The work mini-games were designed based on the Wario-Ware mini-games that Nintendo put out on the Wii. Short, chaotic, almost non-sensical. That feeling echoed what I felt when I was dealing with the bank to try to get a home loan. Sometimes once a week, sometimes numerous times a day, I would get an email asking me to read over a document or send in a paystub or scan something for them. Never anything difficult, but a huge pain to balance against the rest of my life especially when they all had time limits attached to them. But, this is a game based on house hunting, and not working. So, the dichotomy had to be reversed making work a distraction from house hunting and not the other way around.
They were also added to give the player a way to indirectly control their own salary. As the game goes on and the economy floods with money, the player needs some way of keeping their head above water, but I didn't want to give them too much control. Instead, the opportunity shows up semi-randomly and demands attention to not be fumbled.
Currently, there are three work mini-games in Gentrification; Urgent Mail, Handshake Deal, and File Finder.
Urgent Mail is a simple whack-a-mole style game. For a brief time, emails will pop up randomly around the screen that the player will have to click to answer. Not clicking them in time counts as an ignored email and will cost the player points and salary.
Handshake Deal was inspired by King of the Hill and old stop-the-light arcade games. It's very simple, the player just needs to hit a button to stop the handshake icon in the ideal firmness range, not too weak and not a bone crusher. The kind of handshake Hank Hill would approve of.
File Finder is a simple game built to take up space in the player's short-term memory while they try to keep on with the rest of the game. They're given a filing cabinet with three drawers and three different colored files, which are then hidden in the cabinet. After a short interval of time, they're asked to retrieve a specific colored folder. If they pull the wrong folder, their score for the game goes down. At the moment, every time this game is played the player will have to find between 2 and 4 folders.
Since each mini-game is completely mechanically unique, they take a minute to put together. So, I've had to put some of them on hold until I have more time or funding to polish things up, but I still want to tell you about my favorite.
Coffee Break is much more mechanically complex than the other so far. The player is given a few co-workers to keep track of in the corner of their screen. Each one has a coffee cup that drains over time and they become less productive as they become less caffeinated. The player has to drag a little coffee pot over to fill up their cups and keep them all wired and working.
Also, this is currently happening. Please take some time to check it out.
Thanks for reading,
-Andrew
