McDonald’s Game
- Was it fun? Yes, despite the darker message of the game overall, it is kind of a fun game to see how far you can make it without becoming bankrupt.
- What were the player interactions? While you weren’t interacting with other players, the player is able to interact with the game by controlling all of the different sectors of McDonald’s, including the pasture, the slaughterhouse, the restaurant, and the corporate side. You can place cows and grow pastures, kill cows, hire people, etc.
- How long did it take to learn? While the general mechanics of the game are fairly simple, there are a lot of little parts to this game that make it take a little longer to learn. It also didn’t help that there were 30 pages in the tutorial alone. After the first few rounds of watching the game and playing it, I then really started to learn the game.
- Would you play it again? I think I would but probably not for an extended period of time. It gets frustrating because it is very difficult to not become bankrupt.
- Analyze the game using the 3 act structure. The first act begins when you first load up the game and you begin placing your first plots of cows and soy. You need to also hire people to work at the restaurant and make sure that your cows go to the slaughterhouse. The second act begins when you sort of start to develop a strategy for moving the cows through the McDonald’s cycle. You start to replace cows when they get killed and you may need to kill some yourself if they become disease-ridden. You may also start to implement some of the different marketing strategies in the corporate setting. I found myself in the second act partaking in more of the shady business practices like using GMOs in my crops and giving my cows some special stuff. I also deforested and relocated people. The third act is when you start to significantly lose money to the point where you cannot recover and you bankrupt McDonald’s.
- What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game? This game is a single-player game so there aren’t really competitive or collaborative aspects to the game, although it is like a competition between you (operator of McDonald’s) and the rest of the world.
- What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout? The game’s metaphor is about the unethical business practices of McDonald’s. It calls out a lot of McDonald’s shady practices with trying to make money off cheap burgers including environmental concerns, health concerns, etc. One of the standout game mechanics for me is how I had to kill a cow if it became sick and it torched them. It was a little cruel. I also was shocked when I had a bunch of cow skeletons in my pasture and then was totally unable to use the land.
Intergroup Monopoly
- Was it fun? Yes, I always enjoy playing Monopoly; however I think that I would have liked it more had I been one of the 1% players.
- What were the player interactions? Like normal Monopoly, players had to pay each other rent when landing on propers, give each other money based on some of the special community chest cards, the 1% player could buy others’ properties from them, etc.
- How long did it take to learn? Since I went in already knowing how to play normal monopoly, this version didn’t take very long at all. Some of the little special rules were hard to immediately catch on to, so we just kept referring back to them.
- Would you play it again? Probably not under these rules. I will definitely play normal Monopoly again and appreciate the symbolism of this version, but for just the purposes of playing a game out of enjoyment, the game is too unfair to want to play again.
- Analyze the game using the 3 act structure. The 3 act structure is very similar to the 3 act structure of normal Monopoly. The first act begins during the setup of the game. For this edition, we had to decide the “roles” of each player. To decide this, we just rolled the dice and whoever got the highest numbers were the more “ideal” roles. I dealt out the money to the players, with the 1% player getting significantly more money and properties than all of the other players. The white men played under normal rules and the females and minorities played with even less perks and properties. After this initial setup, the players began to take their first few turns, moving across the board. Players, depending on their role and opportunity to, began to buy the first properties.
- What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game?
- What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout?
Pepsi Man Thoughts
I actually really like the idea of this game. Even though the mechanics are simple and the gameplay doesn’t really have much to do with Pepsi, something about the game is just so charming to me. It’s fun, silly, and makes me think nicely of the Pepsi brand. I know some Pepsi fanatics that would probably love this game now. Will this game convince me to drink Pepsi? No. I’m not sure anything could get me to drink that.
Sneak King Thoughts
This game does seem fun. I’m a little bit confused by the premise of the game and why you would want the king to seem like a sneaky criminal, but it still looks like something that I could enjoy playing, especially with the silly animation style. Would this make me hungry for a Burger King burger? Honestly, if I was hungry enough, it might convince me to get one, but probably only if I was starving.
