Bureau of Tiny Approvals

What it is

The Bureau of Tiny Approvals puts you behind a 1978 desk console as the sole officer of the Department of Human Lenience. Petitions arrive on paper forms, each one a formal request for permission to do something small and ridiculous, narrating your own cooking in the third person, say, or something filed under sartorial comfort. Your job is to stamp them. The console hums, the log scrolls green text, and the stamping rig is marked heavy duty.

How to play

Read the petition on the form: file number, applicant, category, the request itself, and a scrawled signature. Choose approve, deny or shrug, which escalates the case to the Department of Shrugs, and slam the button. The next form loads. The console sliders let you set an apathy level for the decision matrix and a red-tape setting that slows the paperwork to triplicate or gridlock, and there is a desk bell for no reason at all. You can also type your own petition and have it printed to the blotter, and print an official decree for the fridge.

What makes it different

The commitment to the props. The CRT hum is real audio, the log has tabs, the forms have file numbers and categories like sartorial comfort and existential daydreaming, and every decision feels weighty while mattering not at all. It is bureaucracy as a toy, and it is funnier the more seriously you take it.

Why it is on Bored

Bureaucracy with the stakes removed and the props kept. There is no score and no wrong answer, only the small pleasure of authority over things that do not need it, delivered through a humming console, a heavy duty stamp and forms with real file numbers. It works in a minute or in an afternoon, and anyone who has ever waited on a permit will appreciate the shrug button.

Tips

• Sound on for the hum, or hit mute on the console if it grates
• Slide the apathy level to the cynical end and see what it does to your decisions
• Write your own petition, the typewriter form is the best part
• Print the decree for someone who needs permission to do something silly

FAQ