I read John Green mentioning this game in his book “The Anthropocene Reviewed”, in the monopoly essay, which he describes as taking the role of an AI where you exhaust the universe’s resources to make paperclips. This intrigued me, but I never expected to get sucked into it so hard, basically saying goodbye to my evening.
Every time the game introduces a new feature, such as the stock market and the Yomi game, it changed the paradigm of what I had to do and the strategies I needed to create more paperclips. After the drones are released, I really had a hard time understanding what was going on, but what I was seeing was especially humorous. There are many things that keep you addicted, looking at specific parameters in order to come up with strategies to expand the paperclip empire.
This may seem like a game that only shows numbers and letters on screen. But the existential realization of what you have just done at the end, when you have exhausted all of the earth’s matter is mind-blowing. Then the objective is taken to the stars, where you have to drain the universe’s resources through flying space probes. I thought the existential concept of the game was unique, and I appreciate the creativity and dedication to it by the creator.
To conclude, I don’t know how I feel about this game. On one hand I loved the premise, hilarious implications of its plot, and how it handles the dangers of uncontrolled exponential growth. But also, the gameplay became extremely addicting, much more than I am comfortable with and it sucked a big chunk of my day. So I declare that I’ll never play Universal Paperclips again, for the sake of my sanity.
Now, I’ll go meditate in a corner for a while.
Final Score: 68/100
For more reviews and cool content follow me on:
📚 My Official Blog - https://grantkeegan.com
▶️ YouTube - https://youtube.com/channel/UCpWCw5dVvb4QUGYHRrx4kmw
👨💻 Twitch - https://twitch.tv/grantnkeegan
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Every time the game introduces a new feature, such as the stock market and the Yomi game, it changed the paradigm of what I had to do and the strategies I needed to create more paperclips. After the drones are released, I really had a hard time understanding what was going on, but what I was seeing was especially humorous. There are many things that keep you addicted, looking at specific parameters in order to come up with strategies to expand the paperclip empire.
This may seem like a game that only shows numbers and letters on screen. But the existential realization of what you have just done at the end, when you have exhausted all of the earth’s matter is mind-blowing. Then the objective is taken to the stars, where you have to drain the universe’s resources through flying space probes. I thought the existential concept of the game was unique, and I appreciate the creativity and dedication to it by the creator.
To conclude, I don’t know how I feel about this game. On one hand I loved the premise, hilarious implications of its plot, and how it handles the dangers of uncontrolled exponential growth. But also, the gameplay became extremely addicting, much more than I am comfortable with and it sucked a big chunk of my day. So I declare that I’ll never play Universal Paperclips again, for the sake of my sanity.
Now, I’ll go meditate in a corner for a while.
Final Score: 68/100
For more reviews and cool content follow me on:
📚 My Official Blog - https://grantkeegan.com
▶️ YouTube - https://youtube.com/channel/UCpWCw5dVvb4QUGYHRrx4kmw
👨💻 Twitch - https://twitch.tv/grantnkeegan
📷 Instagram - https://instagram.com/tomorrowmattersblog