The 'point' of the tedious game that is Desert Bus is basically to get from one location to another- generally what a bus is for. It is said to be 'realistic' mostly due to the fact that everything is in actual time. Many may not find it appealing as people usually enjoy games that at the end makes them feel good and as though they have achieved something, or because they get a reward for it, however, in Desert Bus this does not apply. The game follows some typical conventions of a computer game, such as:
- Missions/levels - the mission is to get from Arizona to Las Vegas, in real time (despite the fact that there is literally no traffic at all, and when does that happen in reality?) Despite this, the mission would take 8 hours to complete.
- Coins/rewards - you are rewarded one coin for arriving at the location, and another for returning to the start without stopping or suddenly driving off the side of the road.
- Puzzles/problems - as I experienced several times, it is incredibly easy to veer off the side of the road- you therefore need to avoid this and stick to the middle of the road as if you break down you get dragged back to where you started, however long ago that was.
- Linear structure
- Progressive difficulty
Remember the game is deliberately boring and pointless. It is almost a pastiche of a computer game. It has all the elements of a normal game but just sets out to let you know they are 'stupid', hence the 1 point for driving 8 hours. They could just as easily awarded 1,000,000 points for it but by awarding 1 point it lets you know you've wasted your time.
ReplyDeleteIts realism (ignore the graphics) also makes it completely unrealistic. It was made as a tongue in cheek response to criticisms that games were too violent and fears that children might carry out violent acts in real life because they couldn't tell the difference (hyperreality).