Hey so I have what I think is a working version of the game now, here:
https://pippinbarr.github.io/itisasifyouweredoingwork/
Very interested in feedback. I won’t give you any guidance for the moment - just see what you make of it? Particularly interested in
Why are you tormenting the world in this way. Your game gave me the same panic feeling I used to get at 5.30 am on a Monday when we had the review boards for the Work and Income contract. Didn’t matter how much work you did or how fast you went all you got was praise and more work.
Like the cat.
Thought it was a bit odd the way all the screens suddenly vanished to give you a break and never came back - what happened to all that unfinished work? Think maybe the work blocks could be longer.
Still I was regularly promoted which was a good thing even if the work didn’t change much - which was pretty much my experience in the work force anyway.
My only feeling was that it all went a bit too fast to have allow much enjoyment of the various boxes and requests which looked pretty funny as the whipped past.
Not sure I can say I enjoyed this one but it did bring back a feeling I haven’t had since we left the consulting game - the endless maw of the client always waiting to be fed and never quite satiated.
Game! You call this a game?? I found it quite stressful. I will go back to it but in the first instance:
I got onto the typing randomly thing to make an email and that was encouraging. I got lots of promotions! Throughout the game I really did get a few jolts of accomplishment - I guess that is rather sad but there you are.
I figure the idea is to create a hyped up version of a contemp working environment where you are constantly interrupted and jumping from one thing to another.
The inputs seemed from random fields. Is that right? the sense then was of some obscure technical field and I was fielding lots of input. I felt the blocks of working felt quite short so it didn’t have enough time to build. So longer would be better for me.
I liked the different kinds of input required. It’s like auto check in at the airport where you can’t just go through and fill in Yes or No or you say that you do have dangerous stuff in your luggage.
I think the sense of ‘the project’ could be more explicit so that the terms back each other up and build.
the promotion titles were clearly satirical but I didn’t actually get that tone so much in the rest of the game. I like it best when we are all taking it seriously.
I didn’t find any bugs, or at least if I did I thought they were features.
usability was fine
I liked the cat!!
Thanks a bunch for this feedback - it’s really helped crystalise a couple of aspects of the game for me a lot more strongly and I’ll be making some changes based on all this. Notably:
I like the idea of the work being a bit stressful. It fits the narrative of this being a tool to feel like you’re ‘really working’ if it’s stressful… I’d been thinking it was important for it to be kind of calm and ‘easy’, but in fact if you were wishing you still had a job you’d probably still want some sense of challenge
I’ll make the promotions more ‘serious’ by changing their names and, I think, by increasing the ‘difficulty’ (frequency of dialogs, perhaps amount of text to type) as you get promoted, so that they actually mean something…
Will definitely make it so you resume previous work after a break rather than starting afresh - that had been on my mind but I forgot it, so it’s great to have been reminded.
Will increase the period of work… currently it’s at 90 seconds, maybe I’ll make it more like 3 minutes or so…?
Good things to think about - thank you!
The work game is updated based on your feedback and other stuff I was planning on:
I think that’s it. Interested to hear whether you think it’s an improvement?
Bloody hell I’m exhausted. Think this works really well. I would cut back the rest time, it feels longer than it was last time (true?).
Love the aspirational messages - I would like more of those to keep me going!
Huh… yeah, I think the break is a minute now, I guess it could drop down to 30 seconds? I guess there’s not much to do in the break except play the game (did you play the game? “Break”-out, get it?)
Anyway, glad that it’s feeling more tuned. I’ll let the inspirational images run a little hotter…
Yes, I found the pace far better to feel I am actually ‘working’ also like the vocabulary much more and the titles are great plus i think the inspirational tone and the graphics are perfect. the tasks themselves are legible although I wondered if the one where you set the calendar could be connected with a task rather than only itself as an action. Does that distinction make sense. seems ok with the emails etc but this one felt like i was doing it just to do it.
And some thoughts on the ‘About’ text which I think is v helpful but some tonal input. There seems some slippage between ‘effectiveness’ and ‘purpose’ you might like to look at
Welcome to It is as if you were doing work!
As you are no doubt very aware, the new machine-learning economy has significantly reduced the necessity of [demand for/ need for] human-produced labour, leading to unemployment rates of over 95%.
Although many humans find themselves able to adapt to this post-work era, chiefly[often - disjunction here as you are calling your ‘game’ an app but here seem to align your app with games - I think you could drop the game comment or expand to include hobbies, social activities so it’s not so bald] by playing videogames, some among you struggle with a sense of ineffectiveness and a lack of productivity. We take this very seriously.
It is as if you were doing work is an application created especially for those humans who feel the need to continue to experience a sense of usefulness through traditional human-computer interaction.
Please feel free to launch It is as if you were doing work whenever concerns about the meaningfulness of your life and its purpose overwhelm you. Consider organising friends and former colleagues to join you and ‘work’ with It is as if you were doing work in a communal environment that mirrors the social context of the office.
And remember: you are human, you are important.
Excellent - glad it’s tuned up better now.
It’s interesting that it’s the date pickers that feel the most arbitrary… none of the little dialogs have any real meaning (“select this number”, “type these words”, “click this button”), but it’s true that dates have a weird kind of solidity…
In the end, though, it is kind of the intention for the things you’re doing to be done ‘just because’, so perhaps it’s not so bad…?
I’ve edited the text. Good point about ‘videogames’ - I just removed it, not necessary.