And the actual work itself is also not really valuable and it's okay if it never actually gets done. Most projects end up in a semi-failed state anyways.
I'm guessing Computation Executive might be the highest if it uses the position field. (Don't have time to see how this data gets used to set the title.)
Top job is Chief Technical Officer, but there's a (guessing bounds error) bug that causes it to stop valuing your work when you're supposed to be promoted from Computational Administrator to Screen Technician.
Clearly it needs the following 3 things:
1. It needs a fake calendar that is randomly populated with meetings.
2. It needs to randomly require that you open Google Hangouts and chat with other users.
3. It needs to send random Slack notifications.
> 1. It needs a fake calendar that is randomly populated with meetings.
While we're on this, can everyone please post their favorite ridiculous meeting title that is really real? I'll start with a recurring meeting series from last year that was called "mid-sprint calibration".
> 1. It needs a fake calendar that is randomly populated with meetings.
Not enough to compete with the real deal. Has to have multiple team calendars, so it can support conflicting mandatory meetings so people can bitch at you on Google Hangouts and Slack afterward for missing the ones you didn't attend, even though you'd told everyone in advance that you couldn't make it.
Don't forget the same meeting populated 2-3 times because somebody set up a recurring meeting invite and then made a new one and the old one never really deleted properly so you've now got the same meeting twice from 2:30-3:30 every Thursday.
I once posited this video as answer to "what does the project management group do all day?" and giggled more than was appropriate while watching it over his shoulder. Great video! Underrated.
I ended up laying my fingers flat on the keyboard (thumbs still on space) so I can hit more keys while mashing, lifting them only to set calendar appointments.
It's like I've become a parody of myself.
Ha, reading that thread and this game reminds me of a temp job I once had.
It was at a sandpaper factory that made sandpaper belts.
My job was to pull a sheet from a roll until it hit a mark. Another guy pressed a button. Lift sheet onto pile. Pull sheet until it hits mark. Another guy pressed a button. Lift sheet onto pile. Pull sheet until it hits mark. Another guy pressed a button. Lift sheet onto pile. Pull sheet until it hits mark. Another guy pressed a button. Lift sheet onto pile. Pull sheet until it hits mark. Another guy pressed a button. Lift sheet onto pile.
I worked at a factory that had me do the following:
Put bracket in machine. Press button to tap holes. Repeat.
I got the loop down to about 3.85 seconds which was 115% faster than the engineers said I could do.
I found I could listen to audiobooks at that job. It still didn't stop the existential dread. I worked there for 2 months before finding a better place.
I was doing the same until I couldn't get the calendar widget to work. Opened up the dev console and noticed you can just call 'updateWorkUnits(x)' with x being any number. Instant promotion. You top out at CTO though.
I determined that the most efficient way to play this game is to ignore every task that isn't typing for character count, including never actually saving once you get to the minimum character count for the current task. As you go up in levels, the number of work units you accomplish per character goes up, and you continue accruing work units even if you do "extra credit" on one of your tasks by exceeding the minimum. So it pays to just keep returning focus to whatever window you were typing in and never stopping. I think it also might stop giving you new tasks once you have a certain number stacked up, which lets you have uninterrupted keyboard-mashing time to get those promotions. :D
Using this strategy, I managed to hit the Computation Administrator progress cap almost immediately after my first "well-deserved break".
I love the "busywork" aspect of this game. You work like a drone, doing simple tasks with no intelligence whatsoever. This must be what most people working on a desk must feel like (not sure people on HN can relate to this).
It's also a reflection on modern gaming in general. If only some games had busywork as part of their gameplay, they'd feel less tiring and more fun.
Once people start developing bots for a game it has pretty much reached this point. While usually not kosher, in some games I think developing a bot for them would be more interesting than the game itself
There are plenty of games that have "busywork" aspects. The term for it in gaming is "grinding" (implies mindlessness, even though it is sometimes used in a different context). The vast majority of RPGs, especially old-school JRPGs and MMORPGs, require you do "grind" to get to a certain level to unlock more stages.
Many modern mobile games are literally just mindless busywork with an option to pay money to skip some of the busywork. The whole "clicker" genre is totally mindless.
There are plenty of games that fit your criteria, so maybe you're just playing the wrong types of games?
Re playing Chrono Trigger this weekend. The "fast-forward" button and instant saves real make it a fun experience for the story without the chores of the grinding.
This was a treat for me the first time I found emulators. When I was a kid I could tell you all of the different types of PRNG that the Dragon Warrior games for instance used. In DW1, if you reset, you'd fight the same monster 3 steps above you, but in DW4 that wasn't the case.
It was fun to test my without a reset button and waiting 10 minutes.
Most of the asian MMO scene is ridiculously grind-y. There seems to be a market over there for colorful, repetitive, good-god-that-is-a-hell-of-a-grind MMORPGs.
…and, I'm missing a word, so I said the opposite of what I meant:
If only some games had less busywork as part of their gameplay.
To reply @stdbrouw and @ericdykstra: I hate grinding. Old-school RPGs and mobile F2P games are guilty of this. But all other games that have random collectibles in an open world, or "do X Y times" trophies/achievements are just adding stuff to keep you busy. I heard some people like this, but it's not my thing.
I like grinding, so I thought this game was entertaining for a while, not just for its artistic statement, but for its actual gameplay. When I'm in the mood to play video games, my mind is so mushy that I can only comprehend repetitive tasks. Following a storyline or achieving a complex goal is too much for my brain to handle after a day of work.
