HOBSON'S CHOICE HOMEPAGE

Hobson's Choice is a game about homelessness - and the difficulties of getting off the streets.

The game is text-based, and tries to give a sense of the kinds of obstacles homeless people have to work with.

How the game works:

Objective:

Get yourself off the streets and into a stable, comfortable living situation.

What to do:

Click on the button above that says, "Play the game!". You will then be taken to the starting page of Hobson's Choice. You will see three brightly-colored boxes.

The green box has text describing your current situation. This box will list the amount of money you've saved, how much money you're earning, what assets you have that might be useful, and more.

The blue box lists your options at this point in the game. Various factors about your situation will give you more or less options. For example, if you have more money, you may have options like renting an apartment or buying a car. If you are in jail, you won't have many options at all.

The purple box lists your last ten turns. This is just for you to look at,so you can get an idea of what you're up to in the game. You might find it interesting to see how many times you've tried to sell your car recently, or how much time you've done nothing lately.

To play the game, read the text in the green box carefully, so you don't miss details. Then choose an option from the blue box and click "Submit". Your situation will then update itself, depending on the results of your choice.

How to win:

When you think you are in a pretty good situation, click the "Try to Win!" button. This button will tell you what happens to you over the next few months. If you get lucky, things will stay good for you and you will be taken to the Game Over page.

However, you should be careful about clicking this button. If your situation isn't stable, you might end up much worse than before. Also, you can never be sure what will happen. Even the best of situations can turn sour, and sometimes the most unlikely circumstances end up working out.

Other useful details:

A day in the game is one turn. For example, if you have an apartment, then your rent will be due every 30 turns, and you will get monthly income every 30 turns.

You can save your game, if you want. Just go to the "File" menu on your browser and choose "Save As" from the menu. Then save the webpage as an HTML document (This should be the default). When you want to finish your game, open the saved webpage by double-clicking on it, and start playing again.