Water Cooler Games served as the web's primary forum for "videogames with an agenda" — coverage of the uses of video games in advertising, politics, education, and other everyday activities, outside the sphere of entertainment.
The site was maintained at watercoolergames.org from 2003-2009, where it was edited by myself and Gonzalo Frasca. It is now archived here in full.
I previously announced the release of Jetset: A Game for Airports for iPhone. We've finally done a formal press release about the game. As a part of that effort, we've temporarily reduced the price of the game to $3.99, so now's a good time to buy it on the iTunes App Store.
We've also made a few small updates since the game since release. The most notable change involved enlarging the passenger for easier touch-removal of trousers and shoes. But the most recent update, to v1.2, is worth talking about further. More on it after the jump.
The change is best explained via the text I've published with it on the App Store. It reads as follows:
A number of players have complained, both in App Store reviews and in emails to us, that sometimes prohibitions can change just as the player is tapping the Proceed button.
This behavior is intentional. It was meant to highlight the arbitrary nature of current security policy.
That said, we acknowledge that some players might find this behavior frustrating. This update (v 1.2) of Jetset adds a program setting "Unreasonable Fairness." When turned on, the game will delay rule changes if they are scheduled to occur too soon after the player taps Proceed to allow a passenger through.
To turn on Unreasonable Fairness, go to the main iPhone Settings app, scroll down to the Jetset section, and flip the toggle switch to ON.
Note that other timing adjustments have been made to games played when Unreasonable Fairness is on, in an attempt to ensure parity among highscores.
This was an interesting compromise for me. A few colleagues familiar with my work noted this "feature" early on and commented about it to me, pleading me not to remove it. I was happy that they'd noticed it, but also figured that other players might not appreciate it. When they began leaving comments in reviews and contacting us, I considered "fixing" this permanently. But I would have felt horrible compromising this aspect of the game. I'm grateful to Frank Lantz for talking me off the ledge.
The result is the addition described above, which I think offers an effective solution for those unwilling to play the game as I intended it, but which requires them to enable an undesirably named setting to do so, perhaps resulting in embarrassment or, at least, a moment of reconsideration.
Speculative Realism Notes
Alien Phenomenology
Pretty Girls for Nixon
Atari Hacks and Demakes
If You Follow Me...
Comments
Ian Bogost on If You Follow Me...
mist. on Atari Hacks and Demakes
Ian Bogost on Atari Hacks and Demakes
Raph on If You Follow Me...
Mark N. on Atari Hacks and Demakes