The Career Game

Always look on the dark side of life

The recent crop of new PC games has inspired me to come up with one of my own. The gameplay will be similar to a some of the current strategy games, but the characters will lend a distinctly ghoulish feel to it. I guess you could call it Real Time Horror, but First Person Abuse will fit as well.

The basic gameplay is simple. You need to maneuver from you parents home to a suitable retirement home without getting thrown in jail, robbed of your retirement fund, or committed to a sanitarium. Along the way you run into hosts of nasties that put you into jeopardy. Some of them suck the life out of you, others trash your health, and a few even make the sanitarium option look attractive.

The Levels

These are the levels you will be playing. The early levels only last a few seconds. The late levels feel like they last forever.

• Childhood Training

  This is just a training level that doesn't require too much effort. It's where your starting place is chosen for you, and is driven entirely by luck. If you are lucky, you end up driving your brand new Benz to an ivy league school, towing a trailer full of cool stuff from your house. If not, you end up driving a 78 Chevy pickup to West Virginia, towing a trailer that IS your house.

• Young Adulthood: the first failure

  Take on the Dean of Terror, or choose Mr. Acne the fast food manager. Either way you can't win. Choose to go to college, find a job, start a death-metal band or join the clergy. Doesn't matter which way you go, you wind up married with 2 brats, driving a mini-van with a squeaky fan belt. You might as well give up before you start.

• Thirty Something Smells

  Spend the most productive part of the game playing your butt off to run up someone else's score. They always told you that you worked for an employee owned company. Here's where you find out which employee owns it. Doesn't matter... he'll fire you at the first economic downturn. Get out of this level before you are approached by N. Ron Sales. Whatever you do, don't trust him with your retirement fund!

• The Promotion Trap

  Get a promotion. Don't get any authority. Get blamed the next time a 'real' executive screws up. You'll be wishing for the bad old days. You'll learn that any title that doesn't contain the word 'millionaire' is for pompous morons. Lots of Veeps wander this level looking to steal your strength and offer you up as a sacrifice to the board of directors. Quite a depressing level.

• Manage to Die

  Accept your abject failure. Become a 'mentor' so that you can instill as much bitterness as you can in the next generation. Find a government management job that you can't get fired from. The only thing important now is that you protect that meager retirement fund. Watch out for that politically correct accusation! It's the only way to get rid of a government manager. Watch out for the NPC's in this level. Government employees get so bored that they play kamikaze politics.

• Almost Dead

  Welcome to your retirement. You find that you don't move too fast and your reactions are dull. Congratulations! You'll be dead soon. Your decendants hang areound inquiring about your will and your failing health. They can smell the inheritance ripening.

• Probate Shmobate

  No scoring on this level. If you played it right, you died when you were down to your last dollar. If you didn't manage that, I hope you left a will. If not your relatives will be donating all of your life's work to their lawyers. I personally prefer to do something unique with my estate. Here are some novel suggestions: Erect a monument to Bilbo Baggins. Donate millions to the Fund for unwed Martians. Stage a life-size re-enactment of your favorite video game, hopefully involving a space battle. Use your imagination... it isn't any good for anything else anyway.

The Baddies

You'll be facing this crop of baddies as you navigate the levels. Note that you have no allies in this game.

• The Video Game Vortex

  The Video Game Vortex is one of the most dangerous pitfalls in the game. It appears to be a harmless pastime, but that's only it's outward appearance. It keeps you distracted with mesmerizing sounds and blinking lights while it sucks all of the life out of you. Unfortunately, it is also the only way that you can possibly enjoy playing the game.

• Mr. Acne

  This is an unassuming looking fast food manager. Watch out... he'll fire you if you notice that he snorts when he laughs. Not a tough guy, but extremely annoying. This guy is really satisfying to kill. Torture him if you get the chance. Listenening too closely to these guys will earn you a ride on the Disorient Express.

• The Dean of Terror

  This guy is only concerned with faculty parties, listening to people tell him how smart he is, and applying sadistic discipline to those who know how dumb he is. If you don't accidentally break one of his rules, you won't have any trouble with him. Unfortunately, his rules are so strange and variable that you never really know what the rules are at any given time. Good Luck.

• N. Ron Sales

  One of the worst nasties in the game, it appears to offer you a shortcut to a quick win while it empties your retirement fund and sends you to the unemployment level. You'll want to kick yourself in the joystick if you try to approach one of these.

• The Veep

  Veeps are political animals that look to impress the board of directors by offering you up as a human sacrifice. Fortunately, they are totally incompetent at everything else. Avoid at all costs. If you are forced to confront one of these, your best chance is to ask him for something that requires actual knowledge of his job. Veeps can also be distracted by hitting the 'options' button.

• Anal Man-ager

  Anal Man-ager's are failed Veeps. They are intent on making all those who work for them pay dearly for that fact. Their constant whining and irrelevant demands are a drain on your sanity. Too much contact with one of these will get you reservations at the Hotel Straight Jacket.

• The Board of Directors

  You'll only meet the board of directors if you are summoned, or carried there by a Veep. Once that happens, you are never heard from again. The board of directors is actually a meta-monster composed of a collection of the worst baddies in the game selected for their ruthlessness and complete lack of any useful job skills.

• The Prez

  The Prez is the king of the Veeps. Thats because he's the only one with any competence. Normally, he's too busy to notice you unless you attack him directly, or you are being carried by a Veep. Don't attack him unless you want to try the unemployment level. Mess with him and he will eliminate all of your health, retirement fund, and sanity.

• The Needy/Greedy Relative

  These leach-like organisms suck life out of you if you stand still for too long. Althought it is difficult to completely avoid them, you need to scrape some of them off occasionally before you are left as an empty husk. The Needy Relative morphs into the Greedy Relative during the probate level.

• The Lawyer

  The Lawyer is a steaming pile of slime that can either be friend or enemy. Enemy lawyers remove all of your health in a single encounter. If you enlist a friendly lawyer to help defeat an enemy lawyer, he'll only take 40% of your health. The best way to handle lawyers is to set them against each other. The best way to do that is to throw a small piece of your retirement fund directly between them and get out of the way.

• The Politician

  The Politician is a lawyer that has been re-packaged to appear human. Be careful when dealing with them. Though they are easily purchased to perform some of your dirtiest jobs, they have a bad habit of not staying purchased. Buying politicians is usually reserved for the advanced levels of the game.

• The Clergyman

  This asexual lover-of-children is the only baddie that you will run into on the childhood training level. One unfortunate encounter will cause a permanent drain on your sanity for the rest of the game. At random moments throughout the remainder of the game, thoroughly disturbing images of the clergyman will flash across the screen and remove at least half of your sanity. After the childhood training level, the clergyman wiill no longer be nterested in you.

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