Smart Theory
is a short comedy by AKheon that was
entered into IFcomp 2021. It encounters one of game design’s common problems: How
do you simulate an unpleasant experience without driving away your audience?
Last year, Savor described
repeated, excruciating pain. Accelerate expected you to actively
participate in atrocities. And this year, Smart Theory wants you to endure
a training session that blends all the worst aspects of motivational seminars and
religious cults.
The writing is smoothly implemented and effective. It was
fun to see how the “first rule” of Smart Theory was applied in the story. This entry works as a kind of power fantasy — you can mock transparent nonsense
and criticize sloppy thinking.
However, the whole thing felt too plausible. A shamelessly inflated sense of self-importance is part
of every management training course; they all discuss overpriced-but-revolutionary
new paradigms. Attempting to debunk their transparent nonsense is just as
futile inside Smart Theory as it is in the real world.
If you view it without irony, Smart Theory is interchangeable with a lot of the overpriced self-help literature that currently exists. That can be read as a declaration that there are no new ideas in this space, but it feels simultaneously correct and tedious.
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