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Idea

An online multiplayer videogame where your character gets progressively older as the day turns to evening

Image credit: Grandpa and the Zombies Nintendo Switch

Darko Savic

Darko Savic Jul 06, 2022

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A video game designed to help young people understand what getting old is like and that it's coming for sure. Everyone's character starts young in the morning but gets progressively more frail and old in the evening.
Why?
Help young people understand:
what getting old will be like and that it's coming for everyone
that everyone's time is limited and we should use it wisely
that even though we theoretically have many years left to live, there are different constraints at different ages
if you are going to do something, do it now
unless humanity collectively works on biological longevity and we fix aging within our generation — the entire generation will be gone. No respawning from that.
Memento mori.
There are only 2 ways out: death or working on longevity research untill humanity eventually achieves a breakthrough.
How it works
Take any addictive online multiplayer video game that kids love to play (has nothing to do with aging) and modify it so that everyone's characters are young and healthy in the morning but get progressively older and frail throughout the day. In the evening everyone's vision is blurry, hearing is bad, they have low stamina, etc. The game is amazing in the morning but it's a struggle to play in the evening.
Around your geographical midday (your character's then mid-40s) you get a blurry vision for objects that are closer than an arm's length. A few hours later your game's volume becomes quieter and quieter to simulate bad hearing.
By the late afternoon, your character looks too old to fit in with other kids that are in different time zones. Then various medical problems start and trips to the doctor. The gameplay mostly becomes maintainance of your character's health.
There's nothing you can do to cheat and reset your character's age until next morning. Even if you set your computer's time back, the game remembers the timezone of your initial location and it becomes set in stone.

video games longevity

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General comments

Darko Savic

Darko Savic2 years ago

Haltingpoint on reddit suggested this:

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Povilas S

Povilas S2 years ago

Watching this film might have a similar effect:)

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Shireesh Apte

Shireesh Apte2 years ago

I don't know how many young people would play such a game. Escapism, enjoyment and the pursuit of pleasure are some prominent reasons for game playing. Take those away and most young people would quit playing after midday. For my part, I play Civilization only on the 'Warlord' mode because I know that the computer algorithm easily beats me in 'Diety' mode! I don't play FPS anymore since my reflexes have become s..l..o...w.

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Darko Savic

Darko Savic2 years ago

A reddit poster suggested that this idea already exists:

But this is definitely not what I had in mind. Instead, imagine Roblox, Minecraft, or whatever kids like to play. But their character gets older throughout the day. By evening time they have to spend a lot of effort just maintaining the character's health and vitality to be able to play. Imagine other kids in different time zones not wanting to play with "old people" because they look/perform so much differently.

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Shubhankar Kulkarni

Shubhankar Kulkarni2 years ago

Awesome! There should also be some steps that you can take to maintain your functionality even in old age (in the evenings). For example, things that mimic a healthy diet, exercise, etc. that will help you in the long-term.
Also rather than increasing your character's age in the evening, it should increase as the game progresses. This will make it a much more gradual process. As the game progresses, your character does much more paperwork and thinking than execution and fieldwork. However, if the character maintains their health, they could be more active in old age and the negative effects could be minimized or appear later.

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