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Ask HN: Are there any good poverty simulator games?

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Re: Ask HN: Are there any good poverty simulator games?

#16
I have experience working for a year in a homeless shelter. I think that there is a “papers please” or “a dark room” style game that you could make that would simulate what it is like to try to exist in homelessness.

You have very few resources, many of which are provided by the shelter but only intermittently. You should expect your things to be stolen from you if you are around other homeless people (and to not be above stealing yourself), but going it alone has its own challenges. You probably have to juggle going to 3 to 4 different shelters and various resource locations every week and sometimes two or three in one day. You never have enough food you never have enough water; there’s never a place to go to the bathroom. You can’t show up to shelter locations if you’re on drugs, but drugs will definitely be a part of your life as there’s something that you can trade and sell for money. On a day when you don’t have enough resources at the very least maybe you could take drugs to ease the pain of not having eaten for a day or so, but of course this will exacerbate your overall situation.

Re: Ask HN: Are there any good poverty simulator games?

#18

I think it is a niche worth exploring. I have long thought of a vanlife game which would highlight homelessness. If anyone wants to work together on such a project just holler.

Might be interested in building a game together with this angle. Would you like to send me an email? I’ll put it in my profile for a short period of time
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