Playing Politics Workshop Response

The simulation, September 12th, gives the player a choice to shoot or not shoot. As the rules suggest, it has no ending. It is impossible to kill everyone in the game. Houses that are ruined will be rebuilt after some time. If the player decides to shoot and innocent are killed, the civilians will mourn for them and in turn, they become terrorist. For those who became a terrorist, they will return back to normal is the player decides to hold fire. However if the player decides not to shoot, there will be no additional terrorists or any changes to the game.

September 12th would be effective via the Internet if the players are patient in looking at the results. It is very interesting to find political games that reflect the terrorism and allows players to simulate themselves into the “terrorist” behaviour. The message was not immediately obvious to me. The instructions “This is not a game. You can’t win and you can’t lose. This is a simulation. It has no ending. It has already begun. The rules are deadly simple. You can shoot. Or not. This is a simple model you can use to explore some aspects of the war on terror” does not state the idea that “Violence generates violence” at the first glance. However, if one pays more attention to the bombing after launching the bomb, then the idea would be obvious. This simulation has drawn my attention to look at the additional information after playing the simulation.

New York Defender has simulated the game into a scenario where the Twin Towers graphic is placed in the middle and the player is the ‘hero’ to protect the Twin Towers from being destroyed by the incoming airplanes. By moving the mouse and clicking on the airplanes, it can be destroyed before it crashes into the twin towers. New York Defender will remind people of the terrorism that has happened and it is effective in promoting the message against terrorism due to the fact that almost everyone knows about this disaster. But this game has not driven me to find out more information on it. Personally, I feel that it is the interest in breaking the high score which ‘keeps’ the player in playing the game, as with the Donkey John game.

I think the main thing in keeping people attracted to the game is the graphics. September 12 had rather colourful, interesting and 3-d graphics whereas the other games such as Kabul Kaboom had static, boring images. If I had to write a political simulation game, I would design it to be in a similar way as September 12, and state the instructions or idea before the game starts. The game can be designed in a short story-based scenario to bring the player into the situation. It does not need active participation all the time, but allow the player to sit back and view the story-like simulation. I feel that these kinds of games would leave a more lasting impression on the players.