Me Tycoon is charming, but a bit of a mess. It's a Flash game designed to "offer young people a way to find out more about resources and opportunities about future careers."
After generating an avatar, you are born and quickly move through childhood and adolescence to age 16 (school leaving age in the UK), at which point you have to choose whether to go to work immediately or go to uni for qualifications. You're told about floating balloons which you can click; some pop up a window telling about a career, complete with a video of someone who pursues it you can watch, while others offer you the opportunity to buy something (some useless and some other of marginal usefulness), and some just give you a game benefit for clicking.
Behind the scenes, the game is tracking a few dozen stats, which you increase by doing things like spending game cash (called "pounds") on things like buying books, visiting museum, taking acting classes, etc. You can apply for jobs, with your chance of landing any based on stat qualifications and, in most cases, uni degrees.
While there's a tutorial character, the schema of the game is fairly opaque, and the fantasy of clicking on floating balloons as the core grind is -- not exactly correlative with the ostensible subject material. Moreover, the basic thesis -- that employment is meritocratic and based on calculable stats which can be gained through individual effort aimed at clear and understandable objectives ("If I do this, I will increase my problem-solving skill by 3, which will qualify me for the job I want") -- bears no resemblance to the problems of navigating our lives we face in the real world. Purchasing a magic trick set gives me the skills I need to be a geoscientist. Say what?
The animation and feel is charming, somewhat reminiscent of early gameLab titles like Loop, and the objectives of the developers are admirable; one only wishes they had spent more time playing commercial life sim games like Kudos, which operates in similar territory but is a far better game.
Me Tycoon was a 2011 Games for Change Awards finalist in the Learning and Education category.
Thanks
I have been following this blog a few years and appreciate your original and unique news about gaming (you don't find anywhere else). This article is especially interesting for our family though as this game handles a problem that any parent sits with... exploring probable future careers for kids - and in a fun way. Thanks for introducing us.
Yeah, a mess.
"...game cash (called "pounds")..." I see what you did there.
It's a game for kids. Specifically, an educational game trying to get kids to think about their future and their career. So I'm willing to give it a little bit of a pass. Especially when it comes to telling kids that doing stuff makes you a better person.
But it's a mess when it comes to some things and other things are kind of hilariously subtle propaganda pushing.
1) It's for kids, getting them to register is a little creepy. I understand them wanting to get feedback information to prove to their elected overlords that they're not wasting government money. But going through the process is going to turn off people, especially kids. The part where they have to put in a unique and available name is just crazy.
2) Holy COW does life go by fast. I was 22 before I figured out, you know, I should go get a job or do something. And the "global events" or whatever completely interrupt what you're doing. Fitting I guess, but with the time constraints it's makes it almost unplayable. At least you don't get rejected from jobs because you're too old.
3) Anyone can go get a phd. All there is to it is signing up and doing it. Easy as that.
4) Your ability to accomplish things, like doing your job, is entirely tied to your happiness. Doing bad at work? Go clubbing/get a pet/buy a better car, that'll make you happy. And happy people work better. Wha?
5) Propaganda. Yeah. It's there. Did you see some of those events? "Terrorists blow up parliament"!? I can understand that it makes me unhappy, but why did I have to lose 900 pounds? Also, you can never retire. Sure, from the day you're born, the retirement age is 65, but oh no, no. They push that back a year or two as time goes on. You'll be working till you're 94. And on the flip side, passing legislation to give more money to old people takes money out of my pocket, which is understandable, but it also makes me happy?
While I'm kind of impressed by the scope of all the jobs they cover and the interview videos, gameplay wise this is kinda tripe. Which is par the course for educational games.
Comparisons?
I'm wondering how it compares to other games that attempt similar things - for me the high-water mark for the genre is Jones in the Fast Lane from sometime in the Late Pleistocene.
Kudos
I'm rather fond of the Kudos Series . Although arguably it does not do that same thing- while it helps you understand the complexities of adult life (something it does much better than than MT), it doesn't really help you choose a career, since most jobs have identical effects in the game.