Flat
Eye

Flat Eye (2022) is a narrative strategy game where you run a gas station in the near future. Play is a matter of making money from customers by adding products and streamlining efficiency. But what really stands out here is the web of corporate and management backstories that see workers as commodities and are never satisfied with your performance.

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As station manager, it's your job to keep things running smoothly, complete daily objectives and develop new technology to improve (or curse) the future of humanity. Each day you turn up for work, deal with customers and try to find time to improve your offering. There's a large tech tree of items to research and install to get more wealthy customers.

Progress isn't easy as the corporation always expects profits to rise. But as you do a story emerges of just how damaging the organisation is. Each premium customer you meet comes with their own eye-opening backstory which you can engage with and even influence.

It's not a game that avoids the uncomfortable and disturbing aspects of where capitalism and technology might go. Organ Vending Machines, Artificial Wombs, Cloning Booths, Memory Modification and Smart Toilets are just a few of the unsettling things you can install in your station.

The result is a management game with considerable bite. Not in the complexity or challenge of the simulation (although that requires a lot of multitasking under pressure), but in the themes and topics it presents you with. It's an examination of possible technologies and the gig economy fueled by a capitalist tech dystopia. Strangely it feels more applicable to our world today than you might expect.

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Our examiner, Andy Robertson, first checked Flat Eye 16 months ago. It was re-examined by Jo Robertson and updated 15 months ago.