Helicopter Ben

General Description Ben Bernanke has been criticized for his handling of the Great Recession of 2008. Think you can do better? Here's your chance. Try your hand at containing the crisis by pulling the levers of monetary policy.

"Helicopter Ben*" is based on the simple mechanics behind "Jetpack Joyride." Your goal is to keep the Dow stable long enough to make it through the news events of the downturn. You win when you've successfully navigated all crisis landscapes. (see editorial description for levels)

As you play the unemployment line is growing (red people.)
So you inject money into the economy. This causes inflation to go up so watch out! (dark clouds on the horizon, beware the expanding inflation puffer fish.) If you get your interest rate low enough you move to QE1 and become Helicopter Ben.
You win when Inflation is 2%, Unemployment is 5% and the Dow is steady.

Readers are incentivized by being able to play a Facebook games where you win badges. And collecting visual artifacts of their game chart they can share with their friends on pinterest, tumblr, instagram, etc.

Play a live demo here:
http://bit.ly/ZHvgAg

*Ben Bernanke is nicknamed "helicopter Ben' because of his reference to Economist Milton Friedman's statement that price deflation can be fought by "dropping money out of a helicopter."

Technical Aspects: HTML5 , CSS, Canvas, Impact JS (Game Engine), share tools

Illustrator, Photoshop (design)

BFXR (open source program for making video game sounds)

Incompetech.com (music)

Images (!pulled off the internet, must be subbed for legitimate use photos.)

Workflowy, Googledrive, Apache server (collaboration)

Design: Opening screen delivers you the news via a WSJ page on your tablet.

This leads to the first level, which is Main Street. Consequent levels/landscapes are Wall Street Bailout, Housing Crash, The Shadow Market, European Contagion.

Threats that animate include:
As you play the unemployment line grows. Icons are an homage to Otto Neurath.

Clouds roll by, darken and change.

The interest rate is tracked by a digital stock-exchange board.

Inflation is a banker/puffer-fish with a nod to the monopoly man.

The Dow is like the internet meme Rainbow Cat.

Helicopter Ben flies through the landscape powered by Monetary Policy-- dollar bill pyramid backpack.

The Helicopter. It's a helicopter from 'Jetpack.'

Closing screens: WSJ tablet with news of your loss: :( Play again!
Your win: :) Share it with your friends!

Social media:
Badges include icons from game. As you navigate the levels, the colors change like earning belts in martial arts.

Winning artifact: Your personal dow chart, beautifully framed ready to share on pinterest, tumblr, ad infinitum.

Editorial Aspects: The trajectory of the game follows the timeline of the credit crisis.
The levels and landscapes reflect news events:

The housing crash to the fall of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns to the bailout of the car industry and on to the European Debt crisis-- from the crash of banks in Iceland to the dismal economic picture in Greece.

You learn about the relationship between injecting money into the economy, how that liquidity can cause inflation. How low you need to keep interest rates to contain unemployment.

Planning: We'd need 15 developers, 14 designers, 1 reporter, 1 editor, 6 graphics editors, 2 super-nice news assistants and a couple dogs
6 months
A small island

Team Members: Roger Kenny, Super Duper Infographics Designer
Lakshmi Ketineni, Magic Developer
Sarah Slobin, Hybrid Multi-faceted Mashup/Senior Graphics Editor/Baby Developer/Visual Journalist