Don't get caught wasting time at work
Discussion
www.CantYouSeeImBusy.com
Telegraph said:
Computer games disguised as Excel and Word documents which allow office workers to waste time without attracting the attention of their bosses are taking off on the web.
The suite of "hidden" games draw strong inspiration from early arcade and PC titles but are played against the backdrop of what appear to be genuine office applications.
In one game, called Leadership, the player must direct a space ship between two lines of a graph.
Another involves destroying blocks of the same colour before a wall of bar charts fills the screen, like the cult puzzle game Tetris.
A third game Breakdown is derived from the Atari classic Breakout – but with the bricks replaced by dry corporate text. Words in bold and italics must be hit twice to disappear.
The Flash games, which launch in plausibly bland pop-up windows, are available to play at the website CantYouSeeImBusy.com which was developed by four programmers in the Netherlands.
A tongue-in-cheek counter on the website estimates that the addictive games have already cost the world economy more than €4.5m in lost man hours.
A blurb on the website reads: "Let’s face it; we all want to relax every now and then, but still want to appear professional or busy.
"That’s why all the games at CantYouSeeImBusy.com are designed in a way that nobody can see that you’re gaming. In fact, your boss and colleagues will think that you’re working harder than ever before."
But not everyone is convinced. Alexandra Kitty, a commenter on the popular community blog MetaFilter where the games were discussed, wrote: "This would never work because people would actually look intense and interested in what they saw on the computer screen which would obviously give them away."
The suite of "hidden" games draw strong inspiration from early arcade and PC titles but are played against the backdrop of what appear to be genuine office applications.
In one game, called Leadership, the player must direct a space ship between two lines of a graph.
Another involves destroying blocks of the same colour before a wall of bar charts fills the screen, like the cult puzzle game Tetris.
A third game Breakdown is derived from the Atari classic Breakout – but with the bricks replaced by dry corporate text. Words in bold and italics must be hit twice to disappear.
The Flash games, which launch in plausibly bland pop-up windows, are available to play at the website CantYouSeeImBusy.com which was developed by four programmers in the Netherlands.
A tongue-in-cheek counter on the website estimates that the addictive games have already cost the world economy more than €4.5m in lost man hours.
A blurb on the website reads: "Let’s face it; we all want to relax every now and then, but still want to appear professional or busy.
"That’s why all the games at CantYouSeeImBusy.com are designed in a way that nobody can see that you’re gaming. In fact, your boss and colleagues will think that you’re working harder than ever before."
But not everyone is convinced. Alexandra Kitty, a commenter on the popular community blog MetaFilter where the games were discussed, wrote: "This would never work because people would actually look intense and interested in what they saw on the computer screen which would obviously give them away."
I remember back in the early 90's my dad used to have stuff like this, you'd be playing a game, and as soon as you hit "Shift B" (the boss button) it would take you back to MS DOS so it looks like your working, my dad then set it up for me and my brother so it was "shift M"(the Mum button).
games weren't quite the same quality back then though.
games weren't quite the same quality back then though.
Gillet said:
I remember back in the early 90's my dad used to have stuff like this, you'd be playing a game, and as soon as you hit "Shift B" (the boss button) it would take you back to MS DOS so it looks like your working, my dad then set it up for me and my brother so it was "shift M"(the Mum button).
games weren't quite the same quality back then though.
Most of the PC games back then had a boss key (often would flip to a fake lotus 123 spreadsheet) . Though these were the days a "home PC" would most likely be an Amstrad 1512...... games weren't quite the same quality back then though.
Sits back and remembers the halcyon days of a PC1640, EGA graphics, 5.25 and a 3.5" floppy drives, 30 MEG hard disk (plugged into one of the three expansion sockets), Adlib sound card (£70 for this) and a joystick card (the joystick socket on the keyboard was non-standard and digital so no use for the analogue PC joysticks). Dos 3.1 and not a windows in sight (unless you fired up GEM - which was a crazy thing to do). Right time to fire up F22 interceptor through DOSBOX
V8mate said:
gonzales said:
Damn! Our over enthusiastic Computer Code of Practice has already sussed it is a gaming website. 
Doesn't get past our firewall either :-(you use Google Chrome and its 'incognito' window????
ah, forget that - its just history that doesn't get saved - it still has to get through a firewall!
DOH!!!
Edited by Fastra on Wednesday 10th March 12:48
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