Disregarded Demographics: Postmen

You don’t see many postmen in games, do you? Bless them, they do all that delivering and don’t even get a nod.  There’s a Postman Pat game or two, but they don’t really count ‘“ the most recent DS one was just an excuse to do word searches with a friendly character backing it.  We need a proper game, really getting into the nitty gritty of what they do.

And thus we have Postman, the unofficial sequel to Paper Boy.  Deciding that his skills at avoiding tyres and smashing windows were too good to waste, Royal Mail managed to persuade the lad to come over to the UK and continue with the delivering he was born to do.  Just to make things interesting, this game takes a slightly fantastical approach to the postal service in having you cycle through a few different roles each working week so that you get a fuller range of activities.  It’s not too much more exciting, though.

The first job is obviously that of being out there stomping the streets, posting letters and avoiding dogs that want to rip your arse off in that strange way that they do with posties.  You’ll build up allegiances with members of the community and, equally, make enemies when you don’t bring people parcels that they’re expecting, even though it’s not your fault at all.  It’s alright, though, because if you want to be a bitter sod you can lob their parcels into a skip when they eventually do end up in your post bag if they’re being prats.  If you’re unscrupulous you could also have a poke through some parcels, but that’s unadvised ‘“ best to wait until they end up in the lost mail bin.  After you’ve done your few hours of work you get to go home and sit around for the rest of the day ‘“ bonus.

The next thing you can do is work in the sorting office itself.  The idea for this bit has had to be pared down from its original state due to some worrying palpitations it was causing from the excitement of it all, so now you won’t be able to push trolleys of post around.  Sorry.  Don’t worry, though, as the best bit is still in ‘“ using the Wii remote to point at which pigeon holes the mail goes in, hooray! You have to do double shifts of this one near Christmas.  Humbug.

The final main section is that of striking; since postmen like doing it so much, it’s only fair to make it an integral part of the experience.  In this bit you sort of wander around and shake the Wii remote vaguely, pressing the odd button to whinge until you either get a pay rise or a bit bored.  Whichever comes first.

As a nod to the most recent Postman Pat game, an assortment of puzzles will also be included.  They’ll be a bit more relevant than word searches, though: 200 Chinese postman problems are chucked in for good measure to while away those winter nights.  And that is how you make a game worthy of the Royal Mail seal.

Also, the soundtrack is made up of the various versions and covers of The Marvelettes’ Please Mr. Postman.

Images: Wikimedia, Harry Robinson’s Testing, Monkey In The Middle