PlayingPolitics

September 12th
New York Defender

1. The games would do the rounds on the Net in much the same fashion as amusing e-mails and attachments. So I am unsure how much of an effect these games would have, in communicating a comprehensive understanding of issues, but certainly they are an interesting way of framing things, and affirm a sense of there being a community of people who disagree with current politics. For instance, September 12th contains a simplistic "bomb civilians = morph into terrorists" equation, which just highlights cultural blindness.

2. The political tone of the games was immediately obvious, especially with the simple objectives and 'bad taste' overtness which immediately places the player in a sceptic's role... However, the message is a matter of interpretation, and a responsibility on the part of the player to move beyond a superficial interaction with the games' superficial rendition of the world event/media stage.

I was interested in the unethical responses I had to the gameworld to begin with, the mindless element of game-playing in contrast to complex issues. Therefore I felt like some political conscience was poking a stick at my comparative ignorance and remoteness to global events.

When I first started playing New York Defender I mindlessly entered the game world and thought the objective was to hit the two towers, and that hitting the mouse produced a plane! I was also interested in my immediate tendency to want to score well, I scored 657 in the first round and was determined to score over a 1000 in the second, which i did, in the 1800's. Unlike the other 3 games there was very little text or message (Donkey John has a link to background information, September 12th and Kaboul Khaboom both have introductions/ending pointing to the despair of the situation) - and was in French, yet the muteness or ambivalence of the game set up was just as eloquent.

I was also bemused by the naff-ness and comical look of the little figures running around in September 12th. At first I just wanted to watch, and not shoot with my omniscient sight line, but then I just had to see what reaction would be. Then I wanted to see how long it would take to destroy the buildings. That they looked and behaved like ants was probably a deliberate move, and foregrounded the way sensationalist-style media coverage manipulated the peoples' feelings towards the Middle East into a LCD (lowest common denominator) of both non-empathy and hatred/fear. The game design was canny for factoring a wait and reload time so you could observe the blue figures morph into terrorists.

3. My game might go something as follows:
-A room full of sleeping people.
-An offscreen space with different coloured "bombs" interspersed with pop-ups.
I don't have time to compile a list of pop-ups cos i think i am missing "Chaser Decides" and i want to go home but they should be brief and provocative, perhaps just stating issues like "Higher Education" "Medicare" (national) or some international issues or perhaps an abbreviated news headlines, or perhaps provocative bits of rhetoric.....
-Player picks up the bombs
note: bombs are not in the lethal sense but more like a pie or water balloon....
and launches them at the sleeping people....
I would like there to be a 'happy ending' with a punch line with a graphic or animation where if you 'win' and all the people wake up there's some kind of change.... not sure how to represent this...