Unwinnable

A couple of weeks ago, I learned of a website called Unemployed Professors. Essentially a higher-priced version of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, the site serves as a middleman between academics of questionable ethics and students who wish to hire them to ghostwrite their school papers. There was much debate on Twitter at the time as to whether the site was an elaborate joke, a brilliant commentary on higher education, an actual bunch of mercenaries in tweed jackets or some combination of all three. I immediately set out to find the truth.

I signed up and posted a job. While I had to play the part of a student, from the beginning I had every intention of running the results on Unwinnable. The subject of the paper? Why not see what these ruthless magisters could do with Unwinnable’s all-time most-read piece: Brian Daly’s “A Brief History of Storytelling in Videogames.” After a short bidding process, I hired Professor Rogue for the task. The two-page, double-spaced result was filed three days later, complete with footnotes (it was also in APA style, which we stripped out in favor of our house style). Is it as funny as BTD’s original comic? Will I get an A?

(more…)

When I look back at my younger years and the time spent staring into the clunky, tan-colored monitor of my Commodore 64, one game quickly pops into mind.

“Police Quest.”

This adventure series from Sierra, who at the time was among the top game developers, followed the adventures of Sonny Bonds, a cop with the fictional Lytton, California police department.

Developed by Jim Walls, a former cop, the games were cemented in real-life police procedure when it came to investigations. There was a booklet which included a list of rules and police codes, something I can remember thinking was so great.

It was 1987, and I was 12 years old.

(more…)