
It is as if you were doing work - duck
https://pippinbarr.github.io/itisasifyouweredoingwork/
======
thatcherc
Reminds me of the (very fun!) cooperative game SpaceTeam[0], where you have to
complete an ever-increasing set of fanciful space-themed actions on a little
control panel on your phone. The fun part there is that some of the actions
require you to tell someone else to complete an action on their phone, so
games always involve frantic shouting to your teammates. Lots of fun

[0] - [https://spaceteam.ca/](https://spaceteam.ca/)

~~~
MarcellusDrum
Shares the concept with "Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes". Its a game about
diffusing a bomb. One player has a pdf file containing the instructions, and
the other is on the PC diffusing it. The game gets increasingly more
complicated, and harder for both players to communicate what they are
seeing/what should be done. Really fun, and tests your relationship with the
other player, as you'll be shouting and insulting each other the whole time.

~~~
seryoiupfurds
Once the bomb is sufficiently diffused, the explosion will cover a large area
but it will be too weak to cause much damage.

(sorry)

------
Apocryphon
Sort of ironic that the Windows 95 aesthetic is simultaneously both comforting
and familiar (vaporwave), and full of dread and ennui (Dilbert, Office Space).

~~~
bitwize
Dread and ennui is as much a part of vaporwave as anything else. It's kind of
the duality of the hopefulness of the era -- Windows and Mac machines being
touted as the precursors of the Ono-Sendai cyberdecks we would all be using --
and the soul-crushing boredom and consumerism.

------
_Microft
_What do you do for a living? Oh, I 'm an_ about dialog _-operator for a few
years now and the work really suits me._

Repeatedly opening dialogs from the desktop allows to gain work unit points
even during breaks. What. A. Madness.

~~~
andrepd
Stanley worked for a company in a big building where he was Employee #427.

Employee #427's job was simple: he sat at his desk in Room 427 and he pushed
buttons on a keyboard.

Orders came to him through a monitor on his desk telling him what buttons to
push, how long to push them, and in what order.

This is what Employee #427 did every day of every month of every year, and
although others may have considered it soul rending,

Stanley relished every moment that the orders came in, as though he had been
made exactly for this job.

And Stanley was happy.

~~~
nickff
This is from "The Stanley Parable". I have not played the game, but looked up
the source because I liked the quote; thanks for posting it.

[https://thestanleyparable.fandom.com/wiki/Dialogue](https://thestanleyparable.fandom.com/wiki/Dialogue)

~~~
klank
Highly recommend playing the game, even if not a fan of video games. It's
wonderfully written and doesn't require a large time commitment. It's also
devoid mechanical checks.

~~~
twic
I have a mental list of video games that i could use to justify to my dad that
video games are not a mindless waste of time. The Stanley Parable is on that
list.

~~~
filoleg
I would be careful about using The Stanley Parable for that specific purpose,
because it is one of the easiest targets for "mindless waste of time"
classification.

Don't get me wrong, I totally like it, but the whole "game" can be described
as "do a bunch of actions, pick some different doors every time, and then
restart it all over again, except it might be slightly different, but you are
still just choosing which doors to walk through, while listening to some
voice".

Note: I didn't "beat" the game (assuming there is some actual ending), but I
spent a good couple of hours on it.

------
marvion
"Please Login with you work credentials"... never saw someone putting so much
work into a phising website ;D

~~~
2sk21
This was brilliant touch!

------
meowface
This evokes such a broad array of emotions. Nostalgia, despair, mirth,
appreciation, existential puzzlement.

------
hliyan
I found something about this comforting: it shows me dialogs that focus only
on the thing that needs my attention, without having to load an entire app
with its associated branding. I actually prefer these types of popups to what
I deal with now: slack notifications (requires me to open slack first), mail
notifications (requires me to open mail), our custom admin app notifications
(same). Apps have become first class citizens and the content they operate on
have taken a backseat. I'd like to think of these dialogs as the GUI
equivalent of Unix pipes.

------
mrfredward
I kept holding down a key in the email boxes thinking the story was going
somewhere...but then I looked at the source and it turns out each sentence is
randomly picked from an array of inspirational sentences.

~~~
gen220
This is, itself, a meaningful metaphor! love it.

It also encourages you to zone out and type without even reading what's being
written, which is scarily accurate given some corporate emails I've seen.

------
SenHeng
Not sure what this does. All I see is a grey screen on my iPad.

~~~
cheschire
That's because work can't be done on an iPad. /s

------
braunshedd
Ah! This is classic, wonder if this is based on the old flash game...

* [https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/186896](https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/186896)

~~~
benrbray
Ahhh, this pulls at my heartstrings.

I always loved the window-simulator genre [1] of flash games as a kid, and
it's no exaggeration to say that windows spoofs made me the person I am today.
I wanted to make my own so badly that in middle school, I saved up to buy a
student edition of Flash CS3 and spent a few years building "Window Doors"
[2], which I'm proud to say was one of the most fully-featured windows spoofs
of its time. Ten years later I have a cs/math degree, all thanks to the kind
people on the Newgrounds BBS who were kind enough to put up with middle-
school-me.

