In Hot Dog Bush, the player transports into a world of hot dogs and street food vendors as they become former US President George Bush who is kicked out of the White House and is now operating a hot dog cart in New York City. In this point and click game, the player remains stationary within the space, preparing and serving customers in a fixed field of view. One can play in two modes: career mode in which the player tries to advance from selling in the Bronx to Wall Street and speed mode in which the player tries to earn as much as possible in a designated period of time. Though much of my analysis of the game world will be common to both game modes, I will focus primarily on career mode as its narrative architecture creates a particularly immersive world for play. In this mode, though players technically do not move through the space, Hot Dog Bush creates strong emotional depth through drawing from “actual” world elements in its treatment of space and time.

Though the player cannot walk or complete other movements within the space, the game creates much emotional depth from how realistic the game feels, further emphasized by the first-person point of view. For instance, if a customer tries to leave without paying, the player can only stop them within the given viewpoint just as a street food vendor might not be necessarily able to leave their cart.  Hot Dog Bush mimics the “actual” world process of progression where one begins at a basic level and works up through practice and hard work. Thus, the space reflects that through the emptiness of the cart initially. On day one, the player can only sell hot dogs with the option for ketchup. As the player’s skill increases, the space adapts to show more objects until the player fills the cart to capacity with numerous offerings like hot dogs, burgers, French fries, root beer, soda, and three different garnishes. Offering more items naturally equates with customers ordering a greater variety of items, increasing both the difficulty of the game and the degree of movement for play as the player must strategize the order to serve customers in, what to grill, etc. The space is also designed to facilitate such strategy. For instance, the space is designed so that the player’s cart is in the foreground, emphasizing player movement in the given space. The top half of the screen shows the background of the current venue that the player is serving and changes as the player advances. The top half also houses the NPC characters. Just as in the “actual” world where a large line often discourages customers, the player only has a maximum of five customers in view at a time, encouraging the player to serve them quickly and to pick up their money at the end, so that new customers can come into view.  The sense of urgency is heightened around the lunch hour where the cart will be quite packed and the player must quicken their pace to meet the demand.

This sense of urgency is critical to the game as it creates a strong sense of emotional investment for the player. The game also fosters this sense of urgency through its treatment of time. First, time serves as a marker for achieving objectives. A day is much faster than the actual world of course, but serves as a natural timeframe to achieve their daily target. After meeting the daily target, the player advances to the next day and after each successful week, the player advances to the next venue in NYC. To create this sense of urgency, the game designers placed a clock to keep the player updated on how long they have until the cart closes and how much left they need to make to meet the daily target. Another way the game uses time to create a sense of urgency is through the customers faces. As they wait for their orders, their faces become visible more crestfallen and later, angry. In case the player is too focused on preparing the orders, when it’s the last straw for a customer, they will begin shaking as if moving impatiently as a warning that they will leave if the player does not serve them at least part of their order. Time is also emphasized through the grilling of the menu items. They will become a golden color and flash when they are at a perfect temperature, creating a sense of urgency to the player to not burn them.

Hot Dog Bush creates meaning through a space that is heavily influenced by the real world and its use of time creating a sense of urgency and heightening a player’s investment in the game. In the Routledge Companion, the Perspective chapter describes that “any modelling of a system” will represent an opinion on what is being modelled (Sharp, 8). In this regard, Hot Dog Bush conveys the importance of hard work and that there are no shortcuts in being a hot dog vendor, not even for George Bush. Also, Bush ends up being abducted by aliens to be their hot dog vendor and gets kicked off Earth.