to create.

Hasbro, you taking notes here?

Which brings me to something that has been bothering me about the hype this game and Pop Cap's Allied Star Police, and it involves the standby that 'children are so imaginative!'  This really bugs me on so many levels as I don't see this 'boundless imagination' that they keep talking about.  I mean, take another look at that My Little Pony pic I posted, and take a hard look at the white pony to the left.  Isn't that not a ponycorn?

I mean, childish graphics and voice work by a little kid and a 30-something year old playing with said kid aside, Sissy's Magical Ponycorn Adventure is a rehashing of My Little Pony with standard point and click mechanics that I've seen dozens of times.  I remember being a kid and my creativity didn't go past rehashing shit that was already in my environment: this is why fanfiction tends to be written by kids.

I am not qualified to answer the proverbial "chicken or the egg" question, but considering that ponies are abundant in media targeted to little girls and ponies and horses have been a common fantasy and interest in little girls for a very long time, I'm really going to break some parent's heart and tell them that kids are no more creative than we adults are, and as I write and try to be imaginative, being told that some tike could think up worlds better than I is an insult, and I don't see evidence that its the case.</end run on sentence>

Now, this game is an interesting guide inside the mind of a child, and I was not surprised in what I found.  Nevertheless I was in stitches the first time I played it, and it might be worth your while to play it at least once.  Though i should warn my reader base: you might feel your balls shrink into your neck.

Swords and Potions

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Edgebee Studios!  You owe me the month of August!

You see, I innocently stumbled onto Swords and Potions, a social flash game where you run your own store for the adventuring types out there.  Ok, so far so good.

The problem: its a Skinner Box.

Now, gameplay is simple to the point of tedium.  You sit in your shop and people come in.  They ask for shit.

Now, if you have the item they are asking for you can either agree to their offer, tell them to fuck off if its really low, offer them something else if you don't have the item or if you want to fuck with them, haggle if you don't like their asking price, or if the item was in queue by one of your four craftsmen tell them to wait and they will stand there until they get bored and leave or you click them again.

This is pretty much the entire game.  That and ordering your craftsmen to make shit or research how to make shit so you can keep your store stalked.

Now, it should be noted that a craftsmen can only do one thing at a time, as well as some items require multiple craftsmen to do it.  Now, you start the game with two craftsmen of your choice and you have to pay to earn the other two.  They being the carpenter, the blacksmith, the tailor, and the sorceress.

At the end of an in-game day your 'score' is talled up, and the amount of experience you get to level up depends on how much you sold in gold minus failed suggestion attempt.

Don't forget to buy commodities: except the ones on the right unless you have IRL money to burn

Course there is an improvement system where you can buy stuff with your gold and have guildmates put improvement points on them from their craftsmen... points they gain as they make shit alongside experience you can use to voluntarily level them.  If you don't have guild mates, don't worry!  You can just hop into the game chat on Kongregate and find a guild... or make temp guilds just for this purpose.

Arg... its a social MMO flash game that fucks up the social.  Even with a mechanics where you can hire thugs to go grief other player... for shits and giggles I guess - it still feels like a single player game.  These mechanics don't do anything in the game other than force you to think you are in a group while fearing bad people when it is a single player game that someone could grief you at anytime.

The only point of this game is to make money for the dev team.  I mean, you can buy tokens with Kongregate points, which you buy with real money, that you can use to buy recipes for rare items, improvements that don't need guildmates and special commodities.  Yes, you can get these things from the kindness of strangers (customers sell things to you) but it isn't that reliable to do.

Now, all the Skinner Box tactics are there: a bullshit level system, a day counter that makes you wait 30 minutes between days, cheery sound effects for when you get money, and no end in sight.

I am not shitting you, this game is crack.  Proceed with caution.

Spent

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Spent is an edutainment game where you roleplay a single parent in poverty.  The goal is to survive on a thousand dollars for thirty days.  The game is sponsored by the Urban Ministries of Durham with the intent of promoting awareness of poverty and to get people who are not poor to support their efforts.

By how the game was constructed, I would guess that it was also developed by the Urban Ministries of Durham (UMD)... more specifically, a volunteer with a boot-legged version of Flash and zero understanding of actionscript... or pixel art for that matter.

Ok, the pixel art thing was harsh, after all games like Thousand Dollar Soul could get away with text dumps because it was that type of game.  Fine, whatever, I can dig it.

The real drop is with the execution, which gave me the following reaction: "Huh?  Ok... bout right, ok fine... oh I won... sorta" Imagine that quoted line spoken in matter-of-fact monotone and you will have the complete picture.

Considering this game was suppose to tug my heartstrings and make me give a fuck about the poor, I can say that this game failed... it failed on so many levels.

I feel the best way to demonstrate how it failed is to give a point by point on how else it could have been done that would have brought about an actual emotional impact that can't have players dismissing it as "I'm playing a moron," as jayisgames users have commented.

Scenario 1: Your job.

Find job... no fucking shit Sherlock

  Well, the game gives you three occupations to choose from at the start.

