It’s hard to quantify the impact of a life-changing event. We can try to put a dollar amount on true happiness or count good deeds in the hopes that it will make us the person we were meant to be. For me, those things don’t matter anymore. I am homeless and am also a terrible person, but the only number that matters to me is this one: 5260. That was the score in Survivor Shark that changed my life. After hitting, nay… exceeding the 5k milestone that I had been working towards for years of my miserable life (brightened only by Survivor Shark), I finally had the courage to remove myself from the toxic home environment that I had endured all this time (a wife and two young children). Making this decision, along with leaving my career as a pediatric oncologist, allowed me to spend even more time playing the game, which only made me happier. I was even able to cancel my gym membership to buy more coins and unlock all the different sharks you can play with. I’m now on the road to a score of 6k! The torturous life that once faced me is long in the past, and now all I need to do each day is wake up in the local bus station, plug in my phone, and play Survivor Shark for hours on end. What a life! What a world! What a game! Survivor Shark is the peak of all human ingenuity and technical development, and I am so glad to have the rest of my life to play it. Thank you to the developer and to sharks for making this game possible.

When Odysseus, King of Ithaca, set sail for home, there wasn’t a barrage of missiles and mines on line for his x-coordinate. No cyclops could match up with having under level 3 Invincibility, or trying to break 10k points with beginner shark. The great tragedies of penned history involve intricate networks of characters working in tandem, complex relationship dynamics, and a hero’s journey for a greater purpose. But how tragic is a story of a shark riding dolo, his only relationship with my extraordinary dexterity, his only purpose is dodging bomb, getting points, chilling in lobby screen and rotating on an axis when I feel like soft swipe tping him across the screen. Survivor Shark is more than tragedy, it is analogous for the life of employees at scam call centers and boutique investment banks alike, at the mercy of a screen’s tape, alone in your quest for an unknown sum of points, cash, or retirement savings, and possibly being in a funny prank video. While Survivor shark only seemingly sits a couple dozen feet under the water’s surface, beginner and left shark will never reach above the constraints of their y-position, and buying jetpack shark is not chill really. How will you rise above your y-position? What missiles will you dodge? Have you dodged any missiles or mines? Or have you sat back your whole life waiting for a moment of quotidian stress as great as survivor shark’s. You are nothing and he’s something, he’s fighting, and I’ll be damned if he doesn’t survive.

I came across this game about 3 years ago when I had an obsession with the ocean. At the time I thought very little about what this game could mean. Yet, after playing, I realized that this game is so much more. How perfect the shark swims from side to side avoiding the bombs and yet finding a way to get the power ups is truly special. With each game I improved and my love of the ocean grew. I recently just hit my high score slightly about 5K and am looking to get to 5 digits as soon as i can! This is what I look forward to when i wake up and it’s all i think about when i go to sleep. I even chose my major in college “oceanography” because of this tremendous game! I feel obligated to inform every single person I meet about this game and what it can do to someone’s life. It has shaped my life and I know it will soon shape yours too. Now get to swimming!!

Growing up, I’ve actually always loved sharks. The way they conquer the seas, maintaining a deadly disposition yet swimming gracefully with the current. I think a lot of people think really negatively of sharks, which has always irked me to some degree. By going into the ocean, the person is choosing to enter their domain, thereby making the final call of being in the territory of a large predator. Sharks are not malicious, they are just doing what God intended them to do. When I saw this game, I immediately knew I had to download it. In what world am I going to pass up the opportunity to handle the adversity of the oceans in the role of such a magnificent beast? This game also reinforces the role that Sharks are just trying to survive too, and that they shouldn’t be looked at as the bad guys. I truthfully hope this game can provide the change of perspective that many people need.