Eclectic Memes

Someone has written a video game that, when played, deletes files from your machine. Each file is associated with an ‘invader’ and each time an invader is killed the corresponding file is deleted from your system.

Okay, the game is pointless. Or rather, dangerous to play on your own system. That is not the reason I am writing about it.

About five years ago, while working for a large organisation implementing a configuration management process, I was wiling away a lunch time discussing with one of the developers sitting nearby trying to devise an ‘evil’ game. It was during this conversation that I suggested just such a game; a game in which as you shot down your enemy (in my game it was a World War II dogfight) a file was deleted from your system. Enemy planes were assigned a score based on the size of the file with which it was associated; bigger file, higher points value. This system encouraged the player to pursue higher point scoring targets and consequently unwittingly delete larger files from their system. To allay suspicion the game would avoid system files until the end of the game – like I said, this was intended to be an evil game.

We were, of course, just batting about silly ideas and had no intention of actually writing the game, but I cannot help but wonder whether the meme created during that conversation has escaped and managed to get itself implemented.

The game, along with a video of it being played, can be found here. Credit for putting me onto it goes to GamePolitics.com.