For many gamers, characters like Duke Nukem or Lara Croft are the heroes that best fulfill the fantasy escapism inspired by regular day-to-day life. But to millions of office cubicle dwellers everywhere, there is only one truly worthy anti-establishment icon - Dilbert! The cartoon character brought to life in daily cartoons by Scott Adams has his own set of ten mini-games in this collection. In a style familiar to the strip's many fans, these desktop diversions feature Dilbert and his friends in their continuing crusade against anything more managerial than a crossing guard.
Motivate your funny bone. Bring the hilarious world of the comic strip Dilbert to your desktop with the amazing collection of 10 side splitting games. Feeling like a cog in the vast corporate machine; make fun your top priority with Dilbert's Desktop Games. May 02, 2015 Many of the games are played on 'screenshots' of the current desktop, allowing carnage to spread from the game onto the work documents the player might have had open. The ultimate objective in Dilbert's Desktop Games is to play each game, uncovering a a hidden 'part' to the Desktop.
All of the games are superimposed to run in the desktop itself, which makes them perfect for just 'dipping into' for a few quick minutes of occasional fun. There's the CEO Simulator, a hire'n'fire 'em strategy game in which you start your own company and try to keep it going. With The Jargonator, you can type a normal sentence and have it converted into 'management-speak.' There's also the more action-oriented Enduring Fools, a shoot-'em-up in which you get to zap annoying neighbors with your stun-gun (which is set to 'fry').
The seven other games all have their own appeal in varying degrees, depending on how belligerent you're feeling when you play them. Project Pass-Off is a great game of foosball. Elbonian Airlines gives you the chance to fire employees -literally - using a giant catapult. The biggest game in the collection, TechnoRaiders, is a 120-level platform game in which Dilbert gets to collect doughnuts and zap bosses, secretaries, and annoying co-workers with his cellular phone.
There are some other enjoyable touches in this game. For example, you can print out certificates of merit for completing games, or just for successfully wasting time. The graphics are true to the original cartoons, and the wonderful variety of speech and sound effects are of the sort that will have you quoting them half-an-hour after you've finished playing the game.
Dilbert's Desktop Games is not the kind of gaming experience with which you would spend more than an hour at once, but is absolutely perfect for those times when you are working at the computer and want a little light relief from that boring document or lengthy spreadsheet. In fact, you almost feel guilty for playing it on your own time when you could follow the true spirit of Dilbert and run them on your computer at work.
Graphics: Simple, cartoon-style, but accurate and effective.
Sound: Clear, memorable sound effects and voices.
Enjoyment: Playable anytime of the day.
Replay Value: A game that you can dip into again and again.
People who downloaded Dilbert's Desktop Games have also downloaded:
Half-Life, Doom, Age of Empires, Gex 3D: Enter the Gecko, Dig Dug Deeper, Doom 2, Earthworm Jim, Disney's Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers
| Dilbert's Desktop Games | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Cyclops Software |
| Publisher(s) | DreamWorks Interactive |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Release | September 30, 1997 (U.S.) |
| Genre(s) | Puzzle, action |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Dilbert's Desktop Games is a collection of Dilbert-related games for Microsoft Windows.
List of games[edit]
- Can-O-Matic 2
- Fire employees out of a cannon at various gadgets, some of which malfunction badly.
- Elbonian Airlines
- Similar to Can-O-Matic; managers are fired from a large slingshot and must land on various cities and modes of transportation.
- Boss Evaders
- A Space Invaders take-off; Dilbert must avoid the pink slips shot at him by fleets of descending managers while attempting to hit them with reports.
- Project Pass-Off
- Dilbert must face off against Zimbu the monkey in an attempt to gather good items thrown by a boss, while fending off bad ones.
- Enduring Fools
- Shock and hurt various 'fools' with a phaser borrowed from Dogbert.
- CEO Simulator
- Take the role of a CEO in charge of a business, hiring/firing/motivating employees to help the company grow.
- Techno Raiders
- The main game of the collection. Dilbert must search for gadgets and work his way from floor to floor in the office building, all the while trying to avoid or hurt co-workers.
- The Jargonator
- Allows the user to input an amount of text and have it padded with adjectives and jargon in an attempt to make the piece look smarter.
- The Final Word
- Stamp phrases and cliches which can be used as desktop backgrounds.
- Intrusive Mode
- Causes various character to wander around the screen and speak lines from the comic strip.
Each of the first seven games awards a component when completed, such as a microchip, capacitor, or piece of wire. Once every component has been found, the player can enter his/her name on a printable certificate award that lists the total amount of time spent playing the games.
Reception[edit]
In Spain, Sergio Zazo of the magazine PC Manía gave Dilbert's Desktop Games a score of 81 out of 100. He wrote that it provided 'great moments of fun'.[1]
Dilbert's Desktop Games Download
References[edit]
- ^Zazo, Sergio (March 1998). 'Pantalla abierta; Dilbert's Desktop Games'. PC Manía (in Spanish) (65): 217.