Troll Farm
Post on Squalk, farm the outrage, watch the democracy wobble: a 2018 political satire idle.
by Aaron Nemoyten (Cosmic Turtle; itch: swivelmaster) · 2018 · Web (itch.io, WebGL)
Troll Farm is Aaron Nemoyten's political satire narrative idle, built as WebGL around a fake social site called Squalk: post, amplify, farm the outrage, and watch what the engagement economy does to a democracy. It is live at swivelmaster.itch.io (verified 200, 68KB page), with an iOS version in its history.
What the loop feels like
You post a take, the take farms engagement, and the engagement farms the next take. That's Troll Farm.
Playing it today
Free on itch.io, with the og cover and four 2048x2732 page-original screenshots above, all file-verified. The satire does the rest: no trailer, no marketing layer, the game is the argument.
The verdict
The genre's sharpest political instrument: an idle where the resource being optimized is public discourse itself.
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