>> If only some games had busywork as part of their gameplay, they'd feel less tiring and more fun.
Is this a joke?
A huge number of games have mindless busywork as part of the play. Whole genre's are based on it.
You're trying to achieve/build/win/unlock X? Great, spend the next 14 hours mindlessly and repetitively mining rocks until you can't carry any more rocks, and then putting them in the rock store, and mining more rocks!
I was thinking of "ARK - Survival Evolved" which I've been playing quite a bit lately. Great game, you get to ride dinosaurs, but buggy as hell and the grind, oh the grind....
Hm, that's a side of gaming that is foreign to most people who call themselves "gamers" (even casual gamers). A game like starcraft is much more complex (by orders of magnitude) than chess, a game with a respected intelligence component. AI cannot (yet) outperform human teams in mobas like league of legends or overwatch. These are the titles i think of when thinking about "modern gaming".
Far more effort has been put into chess AIs than into AI's for modern games. I don't suspect it would be hard for a talented team to make an unbeatable AI for any of the games you've listed.
EDIT: nevermind, I see it was a typo on OP's part, rendering my comment irrelevant. OP wanted less busywork, but forgot the word "less". :-)
If only some games had busywork as part of their gameplay
Mass Effect, Fallout 4, and Destiny come immediately to mind. Considering that I don't play a wide swath of video games, I'm sure I've missed many more.
"As mankind's last and best hope, busy though you might be, you're the only one qualified to get the old woman's cat out of a tree."
The one that hops to mind immediately for me is "Papers, Please", where the player is an immigration agent that must verify documents for those wishing to enter a fictional country.
This is stupid its funny how long I keep it going. It's a little stressful when your trying to get your characters quota typed out and you have to keep selecting other modal windows but all in all it feels like "I am on track" with my fake work life.
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[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 242 ms ] threadAnd some more information in form of a "press" release from the github: https://github.com/pippinbarr/itisasifyouweredoingwork/tree/...
I found the "game" to be somehow interesting.
It would be fun if mashing different keys made typing faster.
Reminds me of "Papers, Please".
I'm guessing Computation Executive might be the highest if it uses the position field. (Don't have time to see how this data gets used to set the title.)
They always say that...
While we're on this, can everyone please post their favorite ridiculous meeting title that is really real? I'll start with a recurring meeting series from last year that was called "mid-sprint calibration".
(We eventually found out Hunt was a person's name).
This was the title of an actual, not cancelled, meeting in Outlook.
(with the random capitalisation of actual)
Not enough to compete with the real deal. Has to have multiple team calendars, so it can support conflicting mandatory meetings so people can bitch at you on Google Hangouts and Slack afterward for missing the ones you didn't attend, even though you'd told everyone in advance that you couldn't make it.
4. Time-sensitive pop-ups: things that force you to act NOW instead of ignoring them.
Ever tried, ever failed, no matter.
Try again, fail again, fail better.
Always game the system!
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14656945
It was at a sandpaper factory that made sandpaper belts.
My job was to pull a sheet from a roll until it hit a mark. Another guy pressed a button. Lift sheet onto pile. Pull sheet until it hits mark. Another guy pressed a button. Lift sheet onto pile. Pull sheet until it hits mark. Another guy pressed a button. Lift sheet onto pile. Pull sheet until it hits mark. Another guy pressed a button. Lift sheet onto pile. Pull sheet until it hits mark. Another guy pressed a button. Lift sheet onto pile.
For 8 hours straight.
I quit at lunch.
I worked at a factory that had me do the following:
Put bracket in machine. Press button to tap holes. Repeat.
I got the loop down to about 3.85 seconds which was 115% faster than the engineers said I could do.
I found I could listen to audiobooks at that job. It still didn't stop the existential dread. I worked there for 2 months before finding a better place.
Using this strategy, I managed to hit the Computation Administrator progress cap almost immediately after my first "well-deserved break".
It's also a reflection on modern gaming in general. If only some games had busywork as part of their gameplay, they'd feel less tiring and more fun.
Like grinding in an MMORPG? I'm not so sure.
Many modern mobile games are literally just mindless busywork with an option to pay money to skip some of the busywork. The whole "clicker" genre is totally mindless.
There are plenty of games that fit your criteria, so maybe you're just playing the wrong types of games?
It was fun to test my without a reset button and waiting 10 minutes.
If only some games had less busywork as part of their gameplay.
To reply @stdbrouw and @ericdykstra: I hate grinding. Old-school RPGs and mobile F2P games are guilty of this. But all other games that have random collectibles in an open world, or "do X Y times" trophies/achievements are just adding stuff to keep you busy. I heard some people like this, but it's not my thing.
Is this a joke?
A huge number of games have mindless busywork as part of the play. Whole genre's are based on it.
You're trying to achieve/build/win/unlock X? Great, spend the next 14 hours mindlessly and repetitively mining rocks until you can't carry any more rocks, and then putting them in the rock store, and mining more rocks!
Out of curiosity - as opposed to?
Try Mass Effect
If only some games had busywork as part of their gameplay
Mass Effect, Fallout 4, and Destiny come immediately to mind. Considering that I don't play a wide swath of video games, I'm sure I've missed many more.
"As mankind's last and best hope, busy though you might be, you're the only one qualified to get the old woman's cat out of a tree."