Maybe Make Some Change

“maybe make some change“ is a project by Aaron A. Reed that addresses the Adam Winfield issue and the War in Afghanistan in the form of a text adventure. I recommend you go play it at the above link now, and come back for my short analysis in a second.

The “docugame” has been getting some good work over the past year, which is worthwhile because it’s a very good avenue for games to teach people about things. We also had the hubbub over Six Days in Fallujah, a game which promised to be more realistic and documentary like than either of the big name franchises and show a different kind of war than Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 would.

maybe make some change is fascinating because it removes war from its traditional shooter trappings and places it in a courtroom. Rather than focus on the actions, it focuses on the consequences. You live the actions, but then you are forced to interact with the consequences using the same commands you used in the action segment–and while all you know how to do is shoot in action, you only do other things to advance real life. It’s a multi-layer metaphor, really: parts of it go very small, to the specifics of the Winfield case, while others go big, to the role of soldiers in American society and how we treat them and how they treat us.

There’s a beautiful balance to it. It’s an interesting game in its own right, as interesting as I’ve found text adventure to get, but the key here is its message and how it’s delivered. It’s powerful stuff, and if you ignored my previous assertion to play it then you should, in fact, play it here.