The Illusion of Upward Mobility

Set in an unnamed industrialized nation, Norman's Great Illusion follows the life of one person over the course of a year. Time in the game moves in roughly one-month increments, and each day we see starts the same. His alarm clock goes off, you guide him to his dresser to get clothed, then to the dining room table for breakfast and chit-chat with the wife and daughter. The talk is just something you read, not a situation where you can choose between dialogue options. At the end of the day, you return home and go through the process in reverse. Dinner and chit-chat, change out of your clothes, bed.

In between is the actual gameplay, such as it is. You work at a factory across town as an engineer. You have to drive there, so there's a driving mini-game. Which is basically a timing thing. The vertical line moves back and forth across the grey bar, hit the button when it's inside the green bar. If you botch it, your car takes damage, which accumulates, and eventually you'll have to pay repair bills, which cuts into your funds.

At work, you do math. Literally, the game shows you a calculator with a series of problems on it, and you punch in the answer. At least it helped me brush up on my Order of Operations! If you mess up too much, the boss sends you home. If you do everything right, you get a bonus on top of your pay. If you do well enough months in a row, you start getting raises.

The trick - and the point I assume, given each time you leave for work the game throws up some quote about not speaking up for the unionists, or how dangerous nationalism is to labor - is until you manage two raises, you make less than the Expenses the game charges you. Even if you don't damage your car, don't do anything else that might hurt your standing at work or cut into your pay, even if you get the smaller bonus for good work, you're still getting poorer the entire game.

The rest of the gameplay is choices you're presented with. Two cops are chasing someone who is hiding their face. Do you tackle the person fleeing, or step aside? It's Election Day! Will you vote for the main party, or one of the others? Will you support the factory workers when they protest the factory taking a contract for poison gas? What about if they move to unionize as a pushback against increased hours, causing additional trouble for your department?

Eventually you get an ending, one way or the other. In my first playthrough (which didn't take 30 minutes) I was a good little worker bee. Got the raises, secured at least temporary financial security for my family. Then I went to work one day, and while I was gone, someone came and took my wife and kid. Or so I'm told. Maybe they left because I was working too much and never around. I never even found the time to finish putting together my daughter's bike. Just look at it! The negligence!

Second try, I was more supportive of the workers. Eventually got blacklisted. Also interrogated when it turns out my secret ballot wasn't so secret after all. Certainly not a distressing looming fear to have at present in this trashfire of a country! Wound up broke, especially after I spent that whole day buying Christmas presents and not working, which sapped my remaining funds. Given a choice of 4 options, I joined an underground workers study circle and my family spent years moving from place to place until, I assume, the Revolution occurred. At least my kid probably had to leave the bike behind, so I no longer felt guilty about that.

It's not really a fun game to play. If nothing else, you're watching that dollar amount creep closer to 0, no matter how careful you are. At least the first time through, the vague sense of panic I'm doing something wrong I can't see. Probably not something I need a game to impart.