Drip Drip, the new time management game from Imminent Games, puts you in the role of

an elite drip collector [who] manages the Disaster Response Team. With a team of tools and water collecting and building fixing skills, travel across the USA and visit 24 exciting cities on your mission to ensure the safety of each building from the severe storms and their devastating weather conditions.

The feel of the game is cutesy, as you move around cartoon, bug-eyed kettles and brooms and hammers to catch water and fix damage. Something about this childlike aesthetic, though, feels weirdly full of pathos given the weather events of the past two weeks. Trying to prevent  my basement from flooding and my house from falling down due to damage gained actual urgency. Saving the houses didn’t just feel like abstract success at an arcade game; it felt good.

I got in touch with creator Thomas Konkol to ask him about the weird timing of the release. He wrote,

First of all I want to say I feel really bad for all of the people that had to go through Hurricane Sandy. I hope they can get back to their normal lives and move on as quickly as possible. Since we have been working on Drip Drip for so long I never thought about it being released when a major catastrophe would be happening.

Although, over the course of the last few years I have been noticing the weather effects changing and becoming more brutal, sort of like in Drip Drip when the storms build up and more rain threatens the safety of the buildings. Maybe during these tough times with the weather being at its worst people can look to games, like Drip Drip, for an escape and to have fun for a while. I hope Drip Drip will give people a fun way to cope with the weather and the effects it has on them.

Earlier this week Jamin asked what games could do for us in a disaster. Perhaps they can help us re-experience disasters with a reassuring layer of human control.

You can purchase Drip Drip on the Imminent Games website.