Chex Quest Thoughts
This actually looks like a somewhat solid game, but the premise as it relates to Chex Mix is a little weird, but I think that’s okay. It looks more fun than what I would imagine a Chex Mix game being like and I like the character designs. I could see my younger brother enjoying this and as a child, he might use that as justification to get my mom to buy him Chex Mix. For adults however, I don’t think that Chex Quest is going to do enough to make people go out and buy it unless you are a pre established Chex Mix consumer. The idea of this game does me think a little bit better of the Chex Mix brand, since they are willing to put effort into making a high quality game. I would play this game with friends once, just to experience it because it is a silly concept.
M&M Kart Racing Thoughts
I haven’t seen this game in years. I definitely was reminded of how terrible the gameplay and mechanics are, and it confirms to me that I wasn’t just really bad at it as a kid (although that was probably a factor too). Although the gameplay has little to do with M&Ms, if I recall correctly, it was still effective to me as a kid as a method of persuasion to buy M&Ms. I think it might just be my love for M&Ms though. If I wasn’t already a committed consumer, I’m not sure how well this game would convince me to get M&Ms. I really wish I still had this on the Wii to experience how bad it is again.
America’s Army Thoughts
I don’t like the idea of this game at all. I am already not the biggest first person shooter game fan, but I especially don’t like that this one is glorifying war and the US military. It feels like propaganda to try to get young males to join the military and doesn’t address any of the negative aspects of the experience. Also, you are generally playing a game for entertainment purposes and this is making it seem like killing people in a real life war would be too? That just doesn’t sit right with me. Despite that, if this game is well-done, I think it could be effective to convince some people to join the military. Do I agree with that? No, but I don’t think that the military is necessarily known for their ethics.
Cool Spot Thoughts
This game is also charming to me! I think that it’s really fun that you play as the 7Up Spot. The only thing is I think that the music would get annoying after having to restart a level so many times, but it is still a cute game. I don’t think that this game would persuade me to drink 7Up. It just might make the brand seem more “fun” if anything.
Vote!!!
- Was it fun? Yes, despite it being somewhat repetitive and more educational, I enjoyed it.
- What were the player interactions? While you weren’t interacting with other players in the game, you had to interact with the different candidates running for office in the general election by asking them questions at debates.
- How long did it take to learn? Almost instantly. This game was super simple to learn and it walked you through every step.
- Would you play it again? No, probably not. This game took too long and was a little too educational for me to want to play more than once.
- Analyze the game using the 3 act structure. In the first act and when you open up the game, you cast a vote at the general election, but you are uninformed so it makes you go back home and start to become an informed voter by using different apps. You start to collect information about the different candidates by using these apps and attending town meetings or debates. The second act would be when you start to form an idea of who the different candidates are and whose policies line up with your values. You are still conducting research on the candidates, but you are starting to form a more cohesive picture of the candidates. The third act is when you know who you are voting for and it is finally election day. You cast your vote and you see who won the election. (I’m pretty sure the people that win are always the people that you vote for).
- What are the collaborative and or competitive aspects of the game? While this is a single player game so it’s not collaborative or competitive in the traditional sense, I wouldn’t really call this a competitive game by any means. It’s more of just going through a storyline of the voting process and there isn’t anything to really say that you “won”.
- What is the game’s metaphor and which of the game’s mechanics standout? The game’s metaphor is about becoming an informed voter and performing your civic duties. The standout mechanic for me was being able to ask the candidates questions directly at the townhall meetings. I found that it was the best way to gather information from the candidates and the quickest.
- Overall, this seems like a pretty good game, especially for a social studies/history class in high school. Honestly I think that the long length of the game was helpful to make the voting process seem more like a continuous educated process rather than researching the night before the election. The game was a little slow but it was effective at what it was trying to accomplish.