LAYOFF: FINANCIAL CRISIS THROUGH A MATCH-THREE CASUAL GAME LENS
Persuasive Games head Ian Bogost points us to LAYOFF, a match-3 casual game that attempts to drive home the realities of the credit crunch and its effect on the average worker by making each play-piece an individual with a back-story visible just before you swap them over to “lay them off.”
Once laid off, rather than disappearing, the players congregate disaffectedly at the unemployment office at the bottom of the screen, and bonus matches are “rewarded” with white collar financiers who can’t be removed from the board.
Bogost adds:
All that notwithstanding, I found the rule preventing “suits” from being laid off to be forced. The idea that the white-collar is unaffected by the current economic downturn seems disingenuous, even if there are portions of it (AIG anyone?) who are surely acting in their own interest alone.
The game’s the latest from Mary Flanagan and her team at Tilt Factor/Values at Play, two organizations that share a similar mentality to Bogost’s timely and topical Persuasive output.
LAYOFF [Tiltfactor, via Water Cooler Games]
Previously:
Touch me I'm slick: Persuasive Games' experimental Jetset – Offworld
On wires and pumps: Persuasive Games talks Jetset, App Store …
See more posts about: Offworld Originals
