Cart Life
Cart Life by Richard Hofmeier is a simulation of the daily grind of a new immigrant who runs a small news cart on the streets of a big city. Staged in potently crunchy black and white pixel art, the game opens with your balding character on a train trying to learn English by translating their favorite poems from their native language. From there, you have to find a cheap hotel, hide your cat from your landlord, and try to make money fifty cents at a time by selling newspapers and coffee. One of the interesting aspects of Cart Life is that it was created through a DIY repurposing Microsoft’s open source game creation software, Adventure Game Studio. Throughout the experience, the player is subtly coerced into adopting the mindset that comes with living on such thin margins, constantly micromanaging tiny details, fretting over demeaning trivial interactions, and striving to fulfill the American myth of hard work equaling success. Never shying away from showing the exhaustion and dehumanization that can accompany this sort of struggle, Cart Life manages to be a surprisingly expansive and empathetic portrait of life at the margins of society.
Creator: Richard Hofmeier
Link: https://hofmeier.itch.io/cartlife
Connections:
Michelle Hessel’s - “Hidden In Plain Sight”
Jacob Riss - How the Other Half Lives