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The Kill Yourself Game

Rebecca Cannon, Karen Jenkins
2005

The Kill Yourself Game is a Java game for the mobile platform, designed for people who are so bored they'd rather be dead. Mobile games, are after all, a catharsis for transient boredom. This parody, platform shooter sees players influence game dynamics by first inputting self-worth parameters. Players with the highest level of self-hatred enjoy the longest games of self-sacrificing mutilation. Those who love themselves most find the game ending almost before it begins. After choosing a character who 'looks like you feel', and inputting the 'degree to which you hate yourself', game play consists of repeatedly killing copies of the character you choose, whilst listlessly meandering through 'Happy Town'. The game is designed to increase in difficulty exponentially to player self-hatred, resulting in the most self-hating players experiencing the most difficult time completing the game. Thus, ironically, self-hatred is rewarded with greater cause for self-hatred, simultaneous to an increased opportunity to indulge this self-hatred by continually shooting replicas of oneself to pieces. The game is won when the game itself decides that the player has persecuted themselves sufficiently, relative to their natural tendencies towards self-persecution.

From The Kill Yourself Game, via d'archive
From The Kill Yourself Game, via d'archive – via d/Archive 
From The Kill Yourself Game, via d'archive
From The Kill Yourself Game, via d'archive – via d/Archive