Budget HeroNot To Be Confused With Guitar Hero | Submitted by rinkuhero on Sat, 07/05/2008 - 00:02. |
Budget Hero is a game about the US Federal budget. In the game, you raise and lower the budget by cutting or funding particular programs (in the form of cards), and your aim is to reach a budget that matches your values. For instance, if you tell it that you value education, and spend a lot of money on education, you're self-consistent enough to get the education badge.
When historians look back on the fall and decline of the American Empire, the most wry among them may remark that the transition was from an attitude of "Don't Tread On Me" to an attitude of "Don't Taze Me, Bro!".
4 out of 5 scientists agree: the United States is rapidly descending into fascism. (1 out of 5 scientists funded by DARPA). Fortunately, the worst instances of this tend to emerge indirectly, through seemingly isolated incidents, like when somebody asks in public if John Kerry is a member of Skull and Bones. Totally isolated incidents with no pattern whatsoever.
In the tradition of Flash mobs (which are going to be tracked by the NSA and headed off at the pass, going into the future) and Ghandi (dead) comes Police Brutality, a game by Jason Rohrer that explores how vocal dissent can disrupt police's efforts to taze people. The game has you, as the lone leader, shouting. As you do, other people are galvanized, and become available to shout, or move, blocking police. The goal is to prevent anyone from being evicted from the premises; you achieve this by playing the numbers of the crowd against the lesser numbers of police, divide and deter.
