Lawn Mowing Simulator

[6832bf82dd196Kolya]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OscqitWvlRk

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1480560/Lawn_Mowing_Simulator/

[6832bf82dd323voodoo47]

this just screams "I have way too much free time".

[6832bf82dd45cKolya]

Or you don't have enough free time and want to do something relaxing in the little time you have. Which might be killing zombies or mowing the lawn.

I don't know, most of these days I play a hunting game which largely consists of walking through pretty forests and spending a lot of time in lookouts. So I'm not feeling judgey.

[6832bf82dd5beZylonBane]

Where's the neighbor chasing you down because you nicked his mower?

[6832bf82dd6acvoodoo47]

I suppose that's true. anyway, seems like these random simulators are becoming popular lately.

[6832bf82dd79eZylonBane]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw8gE3lnpLQ

[6832bf82dd883voodoo47]

worthless unless you can play as the fat gamer dude from South Park.

[6832bf82dd9cbicemann]

Wasn't there a Ben and Teller game where you just mowed lawns? Rings a bell. Was also a Sims game on the GBA where all you did was mow lawns for income.

[6832bf82ddc23JDoran]

In the mid 1980s, a ZX Spectrum* commercial magazine, Your Sinclair, did an April fool about a (non-existent) upcoming game called 'Lawn Mower simulator'. The 'joke' being that the game looked so boring and tedious yet was still so enthusiastically previewed by the magazine. A while later, someone wrote a lawn-mowing game in BASIC* , making it as simple and boring as possible, and sent it to the magazine. I *think* (could be wrong here) that the magazine published the game as a type in listing, for the few people who would bother.

IIRC, a couple of other people wrote games around the concept, making them available via the Spectrum's later public domain software scene.

I didn't find any of it funny, or worth my while. I suppose you could make a fairly interesting and fun game based around mowing a lawn, after all, enjoyable games were made around equally boring concepts, such as watering flowers (PSSST, on the Spectrum), collecting eggs from a hen-house (Chuckie Egg), on the ZX Spectrum, delivering newspapers (Paperboy, arcade), and hundreds more 1980s games. It depends on how much you add to the original theme, I suppose. But nowadays games can have so much more depth, so I don't think good but simplistic games are the guaranteed sellers that they once were.




* British 8 bit micro-computer, with a great library of games.

** BASIC is a programming language, built into the Spectrum, as it was in most 8 bit micros.

[6832bf82ddd87fox]

Best of both worlds, you don't have to choose.

[6832bf82de13cHikari]

Kolya
Or in the case of driving simulators it could be like it is with me. I am physically incapable of legally driving due to vision even after the eye surgeries i had this year.

A lot of these 'mundane task' games fall under the idea of relaxing by doing a low stress thing you don't normally do (how many people living a place with no lawn?) or to practice a skillset (eurot/american truck) or activities most people wo't get to do (flight sim anyone?)

I personally think 'lawnmowing sim' is right daft, but that's because me and my family live on an eight acre lot and have had a hobby farm with horses til relatively recently. To me 'lawnmowing simulator' falls under the same class 'barn cleaning simulator' would.

However not everyone is me and if they wanna do this? Go right ahead.

[6832bf82de55eZylonBane]

In the mid 1980s, a ZX Spectrum* commercial magazine, Your Sinclair, did an April fool about a (non-existent) upcoming game called 'Lawn Mower simulator'.

I guess that's where Jeff Minter got the idea for Hover Bovver. I always wondered why it had such a nonsensical name, and why the lawnmower looked so strange in the cutscenes. Now, with the modern power of Google... huh. Apparently hover lawnmowers are a thing in the UK. I'd never even heard of them before now.

** BASIC is a programming language, built into the Spectrum, as it was in most 8 bit micros.

I'm pretty sure everyone on this forum already knows that.

[6832bf82de65eicemann]

Minter sure made a truckload of games in his lifetime.

[6832bf82de938JDoran]

I'm pretty sure everyone on this forum already knows that.

You're probably right, of course. But there might well be people on this forum, especially lurkers or those who very rarely post here, who are so relatively young that they've never seen or even read about any 8 bit computers. Nowadays there are people old enough to drink alcohol who have never known a time without mobile phones, without 300+ TV channels to choose from, without the internet, etc.

[6832bf82dec44JDoran]

However not everyone is me and if they wanna do this? Go right ahead.

Oh yes, I'm certainly not saying that no one should play this game. We all have different tastes, and each to their own. Personally I'd never play a fishing simulator, a dating simulator, a sports management game, and so on, but they all have their fans, so fair enough.

And you're right about gaming being a form of stress relief. Quite a few people enjoy playing farming sims (Farmville, Nintendo's Harvest Moon games, etc), which is another genre that wouldn't interest me, but those who love these games say that they find playing them to be very relaxing.

Which sort of makes me wonder why I play the games that I do  ? Wandering around a hostile environment, being stalked by pipe or shotgun wielding murderous human hybrids, at the mercy of two homicidal rogue A.I.s, it's not exactly relaxing, is it?

[6832bf82dee22Galeb_G4M]

All jokes aside, I've been living in big cities for so long after growing up in the countryside that I'd buy, maybe not that game, but a "countryside life simulator" with lawn mowing, potato harvests, hornet nest disposal, logging and strawberry jam making! I guess I should try and see if I can find myself an airbnb in a small cottage with chickens somewhere when I'll be done and paid with my new report about these Jurmala houses and their post-COVID market...

[6832bf82def0cKolya]

Have prices gone up or down? Because these seem pretty normal to me.

[6832bf82df010Hikari]

Housing market's kindof gone haywire with prices going way up. on the one hand 'yay I can sell for high' on the other 'aw crud I have to buy for high too'

[6832bf82e08acsarge945]

I'm in Sydney and literal dumps with missing walls are selling for over 4 million.

House prices are completely fucked

https://www.realestate.com.au/news/kensington-house-with-no-kitchen-or-toilet-and-snakes-in-the-back-yard-sells-for-4705000/

[6832bf82e09e6icemann]

And COVID is running rampant in that state (New South Wales) currently.

House prices are pretty crazy in my state (Victoria) as well. Was very lucky to score a house a few months ago for a lower than average price.

[6832bf82e0afeHikari]

The housing market kinda scares me since I'm remembering how it was doing this in 07 and then everything just fell apart. Fine sure the cause of that was banker greed causing a market inflation, but we've got covid throwing a wrench in things now.

So... get ready for another crash guys.

[6832bf82e0bfdfox]

Save for a few short lived ups and downs, I don't think housing is ever going to get cheaper for locations that I would find acceptable for living. That is indeed unsettling.

[6832bf82e0cdeKolya]

Are you saying that while twirling your whiskers in Fantastic Mr Fox's hole?

[6832bf82e0f06Galeb_G4M]

Kolya
Depends on where in the world you are, some places remained normal, some became absolutely bonkers.