{"id":831,"date":"2014-05-03T15:41:39","date_gmt":"2014-05-03T15:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/?p=831"},"modified":"2022-10-10T13:58:14","modified_gmt":"2022-10-10T13:58:14","slug":"to-build-a-better-mousetrap-release-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/to-build-a-better-mousetrap-release-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"To Build a Better Mousetrap – Release Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To Build a Better Mousetrap<\/a>, a long-awaited management game about innovation and labor, is finally out!
\nThe game premiered last December at FACT gallery in Liverpool<\/a> along with the article\/talk Videogames and the spirit of capitalism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I tried to describe To Build a Better Mousetrap as “Richard Scarry meets Karl Marx” or “Information visualization without information” but it’s really a development of the idea of “playable theory” I explored before with the Free Culture Game<\/a> or Leaky World<\/a>: using games and simulations as cognitive maps, as objects to think about systems and about broad social dynamics in abstract. This time however, I tried to avoid text and labeling in favor of transparent flows of resources and iconic elements.<\/p>\n

The result is somewhat cryptic, dry, and against the current trend of narrative indie games, but some players may recognize a cast of classic characters: the Surplus Value, the Reserve army of labor, the Fordist class compromise, the alienation resulting from division of labor, and one of today’s hottest capitalist contradictions: the decline of employment as result of labor saving technologies.<\/p>\n

To build a better mousetrap can end in bankruptcy, retirement, and insurrection\/post-scarcity socialism<\/a>.
\nCan you save capitalism from itself?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To Build a Better Mousetrap, a long-awaited management game about innovation and labor, is finally out! The game premiered last December at FACT gallery in Liverpool along with the article\/talk Videogames and the spirit of capitalism. I tried to describe To Build a Better Mousetrap as “Richard Scarry meets Karl Marx” or “Information visualization without … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “To Build a Better Mousetrap – Release Notes”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-games","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1991,"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions\/1991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.molleindustria.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}