Lately, I have come across a few games that try to convey serious messages and deal with real life problems:
The toughest is probably "Dafur is Dying" deals with the humanitarian crisis in Dafur. The aim of the game is to collect water for the family while trying to avoid militias. A nearly impossible task and very frustrating, when you keep loosing one family member after the next and still you have no water. Yet, this might just be the message that the game programmer tried to convey.
Re-mission is a game for cancer patients, where the player fights the cancer cells in a body. According to the makers of the game playing the game during cancer treatment can be beneficial and supportive for the patient.
Evoke claims to be a crash course in changing the world (hopefully for the better). I haven't tried it yet, but it is meant to encourage creative solutions for urgent problems.
I wonder if playing those games can really help to change anything in really world, but it is least a good attempt to use the medium to raise awareness for social issues.
There was also this game: http://ayiti.newzcrew.org/ayitiunicef/ which focused on the difficulties of supporting a family amidst Haiti's poverty (even before the earthquake).
ReplyDeleteI don't think these games will change anything yet. Creating a work of art that aims to change the collective conscience is not an easy task, I think. But hopefully, someday, a powerful piece of digital art (perhaps even a game) may do just that. Though, I'm not that optimistic about it.