Over at Water Cooler Games, Georgia Tech prof and noted game designer Ian Bogost offers some thoughts on Bailout Bonanza, an iPhone game released in late March.
Bailout Bonanza is essentially a clone of the classic Activision game Kaboom! -- the player moves or tilts the iPhone to maneuver a bucket at the bottom of the screen, which catches money bags dropped by a Wall Street banker out of a neoclassical financial building...
The problem is, this game doesn't really satirize or comment upon the bailout. If anything, the Kaboom! gameplay feels backwards... The game also points to the issue of timeliness in editorial games. Creating an iPhone game like this one is relatively easy, but it still takes more time than making the equivalent Flash game... the bailout of the financial sector is, in a way, old news.
Bogost notes that Bailout Bonanza is just one of several bailout-themed games available on the AppStore.
Comments
Re: Ian Bogost Critiques Bailout Bonanza for the iPhone
The original Kaboom! was so awesome. Nobody ever remembers to put in the multi-bucket mechanic, so that the game gets harder as you lose lives due to the buckets disappearing from the bottom up. Kids these days have it too easy.
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The Mammon Philosophy
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