My Project

I also would like to develop a game for kids. I think what I'm interested in hitting on is a questioning of the blind patriotism kids are taught in schools. Choose Your Own Adventure style.

Friday Aug. 17th

Hmmm... So I've been really struggling to find a way to get over the issue that while a game is fixed (it's the same set-up from week to week, month to month..) how to constantly incorporate breaking news into the game without it becomming a really expensive venture.... I've sort of worked around it in the game below...


What I was thinking was to have a set of issues... perhaps overly simplified issues that kids (I'm not just shooting for girls) can take a stand on, then they are presented with a number of options to choose from, which they then pursue to discover the outcome.... Think of those Choose Your Own Adventure books you read as a kid... you'd make a decision and it would say 'turn to page 36' where you'd have to make another choice and it went on and on until you conquered aliens on Mars or died.

So.. for clarity's sake... here's an example...

Lets say a kid is presented with 'The War in Iraq'

They choose to 'Support or Oppose'... (lets say they choose oppose)

Then they are asked 'What do you want to do about it?' and are given the options to 'Attend a Local Meeting' 'March on Washington' 'Write a Letter to your Congressman' etc. etc...

Let's say our kid picks "Attend a Local Meeting" - When they click on it they would be told "You attend a local meeting to learn more about the war in Iraq... When you express your opinion a man accuses you of being unpatriotic... What do you want to do? Select: Dissent is Pariotic! OR Go Home"

If they select Dissent is Patriotic they get to read a quick quote about how one of the founding fathers (I forget) said that dissent is one of the most patriotic things a person can do in wartime, after that they would continue to play until they've made some sort of impact (mobilized people)... If they select Go Home they basically start over.

The whole idea behind the game is to show kids the relative impact they can have on the world, and to give them a reality-check about how some tactics may have hidden consequences...

For example.. Say a kid chose to Support the War in Iraq... and then they chose to Join the Military... The game would then show a short blurb about how when you join the military you lose many of the liberties civillian's enjoy, like the right to speak freely about the government or to choose how you dress... etc. etc.

At the end of each game, the player is shown a summary of their choices... this might look like a map, showing where they went, what they did... and here's the killer part... news organizations could then incorporate local information to direct the kids to participate directly within their community! So say they went to a local meeting within the game... On the summary/map at the end of the game the news corporation could then say "To see a real political meeting, check out the 7:00 meeting at 234 Clinton St." or if the player chose to write a letter to their congressman, they news corporation could invite them to send it for real... or if in the game a player started a local drive for voter registration, the news organization could tell them how to really do it in the real world.

So basically the game would be a tool for empowerment. Kids would tinker with political issues from the safety of their homes and then be nudged to continue their political involvement in the real world. Whatever they choose to do, they're learning something... and that's pretty cool.

I'll post more later...

Friday Night

Okay, so I've been thinking about how we could go about making this actually happen... the technical side of things.

As we don't have loads of money, I imagine the interface would have to be fairly plain and simple. I imagine a player just having an omnicient view over the game, therefore we wouldn't need any avatars to walk around. I don't see it being super-flashy, and that can only work in our favor as we are short on time and money.

It seems in this project that stand-alone sites are being discouraged, therefore, the game would have to be tacked-on to some news site, which isn't problamatic per se, but it would require the news site to perhaps revise the game in order for it to meet their needs (local issues).

Comments???