Gonzalo Frasca and friends have released Newsgaming, a site where political cartoons and games meet. The first game up is called September 12th, and is a simulation where killing terrorists spawns new terrorists. I like how after you fired a rocket you’re forced to wait for your rockets to reload, and during that wait you hear the wails of mourning women crying for the dead. The mourner stands up and hesitates, changing into a terrorist outfit, then back to her blue, civilian dress, and to and fro until always settling with the terrorist’s black and white. One of the FAQs is:
Of course they are. We do not believe in objective journalism. We prefer games that encourage critical thinking, even if the player disagrees with our game’s ideas.
A chapter in my thesis is about political web games, and when a lot were being published, after September 11, I blogged a lot about it too. Gonzalo has always been at the forefront of political gaming, and anyone interested in it should look at his MA thesis and his other publications, which are listed in the sidebar of his blog, ludology.org.
Gamegirladvance also has a post on newsgaming, with a nice photo of Gonzalo showing the game.
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Newsgaming.com
Gonzalo Frasca and a bunch of fellow ludatics have just launched Newsgaming.com! Yes, they just launched it, although the announcement on Gonzalo’s Ludology.com has already been followed by blog posts at game girl advance and from Jill. Well, at least…
miscellany is the largest category
September 12: A Toy World
After having time to play yesterday, I wanted to offer a few thoughts about September 12, the new game by newsgaming.com [I mentioned it earlier here (briefly linking it to Bookchin’s version of The Intruder) – Also discussed by GTA,…