Remember those good old times when we were all still little kiddies? We used to treat everything that happened around us as a game of sorts, regardless of whether they were good or bad. And how could we not? Society did not have its grip of tight schedules, rote learning and teaching us to follow the flow on us at the time, so out imagination ran wild and free. Well, here's my attempt to relive those moments and make 5 areas of my life into games. Here we go.
I call Game Number 1 "Bus Fuss". Basically, it's a reaction game. Here I am waiting at the bus stop and there's a specific bus number that I need to flag. At the starting part of this game, the buses that go past the bus stop are slow and their numbers are quite brightly lit. The objective is to press a button (Spacebar, A button, X button, in the case that any console would be crazy enough to get this game on their platform) when the correct bus comes along, and success leads to the advancing of stages. With each stage, the buses move faster, their numbers are more similar, their signs are less brightly lit etc, therefore increasing the difficulty level. Flagging down the wrong bus 3 times ends the game.
Game Number 2 is called "Friend Finder". No, not that feature on Facebook. Here I am in a crowded shopping mall trying to find my friends to hang out. Every stage provides the player a general description of the friend that I need to find. Is the friend short/tall, chubby/skinny, a guy/girl? What clothes are they wearing? What kind of hair are they sporting? The player must scrutinize all the people in the stage and click on the person that fits the description. A quicker discovery of the person earns more points. With each stage, the total number of people in the stage increases and start to look more alike to confuse the player. The player will also need to find an increasing number of friends per stage.
Game Number 3 is coined "Hair Scare". As some people may know, my hair is incredibly important to me, sometimes taking precedence over my life. Here I am walking along the street minding my own business, when suddenly evil floating hair-destroying items assault my hair. The player controls my head as it moves in a side-scrolling fashion. The objective of the game is to move my head to dodge incoming items such as straight-hair shampoo, scissors, shavers, combs and the like. Each time my hair is hit, it becomes noticeably shorter and straighter. The game ends when my hair becomes completely straight and short. With each avoidance of an item, the incoming items move faster and deal more damage to my precious hair if collisions occur.
"Quiet Quest" is what I named Game Number 4. Here I am in the library, bored as hell. I decide to whip out my trusty PSP for some game time, but the librarian is out and about. The objective of this game is to fill up a "Fun Meter" by holding down the correct button to make me play the PSP, but the player must release the button to make me stop when the librarian's line of vision is on me. I can move about around the level (which will be viewed in a bird's eye view), but so can the librarian. If the librarian catches me playing, the stage is restarted. Difficulty increases with stage advancement as more librarians are added, the field of vision of the librarians are wider and greater, and they move faster as well.
"Ramen Race" is Game Number 5. Here I am, working my butt off at a ramen restaurant and it just so happens that I am the only service staff there. This game takes inspiration from the renowned Diner Dash, where I seat customers, take their orders, deliver their orders, serve their food, clear their bowls and take their bills. At the first level, business is slow and customers come in one by one and give simple orders. As the levels advance, the orders get more complicated, people get more impatient and families with elderly and even children start to appear. The elderly slow me down by taking a long time to order, and the children provide distractions such as spilling their food and running about, which takes away my time to clean up after them and avoid them. Soon, the Japanese come in and give their orders in pure Japanese, which requires the player to memorize the exact translations of the menu choices. The stage is failed when not enough cash is collected at the end of the day.
In a way, everybody is playing a game already. It's called Life and it's pretty hard to win. Go to school, get some knowledge, earn some cash, start some companies, find a spouse, have some babies, grow old well, pass away peacefully. Jeez, I'm still at the first stage and I'm already afraid of the later stages. Just gotta remind myself not to "quit"...if you know what I mean.
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