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Tech

Toronto Trash Wars - the Game

Posted by Jerrold Litwinenko / July 22, 2009

toronto gabage strike gameThe Toronto garbage strike game "Trash Wars" combines the worst of two urban realities we're facing recently - the union strike (that's made dumps of our city parks), and guns.

Too bad the game concept isn't very creative. Or the game-play all that fun.

Here's the preamble, presumably written by the game's developer:

"There's a city-wide garbage strike and the public has been told to dump their trash at public dump sites across the city. As the weeks passed, rats began invading the trash piles. You must protect a dump site from being overrun with rats before the infestation gets out of control!"

Passing a level gives you the option to upgrade your gun, re-loading speed, or clip size. I only played to level 4 before losing interest, but some people may find it a way to release some of the frustrations that come with accumulating piles of stench around the city and in the garage.

Try it out for yourselves!

The game was made by Q-Kmbr, an independent Flash game developer out of Markham. I haven't had a chance to play around with their other games, but on a rainy day I just might.

Hat tip to amandafantastic on Twitter for bringing this to our attention!

Discussion

14 Comments

S. / July 22, 2009 at 02:13 pm
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Good for a giggle.
Sikandar / July 22, 2009 at 03:53 pm
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Replace the rats with civic workers and we really have a game. :)
RBeezy replying to a comment from Sikandar / July 22, 2009 at 04:21 pm
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Wait, aren't those the rats?
Reality Check / July 22, 2009 at 04:25 pm
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Nice to see some like minded commenters!
W. K. Lis / July 22, 2009 at 06:59 pm
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Wait a minute. If that's Miller on the top of the garbage pile, then one can't be using a gun. It will have to be something else, maybe throwing money at civic workers, or ballots, or hot air?
Margaret Thatcher / July 22, 2009 at 07:24 pm
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Smash the unions.
m / July 22, 2009 at 09:00 pm
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The unions are not the problem. The problem is the workers want fairness.

The councillors (not unionised) got a 2.42% raise.

The cops got 3% a year and kept their bankable sick days.

The firefighters got 3% a year and kept their bankable sick days.

TTC workers got a 3% raise.

If everyone else got a raise, then it's only fair that the inside and outside workers also get a similar raise. The current offer is 1%.

And W.K.Lis.. WTF? you say offering 1% is throwing money at them? They've already been out for a month. And since 1/12 is about 8% of the year the workers have roughly lost 8% of their pay. Which more than makes up any "increase" in pay being offered. The city is being damn tight fisted.
n / July 22, 2009 at 10:36 pm
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Something else I read that I hadn't thought about previously - if the councilors, cops, firefighters and ttc all got raises, why did the city think that they shouldn't include room for their remaining union when they composed their budgets? They decided to spend that 3% on other things instead. Maybe 'garbage men' are an easy target? (and the other highly qualified service providers mostly cater to the needy). It's like they had a party and made hamburgers for everyone but gave the smelly kid's hamburger to the dog... cuz who likes that smelly kid anyways?
J / July 22, 2009 at 11:00 pm
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exactly. exchange the rats for union members.
mike jones replying to a comment from m / July 23, 2009 at 05:27 am
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@m on
You can't reasonably compare the 8% of this year that has been lost with the other percentages. Why? Because any increase will last forever! (If the strike lasts one year (ie 100%) should their wages be doubled forever?)

Also the workers had a choice of accepting the increase the city was offering avoiding the loss of the 8%.
mnop / July 23, 2009 at 08:04 am
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M you're cries of fairness really are going to fall on deaf ears here and likely everywhere else in the city. Guess who is the biggest force behind the union loving NDP and Miller? Ah yes the unions. I completely agree that those other services were not at all deserving of a raise, especially the council but this isn't a "me too" world, if it were a lot of people could very easily flip that on the unions and say why don't we all get the same sick day bank program they do?

Miller is an idiot, the union are idiots. The only person coming out on top in all this is Dalton as he's refusing to get involved and letting the union backed mayor deal with his own union mess. Unfortunately this entire city plays the victim while this all transpires, but its something I for one am willing to bear to let the unions and miller lose all of their public support.

Oh and one last note, complaining about your wages lost while you chose to strike? Priceless.
Hafiz Kassam / July 23, 2009 at 06:44 pm
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Hey all!

I'm the creator of Trash Wars. Just wanted to let you all know that the game has been updated. A new "Hard Mode" has been added for those who want more of a challenge. The gun firing speed has been upped a little, and a few bug fixes have been made.

I'm glad the game is sparking discussion! Hope you enjoy the update!
bee / July 24, 2009 at 01:29 pm
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enough with the whining and crying. % this, blah blah.. geez. take what you're offered and get back to work. I will never be convinced that the rest of us who work for what we can in the city need to suffer with garbage in the park. it's disgusting.
c'mon seriously!!!!!
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