How to Whack-A-Politician

Whack A Politician Game

For a long time, Nintendo’s Legend of Zelda, and Tetris for Gameboy were the only games I’d beaten. (You ride a rocket ship when you beat Tetris!)

Gaming is such a natural extension of the iPhone, I’ve acquired quite a few and find myself playing Angry Birds, Bejeweled, TypeWar and others.

My most recent buy is “Whack-A-Politician,” developed by a couple of Seattle guys. Since I’m in Seattle, I’m always interested in what’s happening in my home town.

Democrat Leo Novsky got the urge to whack some sense into Washington talking heads stalemated over debt reform. So he and his Republican friend Bill Nagel, a software engineer, decided to create the game.

Whack-A-Politician

Whack-A-Politician is a “whack-a-mole” type of game where caricaturized political archetypes from both parties poke their heads up through holes in a U.S. map, with the objective of the player bonking them on the head before they disappear.

In attempting to assess the game objectively, two questions emerged: One, Is it fun? and secondly, Is it challenging?

General details

  1. To advance to a new level, you need to fill the “whack-a-meter” (colored horizontal bar at top of screen).
  2. If a politician from the party you are targeting returns to his/her hole without being hit, the “whack-a-meter” goes down.
  3. If the “whack-a-meter” gets to zero, you lose.
  4. If you hit a politician from the party you are targeting you get 1,000 points and the “whack-a-meter” goes up.
  5. You are given three gavels. If you hit a politician from the wrong party you lose a gavel. if you lose all three gavels you lose the game.

Balancing the characters

I think they’ve been even handed in balancing the characters between Democrats and Republicans, and men and women. The caricatures and sound effects are amusing (each character utters “OW!” when they’re whacked), and the changing maps and renditions of “Hail to the Chief” at each level break up the monotony. This is a game that can be mindless fun, or challenging depending on your mode of play.

Three games in one

There are really three games in one, because depending on your political preferences, you have the choice of whacking Democrats, whacking Republicans, or whacking everyone. My experience has been that the party-specific choices are significantly more challenging than the whack-em-all version because they require much more concentration and dexterity.

The downside

If you choose “whack them all,” the downside is that the game is almost too easy. Granted, you still need to move more and more quickly with each level, but similar to some PopCap games I have for my Nintendo DS (Portrait of a Thief, Forgotten Ruins), where you can indiscriminately tap the screen with a good chance of hitting something and getting points, the “skill factor” is low.  The GOOD thing is, if you are a casual gamer or just a dabbler, this could be a great game because even the most inept player can succeed.

The payoff

I contacted the developers to ask them what happens in the higher levels? Bill Nagel says, “The speed of the game increases at each level, with characters popping up more quickly and staying on the screen for shorter and shorter periods of time.” When I asked what the player gets at the successful completion of the game, he responded, “At this point, you get bragging rights and some serious finger exercise. As the game evolves there are plans to add a ‘reward’ at the end.”

Personally, making it to Level 11 so far has been gratifying, and most gamers I know would settle for bragging rights after conquering 20 levels of game play. Beating a game is the best revenge.

At the end of the day, we all know politicians deserve it, and being able to vent your frustrations (or just killing time) by whacking politicians of either parties can be, as Martha Stewart says, “a good thing.”

Websites

Game site: http://whack-a-politician.com/

Apple Store: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/whack-a-politician/id492597984?mt=8

Note: Because of the “violence” of whacking people on the head, Apple has rated the game “R – 17”

Total
0
Shares
27 comments
  1. Thanks Terri,

    It is very funny that Apple designated us as 17+. I imagine that Whack-a-Politician is the ONLY Whack-a-mole type game to get this rating! The game is fun and will get more fun as time goes on since we are constantly adding updates. Let us know if there is something you like to see.

  2. Haven’t had a lot of experience critically dissecting a game, but as I considered it from a consumer standpoint, I realised it is inexpensive, fun and in terms of the theme—very timely. I guess Apple considers the whacking of PEOPLE to be, uh, violent? 😀 I would love to see fireworks at the end of the game — like on the 4th of July!

  3. I think this app will become increasingly therapeutic as the election hyperbole rages on. 

  4. I simply want to say I’m beginner to blogs and certainly loved you’re page. Almost certainly I’m likely to bookmark your site . You definitely have tremendous articles. Thanks for sharing with us your web-site.

  5. We are a gaggle of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community. Your website offered us with valuable info to paintings on. You’ve done a formidable job and our whole group shall be grateful to you.

  6. Thank you for every other informative site. Where else may just I get that type of info written in such a perfect way? I have a undertaking that I am simply now running on, and I’ve been on the look out for such info.

  7. Hey there, I just hopped over to your web site thru StumbleUpon. Not somthing I would normally read, but I enjoyed your thoughts none the less. Thanks for making something worth reading through.

  8. Jesus Christ there is a great deal of spammy comments on this web site. Have you ever before believed about attempting to eliminate them or installing a tool?

  9. Hmmm, yup no doubt Google is finest for blogging except today word press is also good as a blogging as its Search engine marketing is nice defined already.

  10. It appears to me that this website doesnt load up in a Motorola Droid. Are other folks having the same issue? I like this site and dont want to have to miss it when Im away from my computer.

Comments are closed.

Related Posts