Two games hidden in an ad wall

The Economy of Words wall is a marketplace: people buy words by the letter and the words scroll by on a black screen. It is also, if you look closely, a pair of games. Two icons ride the wall as easter eggs. A yellow pac-man, and a red crosshair. Click either one and the wall becomes a game where the things you are playing with are the actual words people paid to put up.

What it is

Two games, both played against the live wall.

The pac-man parks to the left of the title, eats "Eat the Words" off the grid to start, then turns you loose to chomp the real letters of the wall. Your tail grows with every letter you eat. Run into yourself and it ends. Your score is letters eaten, a dollar each, the same currency as the wall itself.

The crosshair starts a thirty-second shooter. A reticle tracks your aim, the wall keeps scrolling underneath, and you shoot the words as they go past. Each hit pops the word and counts. When the clock runs out you sign the board with three initials.

Both feed the same idea: the inventory is not invented for the game, it is the wall. You are eating and shooting the words real people paid for, which makes the game feel like it belongs to the thing instead of being bolted on.

Why put games on an ad wall

Because attention is the product, and games make attention. An ad wall that is also a toy gets played with, shared, and returned to. The games are not a distraction from the wall, they are a reason to keep looking at it. Every minute someone spends hunting the pac-man is a minute the wall is on screen.

They are easter eggs on purpose. The icons are scattered on random lines, a few of each, so finding one feels like a discovery rather than a banner that says PLAY. The reward for paying attention to the wall is that the wall plays back.