Sam Stoat: Safebreaker

Back in the 1820s at Brixton Prison in London, prisoners were forced to rotate a hand-crank connected to paddles that pointlessly shifted sand. If Brixton kept that same attitude toward correction today, inmates would be forced to play "Sam Stoat: Safebreaker" instead. In an age of endless entertainment, voluntarily playing this game is a self-inflicted punishment. The game is bad. It isn’t fun to play. That fact is only obscured by the confusion into which the game plunges the player. Judging by reviews from contemporary magazines, most reviewers got stuck at the very beginning, praised the graphics, and moved on, giving it a somewhat favorable score. A few managed to orient themselves enough within the game to realize it wasn’t actually that good. I, a man from the future, a gaming archaeologist and game design enthusiast, have managed to figure out how this game works and plays. And I am not proud of it. Because I basically wasted my time playing with a turd. There is no manual; the mechanics are never explained. What is the "Bloodmeter," and why does it sometimes deplete on its own and sometimes not? How do the platforms that rise and lower into the water work? Why do some e…