Playing Politics: Blogged Workshop Response

Do you think the political simulation games you examined would have been "effective" in communicating with people via the Internet?

As a Space Invader’s style game, New York Defender is effective in keeping players interested in stopping the planes from hitting the Twin Towers and thus playing the game over and over again. I am not sure if this would encourage players to communicate with others over the internet and there are no links to other sites. Kabul Kaboom asks the player to question the political message to a greater extend and in this way would inspire more political comment. It would be an effective ‘neutral’ starting point to discuss the 9/11 events. When I say neutral, I mean the game itself is a fact that is undisputable, unlike people’s interpretations of the initial attacks and what should be done about them. Although these games would not be effective in creating an online community in the style of Creatures where players would ask each other for advice and download patches and so on, which is how I initially considered the question.

Was the political message underpinning the political simulation games you examined immediately obvious? If not, were you driven or interested to find out what the game was trying to "say" (apart from the fact that you have to as part of the workshop)?

I think the political message in New York Defender is that terror is going to attack and the only way to stop it is through pre-emptive strikes. (In this case by getting the planes before they get the twin towers.) This is shown from the planes moving faster and coming from many different angles. I don’t know about others, but I found it pretty impossible to defend the Twin Towers for any length of time. On the other hand though, it may have been an ironic message, the planes instead symbolizing the paranoia present in Bush’s reaction to the attacks. In Kabul Kaboom the political message is more overt. The ludicrous nature of the Bush attack-aid strategy is clear when the player is collecting hamburgers whilst dodging bullets. There is a similar inevitability of death in this game as in New York Defender. By placing the player in a simulated caricature of a possible position of a civilian, they are able to empathize with the character and question the necessity of the attacks. This message was especially poignant for me playing the game directly after playing New York Defender because I was able to draw parallel between the inevitability of the terror attacks and the inevitability of the Bush attacks.


If you had to write a political simulation game similar in size and structure to those you examined, (a) what would be the point you were trying to make and (b) how would the game be structured and operate in order to make that point? (Just give a very brief outline).

Although there are many political points that I would like to make since, in my opinion, the scope of political points currently being represented in mass media is very limited, I think the area in dire need of attention is environmental issues. If I were to focus my game on an Australian audience (which I most likely would) then possibly I would tackle the salinity problem. There would be a central character with enough detail to appear lifelike, but enough fuzziness to be of indeterminate gender who the player would be positioned to identify with. Possibly the player could even create the character Sim-style. The important thing is the player should identify with and thus empathize with the character. The player would then move with the character through their ‘everyday life’ in such a way that the player would make the character do things that they would do in their everyday life. This section of the play would be in the center of the screen which is divided up into, say five sections. In the other sections there would be animated images showing the direct and indirect environmental effects of the character’s actions. For example if the character consumes food, the screen would show the effects of farming on land or as they sit in their manufactured chair, the effects of industry would be displayed. Significantly, as the character’s actions effect different things at once, the interconnectivity would be emphasized by multiple screens showing different effects. At the and of each animation, the screen would display a possible solution to the problem it previously displayed and end with the caption: “So what are YOU going to do about it?”