Tag: social change

News

Solve the Outbreak lets you play disease detective for a day

What could be more fun than disease puzzles? Solve the Outbreak is a new (and free) iPad app/game that allows players to live out their Contagion or even Outbreak fantasies and play the part of a CDC disease detective, solving clues to get a sense of what nasty illness each scenario presents. I’m going to admit this right now – I am a total sucker for this stuff. Playing detective is fun, sure, and I enjoy games that let me play as a crime fighter as much as the next girl, but stick me in the role of a disease…
News

Drugbound accurately depicts the nightmares of drug policy activists

If you ever wanted to know what the fever dreams of drug policy activists look like after too many long nights working through reams of legislative proposals, try Drugbound. It’s a wildly colorful, 2D side-scrolling endless runner with a hook straight out of High Times. The game is centered around your quest for freedom and your ability to collect the most marijuana possible, while avoiding buzzsaws, rocket-riding demons and the invisible, oppressive hand of the DEA. – – – The first level sees you endlessly running through a sunset desert (which just happens to resemble the Mexican border), collecting herb and…
News

This professor held his classroom inside Minecraft. Do schools need to level up?

Dr. Jeff Brand is a Professor of Interactive Media at Bond University in Gold Coast, Australia, and his Minecraft character looks more or less like he does. It’s balding, has two black square eyes, and wears a wide toothy, gaping smile. This is relevant because Brand had his students replicate in Minecraft the Arch Building, the oblong brick structure where their class is held. Then, In late January, after tropical cyclone Oswald dumped a deluge of muddy water on the Queensland region, the school was closed. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Determined not to fall behind in his lesson…
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What does depression feel like? Will O’Neill explores darkness with hope and honesty.

Actual Sunlight is a bleak, tough experience. It’s not difficult to play – but it can be hard to motivate yourself to keep playing. That’s the point. Designer Will O’Neil crafted an “essentially autobiographical” game about a depressed and alienated young man named Ethan. For many, this will hit very close to home. “I think some players have interpreted it as a cautionary tale, and I appreciate that”, says O’Neil, “But my primary objective was just to give a seething, honest and unromantic account of a kind of life that I don’t think gets much representation.” – – – “This isn’t…
Article

Papers, Please puts players in the shoes of immigration officers

Immigration reform is an issue sitting very high in the minds of US policymakers these days, especially in the so-called border states. The tension is high, the drama is real, and the core issues involved – power, access, and the interminable, maze-like structures that dictate the flow of those things – can easily be mined for game mechanics, with a little imagination. Lucas Pope’s Papers, Please takes a unique approach by placing players in the role of an immigration officer. It’s a drag. – – – It’s the player’s job to determine whether people should be let into the country,…
News

Proof that the world would be a better place if humans had superpowers

Power has a funny effect on the human mind. History is positively filthy with powerful leaders who turned into total jerks or went paranoid after the power went to their heads. Apparently, superpowers are a different story entirely. Discovery recently posted about research done at Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, which showed a strong, positive correlation between experiencing flight in virtual reality and being willing to help someone in need in real life. – – – “For the study, 30 female participants and 30 male participants were immersed in a foggy virtual reality city and given the power of flight…