## Description
A revamp of concepts presented in the earlier Hobson’s Choice, this browser
game about homelessness and the working poor opens with the following
establishing text: “Your savings are gone. You’ve lost your house, you’ve lost
your job, and you’re down to your last $1000. Can you make it through the
month?” Players make tough choices between various hard decisions relying on
limited resources: if you can’t afford to pay both, do you pay the gas or
electricity bill first? How long can you get away with driving to work in an
unregistered vehicle, and what happens to your warehouse job when it gets
impounded? Carrots or hot dogs at the grocery? Can you afford to send your
child on the school field trip? Can you afford to take time off to go to a
relative’s out-of-state funeral? Send your child to a birthday party with no
present, or don’t let them go at all? If you can’t afford the landlord’s
additional fee upon their discovering your beloved family pet, do you have any
choice but to take it to the shelter to be put down? Some choices offer three
options, often including one that brings the play session out-of-game and
promotes the game through the player’s social network; many choices are binary
and of course there are situations where the player has only one non-game-
losing option. Similarly, there are no-win cases where the player is forced to
choose the option that will push them past zero dollars and end the game
prematurely.
The goal of the game is just to make it to the end of the month without
reaching a zero financial balance, though even succeeding in that the game
makes sure to remind you of urgent unfinished business (unpaid phone bill,
desperate dental surgery required, renewal of drivers’ registration) that
would need to be addressed imminently were the game to continue. Informative
blurbs drawing on real and current statistics accompany various choices the
player makes, hammering home just how many people’s lives this simulation
reflects and what the long-term consequences of short-term game-winning
strategies would be.
Spent