bureaucracy.txt

Ideas for Bureaucracy?
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The global concept for this game can be summarized by the line "Just because
you're paranoid doesn't mean that everybody isn't out to get you."

We've all had the feeling from time to time that somebody (particularly
those small, beady-eyed bureaucrats who work for banks, insurance companies,
etc.) is out to get us.  This game provides the answer: In fact, there is
a massive conspiracy to do just that.  And things are stranger than that,
because this conspiracy is centered in some sort of fantastical underground
(literally) catacomb, connecting all of these various dens of iniquity.

The player, when he successfully completes the game, will have the
intense satisfaction of having crushed the nameless and faceless hoard
of bureaucrats, and, with luck, having gotten the bank to acknowledge his
change of address (or whatever the player's initial task is set up to be).

--

This game is intended as a kind of dark comedy.  The mood which is to
be created is one of frustration, anger, and eventually paranoia as
everything in the player's life goes from bad to worse, all because
of petty errors at the bank, etc.

At some point, the player can gain access to the 'infernal regions',
where some bizarre series of accomplishments will have to be made in
order to destroy the enemy's apparatus.

One possible source of problems is trying to do the things that
the bureaucracy hates most: folding, spindling, and mutiliating punch
cards, filling out forms incorrectly, perhaps stealing rubber stamps
and stamping forms improperly, and otherwise botching up the works.
Perhaps this type of problem in the above-ground area will help create
a diversion allowing access to the underground where more bizarre
things will happen.

Presumably the game starts with the player needing to get some very
simple task done (e.g. getting the bank to acknowledge a change of
address form). This will turn into more of a problem than it seems
and events will cause such things as his credit cards getting recalled,
his house getting repossessed, etc. leading to absurd heights of
nonsense. Clearly, at some point the player will realize that things
are getting out of hand.

Confronting the various bureaucrats will be no easy task, since they
probably won't want to talk with you, preferring that you fill out
a request for conversation form. My guess is that no matter what you
try to do, you can't get them to answer questions very reliably (which
fits in well with parser limitations).

--

Places of Interest

Your Home - probably just a few rooms a la Hitchhiker's

Outside your Home - front steps, etc.

Bank - your bank, with a number of rooms, for tellers, safe deposit
boxes, vault, waiting area, etc.

Post Office - your local post office

Insurance Company - 

Underground - Lots of stuff here, maybe some sort of semi-militaristic
order of bureaucrats with lots of arcane machinery linked up to a gigantic
computer which controls the hoard. Perhaps they all turn out to be
androids or some such.