New Game Series Focuses on Opinion
Persuasive Games inks a deal to distribute newsgames
Billed as the Arcade Wire series, Persuasive Games has launched a new series of web games focusing on news commentary.
More and more, the video game medium is being used for more than just entertainment. Some games aim to bring attention to a cause while others in a sense act as interactive editorials.
The latter use is getting more popular, and now Persuasive Games has a signed a deal with a Shockwave.com and Addicting Games to distribute what the company refers to as newsgames.
The series is billed as The Arcade Wire , named after a fictional newspaper that introduces the game.
First in the series is Airport Security, mocking the airline ban on liquids and gels in the wake the foiled British terrorism plot last month.
In the game, you play as an airport security gaurd who must remove prohibited items from passengers' bags before they get on the plane.
It sounds simple, but it isn't. What's prohibited and what isn't changes every few seconds. In the beginning, you may receive a message informing you that hats are banned from the plane, then a few seconds later find out that cell phones and laptops are also banned. But moments later, hats and cellphones are allowed again but now cheese is banned.
Let a banned item on-board and the security level drops. Remove a non-banned item and the rights of passengers drops. If either the Security or Rights bar goes down to zero, the game is over.
It can get pretty frustrating (this writer has yet to score more than 300 points on the easiest mode) but it's probably just as frustrating as trying to board a plane these days.
And so game designer Ian Bogost makes his point:
"It's a critique of the absurdest changing practices in airport security. Try to keep up with knee-jerk policy changes and enjoy perverse prohibitions like toothpaste, pants and pressurized cheese," he writes in his blog.