[1]
[https://www.newgrounds.com/games/browse/tag/windows/sort/sco...](https://www.newgrounds.com/games/browse/tag/windows/sort/score)

[2]
[https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/512482](https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/512482)

~~~
exikyut
One identification of the keyword " _pepperflashplugin-nonfree_ " and a
browser restart later, I can wholeheartedly concur this implementation was
very well made.

------
bachmeier
Busy work and responding to stuff as it comes in so you don't have to figure
out what you should be doing. A simulation is worth a thousand words.

------
dijksterhuis
I have no idea what I'm doing. Screens appear and I have to click on things...
Another day in the office then.

Also, loving the hip hop music loop.

------
elipsey
Finally, a sense of purpose! Can we add this to UBI somehow?

------
WJW
Loved it, 9/10\. Only loss of points caused by the available game not being
minesweeper or solitaire.

------
Tobu
Here's more about how this came about:

[https://github.com/pippinbarr/itisasifyouweredoingwork/tree/...](https://github.com/pippinbarr/itisasifyouweredoingwork/tree/master/press)

~~~
oezi
Readme here:
[https://github.com/pippinbarr/itisasifyouweredoingwork/blob/...](https://github.com/pippinbarr/itisasifyouweredoingwork/blob/master/press/README.md)

------
twoslide
Reminds me a lot of the "job simulator" game on oculus.

~~~
ShamelessC
Is that one any good? Trying to find satisfying VR games after play Alyx is
tough.

~~~
kroltan
Make sure to try out Budget Cuts too, it is also set in 90s-style megacorp
offices, but it's a stealth/action game.

Think the Matrix office escape scene, but a full game out of that. (And less
crouch-walking, so it's knee-friendly!)

~~~
ShamelessC
Crouch walking is one of those things that is both incredibly awesome but also
needs to be optional. I think Alyx did an okay job with it but there were
times when I had to literally crouch behind cover not to die. Again, it was
pretty awesome but I'm glad they have a toggle crouch option in the settings.

------
limaoscarjuliet
Very well done!

To all the people out there (not this thread necessarily) for whom this
resembles their daily work - CHANGE IT NOW! Go create value. And of course,
not only in the monetary sense. Solve problems. Be proud of what you have
accomplished.

------
izzydata
If I never acknowledged the 3D display popup then it would let me type forever
and get promoted without doing anything else.

~~~
mjayhn
found our future CEO

~~~
FearNotDaniel
Sociopaths win. [0]

[0] [https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-
principle-...](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-
the-office-according-to-the-office/)

------
tempestn
Does it ever end? I was starting to get flashbacks to the real world times I'd
be typing mid-sentence and some mystery dialog would appear for a nanosecond,
grab my spacebar entry, and then take that as permission to go do...
something, so I had to quit. (I'm amazed Microsoft hasn't managed to do
something about that issue for going on three decades now...)

------
dwaltrip
This is very cool and very well done. The dialogs are perfect.

However, did anyone else get a bug where the breakout game would no longer
destroy the bricks?

My own self-directed minigame within the game was to try to get on top of the
brick wall before my "break" ended and the whole thing was less fun after that
bug.

~~~
drdeca
I think some of the bricks have a durability number to them, where the same
brick has to be hit (e.g.) twice in order to be destroyed? On the other hand,
I do think I noticed a time where the ball went through a brick, which was
odd.

------
typenil
Way too accurate for comfort.

------
rcarmo
This captures the constant sense of being interrupted with senseless/out of
context requests I have in my day job, and reminds me why I sorely miss doing
engineering.

The only way it could be more realistic is if some of those texts were
PowerPoints.

------
slowmovintarget
Crowdsourced random number generator?

------
dwaltrip
Finally, I've found my purpose.

------
7ewis
Supposed to be doing actual work, ended up getting to Computation
Administrator in this.

------
cagenut
still made more sense than jira

~~~
jeffbee
brutal work simulation. Drag little poops from the bottom of column A to
column B. Every time you drag one the page reloads.

------
chasd00
showed this to my 8 year old, he's taking it very seriously haha

------
spartas
[https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html](https://www.decisionproblem.com/paperclips/index2.html)

------
TimTheTinker
I really enjoy hearing all the old Windows 95 sound effects again.

------
frumiousirc
In only 30 seconds I wanted to punch my screen. Well done!

------
phyzome
Hmm, just a gray screen here. I allowed Javascript and even permitted it to
read canvas data. Does this only work on some specific browser?

------
neilwilson
Does it deliberately not work on Safari?

~~~
jan_Inkepa
It works for me on safari (Version 13.1 (15609.1.20.111.8) / catalina). So
probably not deliberate.

------
bebop
My companies name showed up in one of the dialog boxes and it kinda messed me
up... Well done!

------
nelsonenzo
immediately addictive. can i turn off the tasks and just play pong? can i
reduce the number of emails to send? i don't like smashing on my laptop
keyboard in order to keep up.

------
aasasd
My real-life break reminder ended, and the in-game one started.

So realistic!

~~~
aasasd
P.S. Ah, why is progress in Breakout not saved? I had a good run...

------
l0c0b0x
I have a report to work on, and this just took over my life.

Thanks!

------
Nextgrid
Bullshit Job Simulator 2020.

------
ohduran
Absolutely great!

------
hartator
Lol this IS art.

