Spent as Dystopian LIFE and Also Survival Horror
Spent is a game. But Spent is also life. Above all else, Spent is reality. This game makes no attempts to mask itself as anything besides a harsh look at modern life for those living on the poverty line and those who threaten to drown beneath it. The game begins by proposing a challenge to the player: survive the month with little to no resources and endure a series of financial obligations. Sounds fun, right? Try spinning it this way: collect as many “coins” as you can before time runs out…game over if you lose them all. Collection in games, whether viewed as a fight for survival or a call to adventure, is just two sides to the same coin.
Procedurally, the game is a life simulator, similar …show more content…
Your car breaks down. Your landlord is hostile. All these factors mount an assault against you, threatening to steal your money—which in this case is your life force, since you lose the game when you lose your cash. Like vampires, there are obstacles that stand in your way that seek to steal your blood. The game posits the world’s obstacles—obstacles that many of us would consider to be normal costs of living—as insurmountable odds that loom over the player; the point being that the normality of the situation has greater gravitas for those not in financial …show more content…
The factoids that appear after certain decisions are meant not only to inform players about real life statistics about low-income families and invoke a pathos-based plea for sympathy, but they are a firm reminder that the game is based on reality. The procedures of the game—its routine day-to-day cycle contrasted with unending, impactful decision-making—though condensed for the sake of time, create a realistic character for players to portray in an all-too-real world. The real economic and social structures that govern capitalist nations, certainly America, are the rules that we play by in Spent. Like any video game, or game in general for that matter, money as capital plays a substantial role in this game; such economic systems within games are so commonplace that we take them for granted as a neutral system. However, if we consider how low and how realistic the numbers are that we play with in-game, we may come to understand—particularly through the eyes of the impoverished—how scary life in the modern world can
Spent is a game. But Spent is also life. Above all else, Spent is reality. This game makes no attempts to mask itself as anything besides a harsh look at modern life for those living on the poverty line and those who threaten to drown beneath it. The game begins by proposing a challenge to the player: survive the month with little to no resources and endure a series of financial obligations. Sounds fun, right? Try spinning it this way: collect as many “coins” as you can before time runs out…game over if you lose them all. Collection in games, whether viewed as a fight for survival or a call to adventure, is just two sides to the same coin.
Procedurally, the game is a life simulator, similar …show more content…
Your car breaks down. Your landlord is hostile. All these factors mount an assault against you, threatening to steal your money—which in this case is your life force, since you lose the game when you lose your cash. Like vampires, there are obstacles that stand in your way that seek to steal your blood. The game posits the world’s obstacles—obstacles that many of us would consider to be normal costs of living—as insurmountable odds that loom over the player; the point being that the normality of the situation has greater gravitas for those not in financial …show more content…
The factoids that appear after certain decisions are meant not only to inform players about real life statistics about low-income families and invoke a pathos-based plea for sympathy, but they are a firm reminder that the game is based on reality. The procedures of the game—its routine day-to-day cycle contrasted with unending, impactful decision-making—though condensed for the sake of time, create a realistic character for players to portray in an all-too-real world. The real economic and social structures that govern capitalist nations, certainly America, are the rules that we play by in Spent. Like any video game, or game in general for that matter, money as capital plays a substantial role in this game; such economic systems within games are so commonplace that we take them for granted as a neutral system. However, if we consider how low and how realistic the numbers are that we play with in-game, we may come to understand—particularly through the eyes of the impoverished—how scary life in the modern world can