If you tried it out and were a little confused, here's a little blog post about the motivation and development of the "game": <a href="http://www.pippinbarr.com/words/2017/06/14/narrative-framing-in-it-is-as-if-you-were-doing-work.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.pippinbarr.com/words/2017/06/14/narrative-framing...</a><p>And some more information in form of a "press" release from the github: <a href="https://github.com/pippinbarr/itisasifyouweredoingwork/tree/master/press" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/pippinbarr/itisasifyouweredoingwork/tree/...</a><p>I found the "game" to be somehow interesting.
Clearly it needs the following 3 things:
1. It needs a fake calendar that is randomly populated with meetings.
2. It needs to randomly require that you open Google Hangouts and chat with other users.
3. It needs to send random Slack notifications.
Having worked in an insurance company this brought a pang of PTSD.<p>A stream of minor frustrations, just mild enough to not trigger an audible and cathartic 'f*ck', over and over and over again. The only thing missing was a mandatory health & safety quiz.<p>Now excuse me while I go thank the Universe that I no longer work in such a place.
This just makes me sad that windows stealing focus, grabbing a randomly typed space bar, and submitting themselves before you can even read them is <i>still</i> a thing.
I love the "busywork" aspect of this game. You work like a drone, doing simple tasks with no intelligence whatsoever. This must be what most people working on a desk must feel like (not sure people on HN can relate to this).<p>It's also a reflection on modern gaming in general. If only some games had busywork as part of their gameplay, they'd feel less tiring and more fun.
I hate the fact that this "game" did not feel overly strange, and I played for a good while until I realized that
a) I was not required to keep doing those mindless tasks
b) my real work was still waiting
I ended up laying my fingers flat on the keyboard (thumbs still on space) so I can hit more keys while mashing, lifting them only to set calendar appointments.
It's like I've become a parody of myself.
This is stupid its funny how long I keep it going. It's a little stressful when your trying to get your characters quota typed out and you have to keep selecting other modal windows but all in all it feels like "I am on track" with my fake work life.
And if you want to pretend that you are hacking open this: <a href="https://haxor.secapps.com/" rel="nofollow">https://haxor.secapps.com/</a>
At first I thought this was a satire of modern work. Now I'm convinced it is at least as much a satire of GUI toolkit widget developments or, more generally, corporate User Interface design.<p>The game emphasises just how close to being terrible most UI widgets are, and illustrates beautifully that the difference that makes them terrible is usually the only thing that differentiates them from validated text input components. My favourite two are the calendar and the spinner.<p>The calendar only goes back month by month. Some calendar components I have had to use actually do this, especially those on the web. There is no way to choose a year and there is no text entry of dates. A validated text entry field would be superior if your use of them consisted of anything but picking dates in the current month.<p>The genius of the spinners in this game is that you can't just use them as text entry fields. You can only use the tiny little buttons, so if you have to enter -13, then you have to click 13 times. Text entry would be superior if you had to pick a value far from zero.<p>The only widget that does what it's supposed to is the text entry field. But even that feels alien initially because the wrong letters come up. It is only when you see words appear when you hit backspace that you realise that you're just meant to mash keys.
Make it randomly and forcibly install updates and it will be perfect. A "Preparing to install updates [Confirm] [Delay for 10 sec]" message would be funny.
I wished I could find this article again -- it was an analysis of games that were designed to be deliberately addictive but not fun. Examples were things like ProgressQuest. This was right around when gamification became a fad on the internet (around 2012).<p>It's all dopamine hacking.
I can totally relate to the superficial points. In my work, I can cut my work to half if I do what I think is best and achieve the same end goals. A big proportion of my work goes to useless things, doing what anyone think is right, and I am instructed to try them all. And even worse, I have to report what I did everyday in nice readable way, due to which I sometimes build temporary things that I know I will have to rework completely later.<p>I complained about daily reporting and my senior said I can say I could not achieve anything in a day, but I have to report. I haven't done that any time. Can anyone here advise if it's fine for me to report that.
checkout this author on instagram, his "game idea" thread is hilarious! <a href="https://www.instagram.com/pippinbarr/" rel="nofollow">https://www.instagram.com/pippinbarr/</a>
Another super-fun take on this concept is <i>Job Simulator</i>, available for the big three VR platforms:<p><a href="https://jobsimulatorgame.com" rel="nofollow">https://jobsimulatorgame.com</a>
Fun little game. Made it to Big Data Administrator before I was able to pry myself away.<p>It would be fun if mashing different keys made typing faster.
My brother and I have been laughing about something like this for a while.
1. Create a 'real time office / trading simulator' game and market it well to folks who like playing playstation / xbox.
2. Connect it to 'the cloud'.
3. ....
4. Profit :-)
<a href="https://pippinbarr.github.io/itisasifyouweredoingwork/js/data.js" rel="nofollow">https://pippinbarr.github.io/itisasifyouweredoingwork/js/dat...</a><p>Why are some inspirational quotes commented while others aren't?
Vaguely cognate with the Tim & Eric Awesome Show Good Job! Celery Man / Cinco products type skits [1].<p>[1] <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maAFcEU6atk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maAFcEU6atk</a>
I would like to see a vim/emacs + shell version of this, with maybe IRC for chatting with coworkers. No mousing or clicking around, just have a tiling window manager controlled fully by the keyboard.
Reminds me of Cookie Clicker: <a href="http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/" rel="nofollow">http://orteil.dashnet.org/cookieclicker/</a>
Disappointed there was no Tayne: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIXTNumrDc4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIXTNumrDc4</a>