Water Cooler Games
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.
Search Water Cooler Games:  
You are reading an archived version of this article. The original URL was (loading...)
Mark Foley in Help Hastert Hide the Perv
by Ian Bogost October 6, 2006
categories: Newsgames

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.

Comments (3)

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?

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!

Dan Reynolds on October 7, 2006 2:47 AM

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.