It's Free
Disaffected! is an anti-advergame, if you will, in which you take the role of a Kinko's employee who is not all that interested in working and is faced with a constant stream of increasingly annoyed customers. Gameplay is somewhat similar to the old arcade game Tapper, or to games like Diner Dash, in that you must run around attempting to satisfy the demands of your customers--although in Disaffected!, sometimes your character just doesn't feel like working or gets confused...
The Persuasive folks say:
Disaffected! - a videogame parody of the Kinko’s copy store, a source of frustration from its patrons. Disaffected! puts the player in the role of employees forced to service customers under the particular incompetences common to a Kinko’s store. From a new series of persuasive games we call anti- advergames.
Disaffected! gives the player the chance to step into the demotivated position of real FedEx Kinkos employees. Feel the indifference of these purple-shirted malcontents first-hand, and consider the possible reasons behind their malaise -- is it mere incompetence? Managerial affliction? Unseen but serious labor issues?
While examples of branded games go as far back as the Atari 2600, "advergames" have become very popular in the last ten years, first as web-based games and now as both casual games and product/ad placement in commercial games. Advertising in games is a growing yet little questioned area of gaming. Are games only capable of carrying positive advertising messages? Or can they also enact dissatisfaction and criticism against corporations? Anti-advergames are to detract from or call into question a set of products or services for expressive, cathartic, social, or political purposes.
Disaffected! is an arcade-style game with fast action and high replayability. The player controls one or more employees behind the counter at a typical copy store. As each level starts, customers enter the store through the front doors and line up behind the cashiers at the counters. The player must try to find and deliver each customer's order. Obstacles include confused employees, employees who refuse to work, employees who move orders around indiscriminately so the player cannot find them. A complete in-game tutorial walks the player through both one-and two-player gameplay.
Players are strongly encouraged to play the game with a DirectX compatible joystick on Windows. In addition, players are invited to play the two-player game, which can be played either collaboratively or competitively.
Key Features:
* Satirical copy store game mechanics
* 1- and 2-player gameplay
* DirectX Joystick support on Windows
* Mac version for Kinko's-weary graphic designers
* In-game tutorial and highscores
N.B.: As a service to our customers, Manifesto Games likes to point to particularly noteworthy free games, even though doing this doesn't make us any money, confound it. But no, we're probably not real interested in your Logo implementation of Pac-Man, thanks.