Maelstrom of Life

Around the year 2002 I designed this game to simulate "Playing the Game of Life" in our modern times — as shaped by Future Shock trends: accelerating change, resulting psychological stress on individuals, and the concomitant fragmentation of society.

Changes in lifestyle caused by personal choice or by external factors can be positive, mixed, or negative. Most of the ones I thought of are "negative":

Advances in technology like those shown here, or in policies such as are enforced by government, somewhat mitigate the negative effects of change by attempting to make up for them or by offering partial solutions:

The medium of exchange and an essential factor in gameplay is the player's availability of time. Acquiring and maintaining social connections takes time but confers benefit by granting value to that time spent. Social connections come in three types of connectedness: Endorsement, Referral, and Affinity.

This page was written in the "embarrassingly readable" markup language RHTF, and was last updated on 2026 May 12.

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