Politics Playing Workshop Response!!

I looked at New York Defender and Donkey John.

1. With regards to New York Defender I think the game would definitely have been effective in communicating with people via the internet. It was very quick and easy to play and did not involve much downloading or any other drawn out process. It was quick and to the point and anyone who could use a mouse could figure out the message of the game. The imagery was also very effective in communicating to the user with the world famous Twin Towers under attack over and over. Donkey John was a little more complicated and relied on prior knowledge of the Donkey Kong games from several years ago in order to extract a message from the game. I found the general message of the game easy to understand. Oil was being stolen from the rightful owners and this is a bad thing. This to was easy to download, access and play and as such would be effective in communicating to many people over the internet.
There is however the danger with games that people do not even go so far as to think about any underlying message. This would be even more likely to happen on a little internet game, however for those who think a little about the game and its message, both these games would be useful forms of communication.

2. The political message of NYD was fairly obvious and easy to figure out. It is impossible to 'finish' the game and protect the Towers from all attacks. No matter how hard you try. This was a possible critique on methods of controlling terrorism that occurred since 9-11. I was not interested in finding out more about the message or the game. Donkey John was more interesting to me as I was not familiar with the political situation the game refers to. I was more driven to find out the back ground with Donkey John mainly because the imagery and situation had not been on the front pages for a couple of years like the 9-11 situation had been. The amusing thought of Howard as a barrel throwing ape also pushed me to find out about the background more and the unusual name of the hero was also interesting ot me.

3. In my game there would be a simple and obvious message about the state of the world and the uneven distribution of power that exists. As God the player would be in control of the 'world orchestra' and he/she would start with a situation where everything is uneven and out of balance with the various instruments in the orchestra labelled after countries. A terrible noise at the start of the game can slowly be changed to something more harmonious as the user adjusts the volume levels of each country's instrument in the orchestra.
This would be rather hard to achieve and would possibly be larger in size and structure than the above games and would also involve music which may be harder to get across over the internet. Still i think it might convey a good message if it was made a reality!