Mini Game: Voting

Voting can be an extremely satisfying experience, as you can't help but feel proud and patriotic for taking part in democracy first hand. Because of this, casting a ballot every Election Day will add six Life Points (LPs) to your total. However, as with everything else in Your Life®, there are a few obstacles you'll have to overcome before collecting them.

Obstacle #1: The People Holding Signs in Front of the Nursing Home Where Your Precinct Is Located
Difficulty: Moderate
Life Points Vulnerable: 2

The small crowd of people holding signs for their respective candidates can be pushy, and if you let their last minute pleas for support get to your head your Guilt and Confusion Meters will rise to perilous levels.

This is especially true when you see Margaret, the woman you've been flirting with at the Laundromat. She'll hold a sign for Gus Shanks, your local Fascist-leaning alderman. You never took Margaret as the fascist type so this will come as something of a shock, and you'll lose your bearings and begin to think that Mussolini was just a poorly misunderstood novelist. So, yeah, you'll want to avoid the people holding signs.

Otherwise you'll enter the precinct with your judgment clouded, and risk the chance of voting for a candidate you'll regret about later, which will cost you two LPs.

Tip: Run (D-PAD UP + ANALOG A-PAD on the controller) past the people holding signs while holding your ears and humming the "This Land is Your Land." (TAP X-BUTTON GENTLY + C-BUTTON)

Obstacle #2: The Grumpy Old People Manning the Precincts
Difficulty: Moderate
Life Points Vulnerable: 2

More often than not, the people working at the precinct will be old and grumpy, particularly during elections that feature some sort of tax repeal initiative. When you check into vote they'll scowl at you and your young-looking-eventual-child-having-non-tax-repealing demeanor. (Where do you get off being so young anyway?)

This adversely affects your Self-Conscious Meter and, given your preset inclination to wanting to please others, you might find yourself doing all you can to win the grumpy, old people over, from complimenting them on their cardigans to voting to repeal the tax that helps fund public schools.

Tip: Bring a box of donuts with you and offer them to the grumpy, old poll workers (HOLD CURSOR OVER DONUT, PRESS B-BUTTON TO SELECT IT, THEN DRAG DONUT OVER A GRUMPY, OLD PERSON) before they can target their first scowls of spite in your direction.

Warning: Make sure the surly precinct captain Art Crankshaw gets a jelly donut, otherwise that will be the last straw and he'll lose it. He'll scowl at you like a grumpy, old person has never scowled at you before. Then he'll secretly start to tinker with the ballots in less than legal ways.

The next day when the results are announced you'll discover the tax repeal has passed and within weeks your local high school's wrestlers and ultimate Frisbee players will be team-less, and the teacher/student ratio in the district will be 42-1. All because of a jelly donut.

Democracy!

Obstacle #3 The Computer Polling Station
Difficulty: Hard
Life Points Vulnerable: 2

The new computer polling stations were meant to be an upgrade from the older lever-controlled stations, but as it turns out that's far from the case. They're constantly on the blink, as their touch screen system works erratically, and if you don't press your selection in exactly the right spot your ballot will be miscast.

Tip: Hold the cursor over the candidate or question answer of your choice by selecting the D-PAD, while gingerly tapping the A-BUTTON to cast your vote.

Warning: When moving the cursor into position don't drag it across the names of other candidates or else it will register the first one you cross over as your selection. Thus you'll have to maneuver the cursor around the blank parts of the screen, as if it were a maze. The empty margins are narrow, so it takes a deft touch to avoid hitting any of the names.

To make matters more difficult, after you've passed the first row ghost elephants, donkeys and Ralph Naders will chase the cursor around the screen. You'll have to drag over your candidate before any of the ghosts reach you, otherwise your vote will correspond to the political leanings of your ghost captor.

If you manage to make it to your candidate's name safely, be careful not to tap the A-BUTTON too hard or else Art Crankshaw will pull back the curtain and charge you with voter fraud – whether you gave him a jelly donut or not.

If this should occur, you'll lose all six available Life Points. You'll then be whisked away into a police car, but not before a quick perp walk past the grumpy, old poll workers and the people holding signs. Yes, eventually you'll be cleared of all charges, but Margaret will never flirt with you again. Sure, she might be a fascist, but just the same, she gave you something to look forward to every time you washed your sweatpants.

Democracy!

Now, go and buy Chris' book! – Dennis

The Ultimate Game Guide to Your Life, Or the Video Game as Existential Metaphor is written as a faux game guide to a fictional role-playing video game called Your Life®. The reader follows the life of the main character, an unassuming everyman, from his birth to his death, as if he were the main character in a Sims-like video game. Each chapter (or "level" of the game) is a developmental phase of his life, and the book gives tips and tricks along the way to help readers have the most satisfying game (life) experience as possible. Below is a never before seen bonus mini game from Level V of Your Life®: Your Grown Up Years (Part 1).