This is the game I made instead of blogging yesterday: Find the Pork!
It’s a training simulator to help Glenn and N.Z. Bear’s “Porkbusters.”
The premise is, you’re a blogger, trying to gain credibility by finding pork in the halls of Congress. But the legislators are sneaky, and don’t want you to see the pork, so they keep shuffling it around. It starts out easy, but gets progressively more difficult.
The game ends when you make a wrong guess, or you built your credibility up to 100.
UPDATE: This is an upgraded version from the one I posted earlier! I incorporated the suggestions of the commenters, changing the scoring algorithm, and proceeding more briskly to the difficult speeds. Thanks a lot, and please make more suggestions as they occur to you!


bonus points for sequential correct selections so that you can get to 100 without getting bored would make it likely that people would actually try to do so.
Are you sure it’s possible to reach 100 as the program is currently written? Judging by how fast the domes are moving when you reach a credibility of 20, it seems to me they might be moving too fast for your monitor’s refresh rate as you approach 100, in which case they’ll appear to be moving backwards or not moving at all.
yegads, an actual virtual reality game of being a congressman… 21 was my tops…
Colin: That’s a good observation, but yes, I’m sure the game never gets faster than it is at the 21st round. That’s a maximum speed.
I’m going to edit it to give more Credibility points for the harder rounds.
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone! Keep them coming!
And thanks for the link, Glenn! Keep those coming too, if you like!
I’d play a second time if I didn’t have to go through the boring 16 or 17 first rounds.
I’m making improvements tonight. The game won’t take so long to get to the challenging levels. Come back tomorrow to see!
If this is a real simulation, shouldn’t there be pork under ALL the domes?
No, I think if there were pork under every dome, it would imply that all government spending is pork, which isn’t true. I think one-third is approximately right, though.
Well Sean, I guess we know who the optimist is now!
Woohoo! I got 52 pts. Kickascii
Those things really FLY on those disturbingly fast challenge leveles. I felt my eyes cross. lol.
sweet! 60!
Hey, I actually got 100 the first try. There was a lucky guess or two towards the end though…
PorkBusters: The Game
Sean Gleeson has created a flash game, in honor of the Porkbusters project, called Find the Pork. Like Glenn Reynolds, I think the real enemy in the game is the same as in legislation: boredom. –Colonel Steve
Best I can do is 80 (twice), most tries 50-60.
No pork-barrel projects added to Hurricane appropriations bills
A sample of the letter I sent to Senator Herb Kohl and Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin (following up with phone calls later in the week):
Following last week’s devastating hurricanes and flooding in the Gulf region, you and your colleagues i…
[…] Find the pork a game by Sean Gleason. […]
HA! 61
I tried several times and got a credibility of 0 each time. I don’t think there’s pork under ANY of those buildings.
Weekend
Scheiss Weekly: Is It Still an Accomplishment if it was Done in the Dead of Night? Grouchy Old Cripple: Monday Pun Scrappleface: Amber Alert Issued for Missing Bush Swagger Therapist: Why Mr. Bush Will Lose Re-election in 2008 Sean…
61 !!! woot!
HA! I started guessing at about 50…when I began to have the sneaking suspicion that pork might be EVERYWHERE.
I managed to get to 80 before I was relieved to make a mistake and find a porkless dome.
Just like in real life :OP
Nice hand animation and motion blur. And that pork chop looks delicious! Now all we need is a Find the BBQ game…
80 Nice Game! Making me hungry!
I got a 61!
Aieee! I see that I now cannot drive car bomb to your US Capitol because pork would surely enter into my face!
Carnival of the Vanities 158: EZ Reader Edition
Carnival of the Vanities #158 was the first Carnival ever posted by Geoff of Expatriots United. Due to time constraints, most of the carnival was created by pasting the entire content of the submission EMAILs. This provides a great deal…
I got a 61 and I’m only twelve! It’s so much fun!
Glad you like it, Sonja! That’s a great score! Tell your friends!
Yay!! I’m a huge fan! I GOT 100!!!! This is soo fun!