The only job on this list that bares any resemblance to how you actually get jobs in real life is the Temp, where you are given a writing test where you have to type out the Ministries' manifesto with no typos and in as little time as possible... which I failed.

So not only did this woman travel with the hottest dork in the universe, but she could type the UMD's manifesto in record time?  Shit!*

Leaving the other two jobs, where apparently you just need to show up and "bam!" you're hired!  Which is nice of them, considering most of us aren't Donna Noble.

Course, this does seem really silly, as I know for fact jobs don't work like that.  Seriously.

What I think they should do is make little dialogue tree(s) and have the player roleplay the interview(s).  Course, instead of a list of jobs to pick, have a list of location(s) to visit to get work (they can be bullshit companies that scream either restaurant, factory or office for simplistic purposes, and the interviews aren't that much different from eachother) and the player would have to go them and ask if they have openings, and take it from there.  This way, the player can know the pain of failing a job interview... and by that fail not getting money in a game where the goal is not to run out.

Course, this opens all kinds of options for the game, and therefore the UMD, to explore things like discrimination... which are out of the control of the player and the player can't blame on a stupid PC if they can't get a job for a very arbitrary reason.  It also shows that answering certain questions the wrong way will get you screwed over.

Course, going for interviews should be an ongoing thing in the game and not just something you choose at the start, as random encounters (more on them later) can get you fired or cut your pay.  So the options should be given to players to try to find a new job as opposed to sitting around and eating money for the remainder of the time (after all, if you are fired in real life, you are going to try to find work again).

Oh, and the healthcare thing... that can be roleplayed too :).

Scenario 2: Housing

 A common comment against this is "Why does the game assume that I must drive?  Is this taking into account the fact that you could walk/bike/take transit?

The answer is I think it is, hens why at the closest transport is $5 and the furthest transport is $160.  However, rent closest is $850 and rent furthest away is $600.  Course, this is an internal calculation based on this:

One of many factoids in the game... more on that later.

Course, still doesn't solve the grip of "is there transit in Durham?"  According to Google, I thought it did, but then I realized that Google thought I meant Durham, Ontario, when the UMD is in Durham, North Carolina... and after being more specific, it doesn't it seems :(.

Oh Canada... transit is in fact the norm!  Where in the USA, its a fucking crapshot! (sing it to the tune of the Canadian national anthem for effect).

Still, this slider could take into account weather or not you are driving or using transit with "no transit for you" after a certain distance (to represent the fact that you are living in a bedroom community or a suburb where transit is offy at best).  Also, have a bike option with a cut off.  Also, make the car option the most expensive one, but the most versatile (as you can drive fucking anywhere you want, but cars need gas and maintenance.)  Also, have mode of transportation a thing the player decides on a daily basis, including how they want to take their kid to school.

Course, as I found, there is no transit service in Durham NC, so the game should say so... or have North-Caroliners never heard of public transit?  If that is the case... America, you're fucked.

Scenario 3: Random Encounters

As the day ticks by, shit happens... shit that might compromise your ability to win the game.  Like your co-worker getting sick for example.

Now, this shit should be played out with more than a simple text blob and two options.  Why? This has no emotional weight, that's why.  In real life, if I was working with a bunch of people and one of them fell ill and Boss Jerk gave no sick days (is that legal?  At least in North Carolina?) I might give because I worked with that person and I might feel bad about them.  The above picture, however, is too binary, where a 'no' is a smart answer so you don't lose your money and lose the game.

Heres how to add more weight to these.  Everyday, you see your kid and send them to school, you go to work and see your co-workers and boss and go though the motions of work, you go home and see kid, you hear about kid and you contemplate workplace gossip that is generated by a random generator if it isn't important.

Roleplay it out with trees and shit.  The above have yourself working and someone approaches you, explains why the worker that is normally next to you is gone, that Boss Jerk is doing what jerks do, and that a fund-raiser is being held for said workers sake, and if you would like to donate.

There are others.  There was one where the landlord decides on a whim to jack up rent, despite the fact that its illegal and pretty well telling you that there isn't anything you can do short of moving out.  Again, play that out.  Make it so the player does feel that they can't do anything about it, even thought as the commentators have pointed out, it is against the law... on paper.  This can open the door to things like "Boss Jerk told you to perform unsafe work, and protesting will get you fired, despite the fact that its illegal to do so (in Ontario anyways, can't speak for North Carolina)" and to get the message across about the scene, the player must feel and understand that they have rights on paper but end up learning the hiccup about said rights being upheld and enforced.

Scenario 4: Random Encounters that shouldn't be random encounters.

Credit card, what credit card?

 There are others like this, like a dog you thought you didn't have being sick, or some of various ones that assume you are driving a car (what is this magic called transit?).  Seriously, this is doing the Echo Bazaar thing where its making assumptions about a blank slate PC.  DON'T FUCKING DO IT!  Or at least have it established through gameplay (like having to buy/lease/rent a car, or seeing a dog running around being a dog).

