By Quintin Smith on February 10th, 2011 at 2:17 pm.
American Dream is a collaborative browser game from Increpare, VVVVVV’s Terry Cavanagh, Jasper Byrne and Tom Morgan-Jones that’s made me laugh more than enough to warrant a post. It’s a bit like Oliver Stone’s Wall Street directed by a wet pocket calculator. Set in the 80s, it tasks you with fulfilling the American dream by making a million dollars, though according to Terry it started its life as a game called Killing Spree about “an assassin who spent all his money on designer furniture”. Go play! It’s exactly the kind of oddball thing that I play then can’t help but wonder how it would have turned out with an actual budget.
10/02/2011 at 14:42 Zyrxil says:
Ow my eyes! That’s exactly the right perspective to have my brain not be able to decide whether the inside wall is the outside wall or vice versa.
10/02/2011 at 16:00 ScubaMonster says:
yeah that took my eyes a minute to figure that one out. I think part of the problem is all the black space and you can’t really see any sort of thickness to the walls. they are just a flat plane.
10/02/2011 at 17:14 Torgen says:
Oh Jesus God, it’s like an abortive attempt at an Escher painting with an EGA palette. My poor eyes.
10/02/2011 at 20:00 Dozer says:
Looks fine to me. What you say? What a shame.
That said, all the vibrating brightly random colour flashing animations were a bit painful to look at.
10/02/2011 at 20:16 Metonymy says:
Someone hasn’t played the original Mother.
10/02/2011 at 14:44 Tazer says:
Creepy game is creepy….
It reminded me of American Psycho.
10/02/2011 at 14:46 Mike says:
Really cool, I like the core mechanic too. It’s too easy to make a bomb once you’ve decked out your place early in a season. I guess that might be part of the point though?
10/02/2011 at 14:59 Ian says:
So…. was that a nice ending?
(I got there in 51 weeks, I assume it can be done significantly faster.)
10/02/2011 at 18:41 Zyrxil says:
I got it by week 37, and I think it can still go faster. Apparently the key to fast wealth is to spruce up your house so you can have lots of key parties where you sleep with women who can control the future (of celebrity stock prices).
10/02/2011 at 18:45 snitchy says:
I think what was happening was more along the lines of stock brokers boning your wife and giving you sound investments in turn.
10/02/2011 at 18:46 Zyrxil says:
I prefer my version, because it includes an unusual superpower, and because the stock prices go abnormally high.
10/02/2011 at 18:53 Lilliput King says:
Zyxril’s version makes more sense too, because the abnormal price hikes don’t actually occur unless you’re having the parties.
10/02/2011 at 21:12 simonh says:
It took me around 50 weeks as well on my first playthrough, because I didn’t understand the benefits of parties (stock tips) until late in the game, and thus didn’t upgrade my furniture as fast as I should have.
The second time I spent much more on furniture and got there in 23 weeks.
It’s very easy even without the stock tips though, as rather than behaving realistically, the stocks have high and low boundaries, so if you buy when they’re really low, they’re guaranteed to rise, at least after a few weeks.
Also, I’ve got a feeling that the system is somewhat rigged, often giving a great spike in a stock right after you buy it, but it’s possible that’s just some sort of gambler’s fallacy.
11/02/2011 at 06:13 Consumatopia says:
The last thing that the guy who gives you directions says is “I’d sure love to meet your wife”.
11/02/2011 at 12:02 rhizo says:
Oh wow, I apparently missed the entire point. I just kept pressing Z and trading stock until I made a million and the game ended. The ending screen was a bit perplexing “doing something you love”, I just went to work every week.
10/02/2011 at 15:05 Teddy Leach says:
I bought 20 Arnies and a Michael Jackson. I feel unclean.
10/02/2011 at 15:10 Mr_Hands says:
I just kept buying Mr. T.
I didn’t want to, he wasn’t performing well.
I just couldn’t help myself.
Now I am become a pitiable fool.
10/02/2011 at 15:11 esbates7 says:
trying to resist the urge to deck out my house and have wild parties….now to find the sheep!
10/02/2011 at 15:13 Heliocentric says:
IDGI
10/02/2011 at 15:16 CMaster says:
Indeed.
I didn’t so much as smirk the whole way through.
10/02/2011 at 15:30 Inigo says:
You obviously don’t appreciate dick drawings as much as Mr. Smith does.
10/02/2011 at 16:32 Quintin Smith says:
I think I laughed at everything but the dick drawings. So quick to judge!
10/02/2011 at 16:53 CMaster says:
@Quinns
Now I’m really confused.
You laughed at the old celebrity names?
At the keeping up with the Jones’s?
Did you actually play a different game?
10/02/2011 at 17:26 Om says:
I laughed at the Buy/Sell background screens. I’m strange like that
10/02/2011 at 23:57 Sarkhan Lol says:
I laughed at having to upgrade my ZX-80 to a Spectrum because it was out of fashion.
10/02/2011 at 23:59 MadMatty says:
Hell i smirked at damn near everything, and laughed a bit too, but then i am unbelieavably raunchy.
10/02/2011 at 15:17 mikmann says:
I am a millionaire!
