Stock And Run Your Own 8-Bit Street Cart In Cart Life
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Generic Company Place Holder Cart Life Freeware Edition
Some computer games put you behind the wheel of a powerful, expensive car. Others put you in the shoes of a swashbuckling pirate, or a brave knight. But how many games put you in the shoes of a recently divorced mother trying to make ends meet and win custody over her daughter, or a recent immigrant with broken English trying to find his way in a new life? Cart Life Freeware Edition is one game that does.
Both Andrus and Mel are like real people: They get tired and hungry, and can't go on working unless they eat or sleep. When Mel gets hungry, she starts getting headaches. Each of them has someone else with needs to tend, too; Mel has an 11-year-old daughter, and Andrus has a cat.
Selling newspapers or coffee for a living can be tedious, and Cart Life reflects this well. Andrus must unwrap a bundle of newspapers every morning to stock his stand. This isn't a single command: It's a repetitive process that takes about a minute, during which you must both use the mouse and repeatedly type the same few simple sentences without making any mistakes. If you make a mistake, Andrus drops a newspaper into a puddle of water.
Once you're finally running your Cart Life stand, filling orders is often complicated. If you're lucky, customers order plain coffee, so you just need to pick the item they ordered and then type a simple phrase. But if they want more complicated Espresso-based drinks, you must go through a repetitive series of steps including grinding the coffee, filling the portafilter, sweeping the excess, tamping the coffee and so on. Each step has its own keystrokes, and you can't just mash buttons: If you overdo a step, you must start again from the top, and the customer may lose their patience and leave. If you do well, you may get a tip.
Cart Life's user interface is brilliant. The game intentionally makes you switch between the mouse and keyboard in an annoying way, so there's a learning curve. You can only save the game when you wake up every morning, so if you just quit midday, you will lose your progress for that day. Hofmeier doesn't set out to make Cart Life a fun game: It is equal parts stressful, sad, and touching, and those are all good reasons to play it. To me, it feels closer to an art project than a regular game. Highly recommended.
Note: The Download button takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software. Some scenes in Cart Life feature stylized male or female nudity, in a non-sexual context.
—Erez Zukerman
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