RECENT COMMENTS

ADVERTISERS

Advertise via Culture Pundits





Water Cooler Games

a forum for the uses of videogames in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment



ABOUT
About This Site - RSS Feed

Ian Bogost (editor)
Gonzalo Frasca (editor emeritus)


SPONSORS
Visit Persuasive Games
Visit Powerful Robot


COMMUNITY

Mark Foley in Help Hastert Hide the Perv
October 6, 2006 - by Ian Bogost

Hide the PervSoon after wondering what a Mark Foley newsgame might look like, Zach Whalen managed to dig one up over on The Huffington Post: Help Hastert Hide the Perv, by Ruckus Productions. The game has a funny Benny Hill theme and cute editorial cartoon graphics (if I can say such a thing of a Mark Foley game), but there's not really a game there either... the player hides Foley behind Hastert, Boehner, Shimkus while he supposedly harrasses pages, but there's no representation of success or failure. Still, it's a nice, humourous little game-like experience that still qualifies as a newsgame.



Comment from zach whalen on October 6, 2006

And (via gamepolitics.com) there's already another one:
IM Foley.

I think the fact that this scandal originally developed over IMs and emails makes a ripe opportunity for parody that gets pretty close to what actually happened. In other words, a game like this one can take representations and interactions we're already familiar with and put us in the situation of the events with relative ease.

My guess is we'll see more like this one, or (what would really be creepy) a chatbot like iGod actually performing as Maf54. I'm not sure, but I think something like that could be programmed using the transcripts?

Comment from Dan Reynolds on October 7, 2006

I doubt that this is what the designers were going for when they released a game without any reward or ending (they were probably just in a hurry to get the thing out quickly), but it is interesting that the game's ultimate lesson is at the level of the gameplay: it's boring and it never ends, there's no way to win, and eventually the damning truth will be visible to everybody. It's a functional ontology of the Republican Party!

Comment from Bates on October 8, 2006

I made "Help Hastert Hide the Perv". Dan Reynolds is right on the money! I originally wanted to program some kind of "public awareness meter" - a Sword of Damocles situation wherein the goal is to hold off the public eye as long as possible. I was running out of time (and timeliness), though, and settled for an interactive editorial cartoon - not so much a game but rather a mildly amusing diversion. This was my first attempt at a political game, so thanks for the comments and critiques.

Watercoolergames.org is wonderfully informative and inspiring. I really appreciate the efforts of those who run this site.


POST A COMMENT

Thanks for signing in, . Now you can comment. (sign out)

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)


Remember me?



TRACKBACKS

SELF PROMOTION

RECENT ARTICLES
My New Column: Disjunctive Play

Gamasutra has published my latest "Persuasive Games" column, Disjunctive Play. The column mostly discusses Jason Rohrer's new game Between, but ...

Missile in the HASTAC

The HASTAC consortium has just announced a forum hosted by their HASTAC Scholars fellows on digital games, entitled Participatory Play: ...

Pekid Oil

Molleindustria has released a new game about the history and hypothetical future of oil, called Oiligarchy. The game feature's M's ...

Announcing the Journalism & Games Research Project

I'm excited to announce the first public materials from a research project on Journalism and Videogames, which I've been pursuing ...

Politics and Games at Harvard

It's been quiet around here! Next week I'll share the cause of it. Until then, I did a talk at ...

Click Archaeology

One More Election Game

My New Column: The Birth and Death of the Election Game

Truth Invaders

Mad Men Jeopardy


FAVORITES

ALSO VISIT
  Copyright © Ian Bogost & Gonzalo Frasca, unless otherwise noted. Re-printing for commercial purposes by permission only (contact us: ). Re-printing for educational purposes is allowed with proper attribution.