video game proposal

Maybe this has already been done, I don't know. I haven't played many video games.

But it struck me this afternoon that there are games for people who want to be rockstars, who want to play Indiana Jones, who want to shoot Nazis, who want to blow up things in outer space.

But there needs to be a video game for the rest of us.

I'm not sure what best to call it. "Joe Doakes" was the first name that sprang to mind (an earlier version of "Joe Blow" or "John Q. Public"). But "WageSlave" might almost work as well.

It would be a maze type game. The goal would be to get in your house, with the door locked behind you (locking out the outside world) in the shortest amount of time with the fewest number of "energy draining" interactions possible.

You would be armed with the ability to detour (either in your car or on foot), an "ignore" button, and a "white lie" button (to be used only once per game, for situations such as telling someone "Sorry, I have an appointment..." when you actually don't).

You would start out at work, near the end of the workday. The obstacles you'd have to avoid at work: the gabby co-worker. The person making the rounds collecting money for someone's birthday, new baby, or retirement party. Your boss, wanting you to come in on Saturday. Another boss, who needs to have a meeting NOW but forgot about it until the end of the day. Your weaselly co-worker who is going to try to talk you into doing the work he didn't do. The guy/girl (the game would have to have options so you could set your gender, and presumably, your sexual orientation) who is trying to ask you out but is bordering on sexual harassment.

Then, once you're in the parking lot, you have to make sure you have enough gas in the car to get home.

On the way home, you have to avoid: the red-light runner. The person who is weaving all over the road talking on their cell phone. The school crossing with the crossing guard and a string of 100 children you will have to wait for. Maybe even baby ducks crossing the road (minus 50 points if you hit one).

Then, once home, you need to (a) successfully garage your car (or else the teenaged hooligans down the street will break its windows, slowing you down for the next game) (b) get the mail (c) avoid your neighbor who wants to complain to you about how your tree is dropping leaves all over her yard and what are you going to do about it (this is one of those situations where you have to keep repeatedly hitting the "ignore" button) and (d) avoid another neighbor's dog who thinks your leg is a tree.

I suppose there are other obstacles, but those are the ones I've thought of.

No, not all of those things have happened to me, and certainly not all today, but sometimes it feels like it. I'd probably be a whiz at the game.