The other option is to not give us a blank slate character.  Instead give us a pre-determined PC.  Make the player play the role of, say, Lady Brahman who has a ten year old son named Dave and a Corgi with a blue shitbox car** living in North Carolina that is up to her eye-balls in credit card debit as she was trying to maintain her middle-class lifestyle despite being laid off from her past job as a middle manager for the automotive sector. <gasp, run on sentence>  Was that so hard?  I pull that out of my ass just now with the asterisks explaining a very stupid joke I had in mind as I shat that out.

Scenario 5: The shopping minigame

 Let me get the obvious out of the way: how often do you go grocery shopping?  For me its about once a week.  So, why do I only see this minigame once during the game?

Now, this does get the message across that shit food is cheaper than real food, as the goal is to not run out of money for thirty 'days' so you will be loading up with hotdogs, beans, and ramen.  Now, there is a factoid that explains that it is very common to run out of food during the month and be suck with an empty fridge... problem is that the consequences of having an empty fridge are not played out... at all.  Not even a "You are going hungry" thought.

This should be a ongoing thing, like there a food meter or a hunger meter for you and your kid, and the hunger meter being zero doing nasty shit like lowering your mood or job performance (or your kids, being represented by their school grades).  This way, it followed the logic of most people: if fridge is empty I go to store... but shit I have no money :(.

Scenario 6: The kid and their grades

 This was an interesting random encounter, where if I tried to give them help I would be given a math question, which failure meant that my kid would suck.  Now, I've already noticed that some of the random encounters revolved around the kid going on school trips or being bullied for having to go on a lunch assistance program.  Now, the problem is you don't really live with the consequences of many of these choices involving your kid (ie a kid who is upset with you for ditching them for reasons of money).

Really, if these were played out (with a few of them, like the one pictured, being ongoing to make you really feel stupid if you can't help your kid) you would have enough of a bound with the kid that you would at least feel horrible if you put your munchkin instincts first and have to live through the thirty days with a kid that hates you.

That's a consequence for being broke in real life: not being able to spend on your kid the way you would like to.

Scenario 7: Last ditch stuff

Let me break it down for you.

The Xs are 'job strikes'.  Everytime you miss work you get a strike, and three of them get you fired (cus the US really love their baseball).  Ok, I'm thinking that it should be replaced with a job performance meter, where if you are performing horribly, like missing work, showing up hungry, being late, and other variables that can be taken into account, which when this meter depletes you get fired.  Keeping that meter up will really get to the player about the decisions that they make throughout the game.

Next the need cash section.  One of them is to steal your kid's allowance money (or whatever money they have scrounged).  If you have no emotional ties to the kid (and you won't in Spent) there is no guilt in stealing the kid's money.  Doing what I have said in the last section should cover this.

There is the donate blood section, which give $25 dollars.  For those that don't know, in the States, they pay you to donate blood.  Still, this is something that the player can do for however often they are allowed to by US law all while having to get themselves to the donor clinic.

Finally the payday loan, which puts you in debt.  Again, debt needs consequences, like having to deal with repo men or harassing collectors... that exists in North Carolina, right?

Scenario 10: The Factoids

 This is simple: get rid of them!

No, I'm serious.  Ever gone to see a movie that emphasized 'the point' in a way as subtle as a sledgehammer to the face?  Those are not 'fun' to watch.  While 'fun' isn't the goal here, you don't want to make the player roll their eyes and feel like their being preached to.

The game play should tell the narrative you want it to on its own, with a referencing section that can be accessed for the players that scream "but that's not possible!" for you to give the factiods there to players who want to or must read them for their own engagement.

You want the player to be engaged, right?  You want them to soak this up and understand the plight of another person, don't you?

Conclusion

The point of the game was to point out that poverty is not a life choice and that these people need help.  This is missed to the point that its preaching to the converted.  Even people who agree with this (ie me) found the game to be non-engaging and a waste of time and potential, and this is something I see edutainment games and games with a clear socio/political agenda fumble on.  In a way its no better than the pretensions art games I sometimes rip on.  In a way it might be worse, as this was intended to mean something and wasn't done by some bedroom codemonkey with something to prove.

If this is to work, it has to be able to put the player in the shoes of the character they are playing.  For the time they are playing they must feel like they are this person with a kid living in poverty for reasons they had no real control over.  If you want people to stop going on about how the poor are lazy fuckwards that made shitty choices in life and therefore are getting what they choose in life, this game has to engage, and what I was going on about for several paragraphs should accomplish that.  Even if there are poor who are there that made some bad moves, the player should at least believe that theses people deserve a second chance or that they don't deserve what they get despite their error of ways.

Urban Ministries of Durham, this is what you want, right?  So people will support your cause through donations or volunteering now that they have a better understanding of what it means to be poor.

________________________________________

*You were totally expecting a Donna Noble joke at that point, and I just couldn't resist!
**The Brahmen are the 'nobility' caste of Indian culture, and Lady the title in Italian is 'Donna', so that was way I picked the name Lady Brahman.  Also explains why I picked the kids age and name that I did, as well as the breed of the dog and the colour of the car.