Games, Propaganda and you!

I'll be demoing some examples of politically minded games, both those used in campaigns and those presented as art.

We'll also look at some free/free-ish game making tools and libraries and talk about what you can do to make games!

Notes

• Political message games
• McDonalds Game
  • It's not about how McDonalds is bad, click the button to do bad things
  • Being forced to do the things that the business does. Putting you in the seat of the things you're not supposed to agree with
  • The point of the game is that it isn't sustainable. The whole thing goes to shit. But you have an experience running the system.
  • Made in flash when flash was the only thing going.
  • It succeeded because it had an appeal both to activists and people who just had fun killing cows.
  • Then McDonalds made http://mcworld.com ("Hey Kids, this is advertising!")
• Real Lives
  • Non-profitty, not offensive.
  • Simulator. You are a random person on earth, based on data in the real world.
  • It's hard to survive
  • Boring!
  • The oregon trail of today.
  • The market is kids in schools
• Closed world
  • "The queer video game". Kinda weird.
  • A rock/paper/scissors game mechanic
  • Low game value, doesn't really advance the issue
  • Sticking your cause on a piece of paper and superficially it's about your issue
  • The theory of change is weak
  • No one is going to be convinced.
• Please make a game that's a game.
• Kettle
  • Sombre and kind of creepy. More subtle.
  • You could have made it a fun game with just squares and triangles
• Jane Mcgonigal
  • Superstruct
  • World without oil
  • ARG (alternative reality games)
  • Reality is Broken
  • Getting people to imagine living differently
  • She has a book: Reality is Broken
  • There is a TED talk that sums it up well
• Alex Peak
  • Code Hero (in private beta right now)
    • First person shooter where you have a gun that shoots code
• HopeLab
  • Game to get kids with cancer to take their meds.
• What experience do you bring to the player that is actually fun
  • The fun part of the McDonalds game is that you feel the panic of the system falling apart.

Resources to actually make a game

Reading Auntie Pixelante Radical game designer and game critic

Ian Bogost philosopher and modern day atari programmer

Game Toilet A bowlful of of crass and wonderful starting concepts

Glorious Trainwrecks A form for making a game in two hours about anything and everything

The Borderhouse game industry criticism from minority perspectives

Tools flixel flash library for games

Stencyl All ages cross platform game maker program

ImpactJS Javascript library for html5 games / fash canvas graphics

• Game seeds. Card game for game designers: http://www.gameseeds.net

Places to post games in the wild newgrounds.com

kongregate.com

tigsource.com

superfriendshipclub.com