10/02/2011 at 15:36 Mr Chug says:
I nearly lost it all when the bottom dropped out of Sylvester Stallone. Perhaps I should have been more worried about the safety of my own bottom, though.
10/02/2011 at 15:43 TXinTXe says:
This is a lot like dopewars, isn’t it?
11/02/2011 at 00:00 MadMatty says:
Yup.
10/02/2011 at 15:45 hjd_uk says:
Quirky, wouldn’t say it’s “Funny” though.
10/02/2011 at 16:03 Weylund The Second says:
Enjoyed. Cheers, Quintin.
10/02/2011 at 16:11 orangedragon says:
can’t believe I played that till the end.
i am a millionaire
THE END!
10/02/2011 at 16:44 lolfang says:
Bi-zarre.
Liked it, though the end part of the game with parties all over made the game really easy.
10/02/2011 at 17:40 brulleks says:
I had to quit as soon as I realised it involved buying stocks and shares. That freaks me out more than any horror game ever could.
10/02/2011 at 17:56 Calabi says:
I dont get it.
10/02/2011 at 18:25 Chakawi says:
Woot, I’m a millionaire! And doing something I love!
10/02/2011 at 18:42 EthZee says:
I was guessing at first, until I noticed that the graphs at the bottom actually meant something. At that point it became very entertaining!
I’ll admit the endgame is pretty easy, though. If rather hilarious, and satisfying in that “MORE THINGS” way.
10/02/2011 at 18:54 Zyrxil says:
Hilarious?! You plebe, how could you misunderstand this noble and wellcrafted tirade against the evils of Broker Commissions, Income Taxes, and sexual Puritanism? You disgust me.
10/02/2011 at 18:57 Inigo says:
It took me a second playthough to discover that buying things for your house actually served a purpose.
First time round I ignored all that and just focused on the trading screen.
11/02/2011 at 00:02 MadMatty says:
my real life room suffers a bit from the same. I could upgrade to get tipped off from the sheep?
10/02/2011 at 20:32 geldonyetich says:
They laughed at my Tina Turner heavy portfolio. Well, who’s laughing now?!
Party Time is somewhat NSFW.
Not a hard game, the market swings up and down consistently so that buying low and selling high is easy.
But then, that’s sort of the point. It’s essentially an art game about “The American Dream” consisting of buying the latest name brand stuff, engaging in wild hedonism, and making easy money playing the market. It’s poking fun at a whole sack of self-delusion that goes into lusting after a million dollars.
10/02/2011 at 21:40 patricij says:
I got bored and left. That is all.
10/02/2011 at 21:55 mwoody says:
I kept expecting the end of the game to be me busted for insider trading.
10/02/2011 at 23:58 Sarkhan Lol says:
This. Or everyone in the game dying of AIDS.
11/02/2011 at 05:27 forddent says:
That’s what makes the game funny, though. We’ve been conditioned to expect that all this hedonism and insider trading is going to carry a terrible price, but in the end… it doesn’t. You get the million dollars and the game ends happily, apart from a vaguely underwhelming feeling which is, honestly, part of the commentary on chasing the American dream in the first place.
It’s subtle and I dig it.
11/02/2011 at 07:58 Sarkhan Lol says:
The 80s was its own punishment.
11/02/2011 at 05:32 robotco says:
all this is is a crayon drawing of tape that flashes ‘press ACTION to begin’ over and over again. i can see no other options, and my mouse disappears if i scroll over the tape. do i need to upgrade my browser?
11/02/2011 at 05:59 dethtoll says:
try hitting z
you know, like it says at the bottom
12/02/2011 at 11:07 MadTinkerer says:
It’s a little too easy to beat (yes, even for a joke game). I would have the tips only be right 3 in 4 times, like the man that gives you tips in the Millennium Fair races in Chrono Trigger.
There should also be something else to spend money on, besides sprucing up your place. Twenty weeks in, it’s a little too easy to just buy everything in the catalog every time. Upgrading your stuff is a little too useful because it leads to good tips 100% of the time and is therefore pays for itself immediately every time. In other words “luxuries” quickly become necessary business overhead, but at negligible cost once you are able to buy and sell the most fluctuating goods because the 100% correct tips remove the risk factor.
Maybe there should be a penalty for partying too much, because it’s too easy to party and work every week. But maybe that’s just part of the satire.
13/02/2011 at 05:42 calavera says:
The ending is what made it funny for me. The entire time I’m sitting there playing this and thinking “what’s so funny about this? this game is horrible… there’s nothing even remotely fun about it. i hate this.” Then I finally hit 1 million dollars, and the game tells me that “I did it doing something I loved”. I pretty much lost it laughing at the irony.
13/02/2011 at 22:42 multiname says:
Just saying something true in an oblique way isn’t satirical comedy, or funny at all. Although it could be art.
16/02/2011 at 09:18 RegisteredUser says:
Well that was a bit quick and simple.
I actually enjoyed making virtual money, I had just hoped I could partake a bit more in the sex games.
18/02/2011 at 00:28 Melipone says:
Pull out of Madonna! etc.
Also, if there was any real dishonesty to this game we’d be able to short sell Rick Astley.