Saturday, December 30, 2006
Darfur is Dying
Developed by the University of Southern California, Darfur is dying is a short game made to highlight the plight of refugees in the war torn country.
Relatively simple in its production and execution, the game has a kind of charm none the less. Beginning as a villager hiding from jeeps filled with soldiers and then graduating to helping to run a refugee camp for seven days, each aspect of the game tries to examine what life is like for these people. This is not a game that can really be won, as you are reminded that whatever you have just done, people are still dying for real.
The game itself is a little clumsy, whatever its goals are. Hiding from a jeep is fine, but when it runs you over, no one notices and you don’t get hurt. The camp simulation suffers from bad signposting and poor navigation. These kinds of fault are to be expected in this level of game production though.
Darfur is Dying is not really about gameplay, though. It is a way of trying to open people’s eyes to a situation that is largely neglected in the mainstream media due to coverage of Iraq, political scandal and football. It does, in a way, give people who play it an idea of what life is in Darfur. But I do feel it has a major problem. Who is going to play it?
Anyone who seeks out the game on purpose must have an idea of what is going on in Darfur, and anyone who comes across it by accident will likely ignore it. It may be of use as an educational tool, but I don’t see much else it could truly accomplish.
This is not a fault of the game, but of its distribution and planning. As noble as it is the effort put into developing it could perhaps have been used more constructively.
Developed by the University of Southern California, Darfur is dying is a short game made to highlight the plight of refugees in the war torn country.
Relatively simple in its production and execution, the game has a kind of charm none the less. Beginning as a villager hiding from jeeps filled with soldiers and then graduating to helping to run a refugee camp for seven days, each aspect of the game tries to examine what life is like for these people. This is not a game that can really be won, as you are reminded that whatever you have just done, people are still dying for real.
The game itself is a little clumsy, whatever its goals are. Hiding from a jeep is fine, but when it runs you over, no one notices and you don’t get hurt. The camp simulation suffers from bad signposting and poor navigation. These kinds of fault are to be expected in this level of game production though.
Darfur is Dying is not really about gameplay, though. It is a way of trying to open people’s eyes to a situation that is largely neglected in the mainstream media due to coverage of Iraq, political scandal and football. It does, in a way, give people who play it an idea of what life is in Darfur. But I do feel it has a major problem. Who is going to play it?
Anyone who seeks out the game on purpose must have an idea of what is going on in Darfur, and anyone who comes across it by accident will likely ignore it. It may be of use as an educational tool, but I don’t see much else it could truly accomplish.
This is not a fault of the game, but of its distribution and planning. As noble as it is the effort put into developing it could perhaps have been used more constructively.
# posted by Matt @ 11:11 AM 
