New Arrival: Menial: a Utopian Bagel Simulator
Menial: a Utopian Bagel Simulator is now available.
Menial: a Utopian Bagel Simulator is a restaurant simulator and a visual novel, with some light point 'n' click puzzling in a comic pixel art style very much inspired by the NES. Set in the City State of Ineria, a fully automated utopia.
Comment from the developer: At the onset of developement of Menial I had been unemployed for about two years after dropping out of university, so that very much dictated the subject matter of the game which revolves around work and ambition, but also on idleness and the meaningfulness of life. It was quite reasonable to get excited over such themes as a basic income and absolute freedom from bureaucracy, a socialist redistribution of wealth and the end of the cult of wage labor.
I also adore the tradition of philosophical dialogues and Menial is in a sense a project to write one, although it lacks the severity and consistency of serious philosophical works. Menial leans more towards an absurd theater in that regard; that it doesn’t present a doctrine or give any real answers, but rather the dialogues drift on the whims of the speakers and end in an interruption, an unresolved conflict or aporia.