Spent (the game)

glennmagusharvey

http://www.playspent.org/

Oh my goodness.  All the sadistic choices, the "what the hell, player", the tear-jerkers...

(Yes, yes, I know it's not aiming for realism.  However, it still does well to suggest how it feels to poor.)

ninjaclown

My rent is $760, and I ended the month with $759. God damn it.

RedEyedAbyss

Played it a few times to boost my money at the end. Damn, what a Pyrrhic Victory that turned out to be.

But it seems to focused on the money and not so much on consequences. The only things I can remember that actually threatened your well-being were any of the job-related choices, most notably the union one.

glennmagusharvey

Well, I think the next day 1 ought to be a pay day, so as long as you end the month with rent minus weekly pay or more, that should be fine.

Hatter

It seemed overdramatic, to me. And it outright restricted your choices (for instance, why do I only have a choice between accepting an illegal rent increase and moving out? Why can't I sue the owner? No court would accept a clearly illegal action, no matter what the landowner's lawyer said, and I'd make bank collecting damages. And I wouldn't have kids or a pet. And I'd make my spouse work, as well. And why can't I take night jobs? And why do I HAVE to get an expensive gym membership? Why don't my employers provide me with the uniform?)

The moral of the story: JRPGs suck.

RedEyedAbyss

"Why can't I sue the owner?"

Same reason speaking to the union members costs you your job.

glennmagusharvey

> The only things I can remember that actually threatened your well-being
were any of the job-related choices, most notably the union one.

There's also if you hide your breaking something, then later tell your boss, you get fired.

Also, if you take temp work, you might have a slow week, which reduces your pay.

Then there's someone stealing your gas, which results in your either taking the day off or being late, and getting docked.

This is on top of your not going to any concerts, funerals, weddings, etc..

Tnu1138

I could never ge tthe typing job. I checked my spelling and punctuation but I can NEVER get it. what exactly am I mising on that one??

ninjaclown

What part of single parent did you not read, Hatter? The only solace is that my hypothetical self as a hypothetical child genius who can get himself or herself out of poverty and crush anyone is his or her way.

^It's pretty difficult, even though it said 55 wpm it was more like 60. Just copy and paste the following: The mission of Urban Ministries of Durham is to provide food, clothing, shelter and supportive services to our neighbors in need.

glennmagusharvey

> It seemed overdramatic, to me. And it outright restricted your choices
(for instance, why do I only have a choice between accepting an illegal
rent increase and moving out? Why can't I sue the owner? No court would
accept a clearly illegal action, no matter what the landowner's lawyer
said, and I'd make bank collecting damages. And I wouldn't have kids or a
pet. And I'd make my spouse work, as well. And why can't I take night
jobs? And why do I HAVE to get an expensive gym membership? Why don't my
employers provide me with the uniform?)

Yeah, as I said, it's not necessarily realistic.  That said, if you sued the owner, you might risk the landlord and his not-very-nice friends giving you a hard time in various ways.

The sim says that you have fallen into poverty as a single parent with a pet.  (Heck, you even once owned a house, and have a car.)  Though you could just click "make it suffer" for the pet and refuse to fund any of your child's activities, if you so choose, effectively cancelling out everything but the "buy thrift store shoes" bit.

Chagen

This is so fucking heavyhanded that it's not even funny.

Not to mention it gave me an Unwinnable By Design decision.

glennmagusharvey

@Tnu1138: I could never ge tthe typing job. I checked my spelling and punctuation
but I can NEVER get it. what exactly am I mising on that one??

Not much, except that you might have a slow week and get less pay, because you'd be doing temporary work.

glennmagusharvey

> This is so fucking heavyhanded that it's not even funny.

I was darkly amused by how they let you click the "pay off the whole credit card bill ($7300)" option.

You can't even get over $1000 in the entire game.

Chagen

Also, any dumbass who used a credit card deserved to fall into poverty like that.

Tnu1138

No I mean I can never actually get the temp job it always says i'm unqualified.

ninjaclown

I also can't believe your friends are total jackasses for not realizing you're poor. On one playthrough, your friend who gives you $200 to let him crash starts messing up the house.

^Like I said, just copy and paste.

glennmagusharvey

Okay, well, you can, if you play ultra-conservatively.

I ended the month with $1411.

However, I lost my car, and I have two IOUs.

glennmagusharvey

Yeah, basically, this game has over 30 random events, which are queued to happen one per day, with some only appearing after others (such as "friend trashes your place" only appearing after you said yes to "friend pays $200 to stay at your place").

As I said before, the point of this isn't to be realistic, but just to get people thinking.

Nyktos

glennmagusharvey

Huh?

I thought it was all turn-based.

BonSequitur

Of course, anyone whose worldview is predicated on the poor all being LAZY PIECES OF SHIT who should have PAYED ATTENTION IN SCHOOL is going to look at every perceived unrealistic thing about it (Like poor people not being able to afford lawyers to sue abusive landlords for damages) and use that small flaw to reinforce his view that it's all bullshit, and those lucky duckies the poor people really have it made.

Nyktos

@glennmagusharvey: Opened tab, did other stuff, came back, read posts, replied without refreshing first. I was actually responding to tnu up there about the temp job.

Myrmidon

http://www.arcadetown.com/3rdworldfarmer/gameonline.asp

So what about this game?

snowbull

Do they seriously charge you fees for having a chequing account below a certain amount? Holy shit.

BonSequitur

Banks make money by investing the money in your account. If you keep very little money, it's not profitable for them to offer your services unless they also charge you a fee to cover the costs. Of course, in the US, banks are under almost no scrutiny to make sure they don't gut their less well-off customers.

Central Avenue

And I wouldn't have kids or a pet. And I'd make my spouse work, as well.

The whole premise of the game is that you are a single parent who fell into poverty.

DarkDecapodian

Spent is only overdramatic insofar as it compresses all the bad shit that might happen over a year or two into a month. I can attest that living on the poverty line isn't a rapid sequence of crisis situations as it is a slow, grinding struggle that eats away at you bit by bit. Though the crisis situations still happen occasionally.

Gelzo

Well I'm sure this isn't the most accurate representation, but thinking about the topic is getting me kind of depressed. I'm kind of worried that I won't end up being as charitable as I'd like to be over the course of my life.

Vorpy

Ah, thank you Platinum Angel for averting yet another loss of the game and completely negating the xkcd invocation.

BlackHumor

That 3rd world farmer game is inaccurate because it's too easy.

I managed to actually win the game. You don't, most of the time, make money as an actual third world farmer.

glennmagusharvey

Wait, how did you win it?