Man creates elaborate game to get his roommate to do the dishes and it's pure genius

Dividing household chores is no easy feat, and for one man, encouraging his roommate to do his fair share of dishes required some creative thinking. When Max Kolo—known as @cool_lookin_bug on TikTok—realized his roommate was piling up dirty dishes in the sink, he decided to address the issue in an unconventional way: by designing a game to make dishwashing not just a chore but an exciting activity.

“Look at this,” Kolo began in his now-viral TikTok, gesturing toward a sink overflowing with dirty dishes. “For weeks, I have watched my roommate pile dirty dish upon dirty dish into the sink.” Instead of confronting his roommate directly, Kolo asked himself a question: “Is it possible to redesign the chore chart in such a way that not only gets my roommate to do the dishes, but makes him excited and addicted to doing the dishes?”

With that goal in mind, Kolo turned their chore chart into a “fully gamified map.” The game featured activities, extensive lore, and even prizes designed to entice his roommate into participating. However, the experiment didn’t yield immediate success. Despite the clever setup, the roommate didn’t initially engage with the game as expected.

"He didn't really play it. In fact, I don't think he even noticed it was there," Kolo shared. "So I realized that the brave thing to do would be to just ask him to do the dishes." But when he was about to do just that, he noticed that his roommate had started doing the dishes. "Now we got a clean design, clean dishes, I'd say it worked out," the man stated. The roommate could be seen doing the dishes, playing the game, as well as cleaning the sink afterward. The caption to the video read, "Here’s to the passive-aggressive roommates. Use." The video received more than 323k views and over 34k likes. People took to the comments section of the clip to appreciate the ingenious idea.

@niabride wrote, "Why is nobody creating a game for me and giving me prizes? Why did I wash dishes my whole life unprized? That's the biggest question." @quantum.foamm commented, "That's absolutely great! Maybe you can make available the downloadable PDF version to sell so people can print and create one?" @thisismylastspoon remarked, "Very fun and child-friendly but seems exhausting just to have to share the labor load with your roommate."

@reliab.lee shared, "Creative way to do chores. This will be a good strategy to help the kids learn to do their chores. Try to make this a business. This is promising. I think." @lemuel_mc expressed, "Where can we buy this game for a family? Amazing! That’s the only way I would be doing any chores! So will stop feeling guilty for not being able to force myself to do them!" @zuphiesky pointed out, "I think it would be simpler to have their own plate and utensils and practice cleaning as you go... If not, insects, cockroaches and rats WILL invade your place... That would be horrible for everyone."

You can follow Max Kolo (@cool_lookin_bug) on TikTok for more lifestyle content.