Dilbert’s Desktop Toys

Ironic Self-Parody?

A Review of Dilbert’s Desktop Toys

Edmond Meinfelder

Great things are not common, but extraordinary. The rarity is due

to excruciating hard work and painful attention to detail.

Excellence is not easy. Like Dilbert, we often suffer some

executive with more words than brain, thinking, “With a little

work, we can make something great here. It will be easy.”

Standing on this side of the fence, the farce is obvious. However,

on the other side, the brown grass withers and suckers, born on

the minute, call the shots.

Yes, Dilbert’s Desktop Games is a prime example of little thought

and high hopes. Somewhere, someone thought, “All we need do

is buy the Dilbert license, make some simple games and rake in

the cash.” If we distill the thought to its essence, we discover

some executives believe they can create items of painfully low

quality, add flashy wrapping and make bundles of money, just as

Dilbert creator, Scott Adams, humorously asserts. Once you play

Dilbert’s Desktop Games, you realize Dilbert is funny because

Scott Adams is right.

What do you get for $20? A melange of items able to re-define

boredom. The bottom of the barrel is the rubber stamp. You can

grab the rubber stamp and place Dilbert-esque sayings on your

desktop. Ever had a rubber stamp as a child? Trust me, the

electronic equivalent in Dilbert is less fun. You could argue the

electronic stamps doesnt use the kind of ink children wreak

havoc with daily, but so what?

Too often, I see someone use a jive filter program to create a

document featuring eubonics-like text from standard-speech

files. Dilbert’s Desktop Toys provides the Jargonator, able to

convert normal speech into management talk. Knowing the

Jargonators source — offensive racial software — my taste for

this toy was lacking. Worse, seeing words like hello replaced

with salutations fails to impress for even five minutes.

Some toys pick up the pace, if only slightly. Boss Evaders, a

Space Invaders clone, almost reminds me of the fun I had

playing on my Atari 2600. Enduring Fools, a Whack-a-Mole

clone, was almost as fun as the Mac freeware, Bonk. Can-O-Matic,

however, is slightly original. Catbert shoots employees at

products flying across the screen. Employees colliding with

viable products get to stay with the company. Employees who

miss, or hit defective products are, one assumes, laid-ff. Can-O-Matic

is as fun as it sounds. Project Passoff is a bizarre kind of

table hockey with different pucks causing different results upon

scoring. Elbonian Airlines has Dogbert launching workers to

islands, ships and airplanes with the slingshot used by Elbonians

as an economical substitute for jet planes.

The most bizarre toy is the CEO Simulator, where you play

games over the span of days. Fail to check in after three days

and your game is, literally, up. The biggest novelty here is

someone going to so much trouble, making the game

inconvenient to play. However, when you can play, you either

hire employees or consultants, motivate and discipline workers

and watch the results unfold over time. The CEO Simulator is

both limited and inconvenient to play.

Techno Raiders, the most promising toy, is a simple 2-dimensional

side-scroller. Navigate Dilbert as he avoids co-workers and

gathers donuts. Dodging into safe zones, blasting

co-workers with cell phones, dropping black holes is fun.

Unfortunately, a sameness persists from level to level failing to

inspire. Over time, you find yourself losing gadgets (lives) not

because the game is difficult, but because you become reckless

from boredom. With more work, Techno Raiders could become a

contender, but only in a now trite category, the 2-dimensional

scroller.

Dilbert’s Desktop Toys is funny, but only as ghastly self-referential

humor. Dilbert’s Desktop Toys is the sort of software I

expect from Dilbert’s pointy-haired manager. The software’s

creators digest Scott Adams cerebral humor, and regurgitate a

brainless mass barely representing its source. Dilbert’s Desktop

Toys shows anyone can read books like “The Dilbert Principal,”

but not everyone will understand them.

Gamer’s Zone Scorecard

Product:	Dilbert’s Desktop Toys
Company:	Dreamworks Internet: www.dreamworks.com
Cost:	$19.99

System Requirements:

Any Pentium running Windows ’95 with a soundcard and a mouse will do.

Breakdown:

Fun Factor 1
Graphics 2
Sound 1
Interface 3
Replayability 1

Overall Score: