CRAP! I'm Broke! Out of Pocket: Review

     I always hear that art imitates life, and it's done with a spectacular cubist-inspired style in Arcane Circus' newest game Crap! I'm Broke: Out of Pocket.  The game labels itself a "Life management simulator" and does so with true brilliance and all the humor we might recognize in our daily lives.  In fact, it's a game that many of us will be able to really relate to, giving us a hilarious take on the struggle of running back and forth between jobs in order to make ends meet.

     Players are tasked with the true-to-life difficulty of finding a balance of earning versus spending money.  We have to contend with debt accruing at a constant rate, along with random surprises popping up such as a toilet clogging or a pipe bursting incurring extra costs to our monthly bills.  There's also a perpetually depleting hunger meter (along with a tiny reaper ghost that follows you around).  Not paying attention to the meters or mismanagement of funds will you either miss your bills or starve you lose the game.

     To earn money players need take jobs at places around town.  They are timed mini-games that consist of things such as washing dishes, flipping burgers, and sorting cans at a factory much like those silly little things that make up the Warioware series.  Making this process even better is if you can stay fed and keep the bills paid, you can slowly save up spare time for mini-mini-games.  Yes, that's 2 minis- making them micro-games.
     Players can do good deeds and earn good karma (there's also bad karma, so don't neglect your plant!), helping to receive gift money or the potential to find a winning lottery ticket and so on.  There's also the chance to purchase (with in game money) achievements to boost your income, that you may in turn, sell at a later time if the surprise events add too much to your monthly debt.
   

     Crap! I'm Broke: Out of Pocket is a magnificently minimalist game about the troubles plaguing our everyday lives.  The art style is beautifully striking, the music (by musician Kimono) is sublimely fitting, and the gameplay is both amusing and challenging.  Resources dwindle away before your eyes, jobs don't pay nearly enough, and sometimes you must quit jobs just to get home in time to pay bills or eat- yet the frustration of failure is offset by the absurd nature of the game.  It may seem like a futile effort to try and stave off the inevitable slide into eviction or starvation, but the stresses of financial stability haven't been this fun or engaging in a long time.  Arcane Circus has distilled the Sisyphean struggles of endlessly mounting debt into a hell of an entertaining satire.

     Crap! I’m Broke: Out of Pocket will be available on iOS and Android on Oct. 11th for $1.99
          (There are NO IAPs or additional DLCs)

     Developer's site [ Arcane Circus ]

     Official site [ Crap! I'm Broke ]

*Review copy provided, thank you!