On Corporate Worldbuilding, 2
I generally don't play phone games anymore because they're such fundamentally unproductive uses of time, but there's one that's held my attention. Gardenscape is a game in which you inherit a mansion and its surrounding fields of dilapidated gardens, which you renovate by playing match-3 levels and using the points as a sort of currency. What interests me about this game is that it has a story, and each time you add a new feature the butler will comment on its appearance and function. Characters come and go and interact with the gardens in various ways, and there's an overarching premise that this garden-focused lifestyle is common in the world of the game, or at least the particular region where you live.
The world as it is presented is naturally very cozy, in which the direst problem anyone has to face is the idea that their garden might be damaged, or that a random turn of events could cause them embarrassment. Yet there are hints that this is not universally the case. If left to his own devices, the butler will perform random idle tasks, one of which being to read the newspaper. When he puts it away, he comments to the effect of, "Look at this. You don't see things like that happening around here." Perhaps the intended message in this is that, no matter the trauma and tension that occurs in the real world, the Gardenscape world is always safe.
A particularly interesting plot in the game involves a competition in which your garden is pitted against those of your neighbors, though this is a conceit to follow a story and not a real competition. Early in the competition there's a hint that the adjudicator might be biased against you, and a supporting character is infuriated by this, commenting that he "can't abide injustice". Of course, injustice in the course of a garden competition is hardly noteworthy in a wider historical context, but the fact that a concept of injustice exists in this world intrigues me. It makes me wonder if other parts of this Gardenscape world are less cozy. Perhaps, when your character is happily renovating vast garden areas for no other benefit than their aesthetic value, they do so at the expense of others somewhere else who live and work in poverty to produce the wealth that your character enjoys. Very probably, the game designers have never considered this question, and have simply included an accidental hint of disparity based on their experience of the real world.
The world as it is presented is naturally very cozy, in which the direst problem anyone has to face is the idea that their garden might be damaged, or that a random turn of events could cause them embarrassment. Yet there are hints that this is not universally the case. If left to his own devices, the butler will perform random idle tasks, one of which being to read the newspaper. When he puts it away, he comments to the effect of, "Look at this. You don't see things like that happening around here." Perhaps the intended message in this is that, no matter the trauma and tension that occurs in the real world, the Gardenscape world is always safe.
A particularly interesting plot in the game involves a competition in which your garden is pitted against those of your neighbors, though this is a conceit to follow a story and not a real competition. Early in the competition there's a hint that the adjudicator might be biased against you, and a supporting character is infuriated by this, commenting that he "can't abide injustice". Of course, injustice in the course of a garden competition is hardly noteworthy in a wider historical context, but the fact that a concept of injustice exists in this world intrigues me. It makes me wonder if other parts of this Gardenscape world are less cozy. Perhaps, when your character is happily renovating vast garden areas for no other benefit than their aesthetic value, they do so at the expense of others somewhere else who live and work in poverty to produce the wealth that your character enjoys. Very probably, the game designers have never considered this question, and have simply included an accidental hint of disparity based on their experience of the real world.