Hello! Welcome to the second episode of Video Game Science! A series in which we SCIENTIFICALLY examine old(er) less popular video games! This week I’m joined in the descent into the abyss by Wolfman Jew! And the subject of our experimentation is… Work Time Fun!

Work Time Fun is a Japanese mini-game collection for the PSP, and– now, hold your horses, I know you’re very excited, I mean a mini-game collection? PSP?! This is great stuff! But hold on there, hold on. Let me get through the intro here. So, the game was published in 2005, came out in the US in 2006, it was developed by Sony. It’s uh… it’s barely a game.

So the premise is that you’re stuck in hell, and have to earn money by playing these mini-games. You have to earn money so that you can buy more games so that you can… earn money to buy more games so that y… well, you get the idea. If you’re thinking right now “Hey, is this game a criticism of capitalism?” the answer is… maybe? I don’t know what this game is trying to do.

The mini-games are as bizarre as the premise, ranging from pollinating flowers in space, putting caps on pens at a factory, to cutting ribbons at ceremonies as a drunken mayor. Most of them are one-off jokes, some of them are a quite fun, and others are downright awful. Is this game even worth it? Is there a point to any of this? What is life, Science? I see your questions, I see them! The answer is… Ramen Timer. Ramen Timer is one, Ramen Timer is all.

Listen. The point of the game is to get the Ramen Timer Tool. If you’ve done that, just… just switch that on, and enjoy.

I’ve found the meaning of life, folks.

It’s Ramen Timer.

I mean, you gotta see the video. 44:40 for Ramen Timer, but really, this is a funny dumb game, so I recommend at least skimming through this stuff. Enjoy! Oh, yeah, the screen freezes a couple of times, still figuring this out! The screen un-freezes at 4:00 the first time it happens. After that, I mean, dang. It’s a trip.