Housing Ladder arcade game takes aim at Britain's housing crisis. Picture: timhunkin.com
Britain’s housing crisis has been turned into a spoof arcade game where players have to dodge second-home owners and foreign investors to “buy a house or die trying”, The Guardian reports.
The Housing Ladder slot machine, created by the Suffolk-based cartoonist and inventor Tim Hunkin, uses treadmill steps on an actual ladder to move an automated figure towards the prize of a house encrusted in fake diamonds.
If players take a step when a housing villain appears, the automated climber slides to the bottom.
Villains include a developer clasping a mobile phone, and a buy-to-let landlord with a tenancy agreement.
The game has three skill levels depending on resources: hard for no savings, quite easy for “bank of mummy and daddy” and “easy peasy” for offshore funds. And there’s an age gauge that signals “game over” if you don’t reach the house by the time you are 80.
The Housing Ladder will be unveiled at Hunkin’s London alternative arcade, Novelty Automation.
Hunkin’s London arcade, which has been running for more than two years, is funded from the proceeds of customers paying to play the satirical slot machines.
