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- Taking a Look at
A Force More Powerful
Thursday, December 1, 2005
- By Rusel DeMaria
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- On display in the Breakaway Games suite at the recent Serious Games
Summit in Washington, D.C., A Force More Powerful was arguably one
of the most intriguing products at the show. It was conceived and
executed by a group that includes the International Center on
Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), documentary filmmakers York-Zimmerman
and Breakaway Games, Ltd.
Inspired by the York-Zimmerman documentary of the same name, which
was aired on PBS in 2000 and narrated by Ben Kingsley, the game is a
turn-based strategy game that currently consists of ten pre-built
scenarios and an editing system that will allow players to create
scenarios of their own.
Behind the game is a wealth of real-world and theoretical experience
on the subject of nonviolent conflict, including Dr. Peter Ackerman,
chairman of the ICNC and Ivan Marovic of Otpor, the Serbian
resistance movement that played a critical role in the ousting of
Slobodan Milosevic. The project supervisor is Steve York, who
created the original documentary.
This is neither a review nor a complete look at the product, but a
first impression, and, as such, I will not attempt to provide every
detail of the game, but suffice it to say, I think this game looks
intriguing and… yes… fun to play. Fun in the sense that it provides
real gaming challenges while dealing with difficult and even more
challenging real-world situations.
One of the first impressions I got was the graphic style of the
game. Although there is an overview map that is done in a slick,
modern SimCity sort of graphic, most of the game is played using
what look like crude notebooks and whiteboards with handwriting,
color highlighting and various methods of marking items such as
circling in red or checkmarks. It looks something like a digital
reproduction of a collection of handwritten notes. And at first
glance, it looks like a prototype mockup.
But that is only the first impression. Very quickly, with a bit of
orientation into the game's reality, it becomes clear that this is
really far closer to what people in a (generally) under-funded
underground political movement would be using to plan their
activities. In short, it was a far more realistic environment than a
bunch of slick printouts, windows dialogs and other more
computer-like displays would have been. In fact, it supported the
game's immersion beautifully and appeared to be highly functional,
as well.
Of course, the interfaces do things that we can't do with paper –
such as scrolling lists within the page or overlaying different data
set information at the touch of a button. Yes, these are somewhat
magical notebooks and whiteboards, but they still convey the
atmosphere of the world of the underground movement.
As for actual gameplay – the game includes information about
specific individuals – leaders of the movement and other important
figures – and each significant faction. For individuals, there are a
number of associated characteristics, such as the “violence
unwillingness”, public influence, ambition, and will. For factions,
there is information about their support of the various important
elements of the struggle – for instance, do they have strong, weak
or neutral support for the current regime? For the workers? For
insurgency? Etc.
The game uses a consistent color-coding system, with green
representing a positive value, yellow neutral and red, negative.
It's easy to see at a glance, throughout the game, the relative
positions and/or strengths and weaknesses of specific groups and
individuals. Basic states, such as fear, enthusiasm, religious and
ethnic affiliations, and policy preferences are pivotal variables
for determining and predicting how certain groups and individuals
may respond at any given moment in the game. Sometimes the goal is
to raise a group's enthusiasm for change higher than their level of
fear of reprisals. Of course, there is a variety of actions
available to accomplish this goal. In fact, many of the strategies
available to players were distilled from one of the seminal works on
nonviolence, “The Politics of Nonviolent Action” by Dr. Gene Sharp
(http://www.peace.ca/genesharp.htm). From a list of 198 possible
actions, the game developers condensed the list to 84.
So how do you get things done to further your cause? Basically, AFMP
employs a system that can be described as “subject-verb-object.” The
way it works is that you first pick someone from your list of
available agents, then pick an action for them to carry out, and
finally pick a target for the action. A common example is to pick
someone who has good fundraising skills or good relationships with a
specific group, for instance, then pick the “fundraising” action
and, finally, pick the group you want them to target for raising
funds. You can set a time period for the action – say two weeks –
and the game will track this and all other ongoing actions. On a
specific screen of the “magic” whiteboard, you can track the
progress of all ongoing actions.
This is a very simplistic view of how the game works, but because of
the variety of variables, agents and other scripted factors – such
as cultural attitudes among factions – contained within any given
scenario, I suspect playing it will lead to all kinds of emergent
behaviors, and players may adopt a variety of strategies for playing
– some more successful than others.
Violence is never a direct option for people within the movement
(players), but violence can erupt, especially if the agents who are
sent into an action have not had sufficient nonviolent training, or
if they are simply more predisposed toward violence. For this
reason, one of the player's challenges is to pick the right agents
and the right groups to employ within a given circumstances. For
instance, insurgency groups may prove to be useful, but they can't
be controlled as well and may resort to violence if met with
significant resistance.
The game is rich in features and feedback mechanisms, and even
contains real-time rendered cut scenes that show events that take
place using parameters from the game state. The city map view
identifies specific areas of the city, and overlays can quickly tell
you their current state of fear, enthusiasm, etc. In addition, key
locations are highlighted on the city map, allowing players to
direct actions to those locations – such as government buildings,
newspaper offices, etc. To thicken the plot even more, players can
send infiltrators into the enemy system, but the enemy can do
likewise.
In addition, there is the Resistopedia (with a tip of the hat to
Civilization), which players can use to learn more about the
elements and concepts that are included in the game.
AFMP offers a great variety of potential strategy, learning and
gameplay, along with access to immediate information about the game
state and the state of various agents and groups. From my brief look
at the game, I was impressed that the elements of good gaming –
challenge and long, short and mid-range goals, rewards, feedback and
experimentation, to name a few – were all present. While many
so-called “serious” games may be relegated to a small and focused
audience, I think AFMP could merit the attention of any gamer who
likes to think, be challenged and immerse him or herself into a rich
world of intrigue with significant stakes. The fact that the game
models important real-world situations and events makes it all the
more powerful. And the addition of an editor to allow players to
create their own scenarios promises a wealth of new content and
interesting twists and plot variations from the product's users.
As a final personal note, I can attest from experience that this
game accurately models many of the challenges and struggles of an
underground or citizen movement whose goal is to affect nonviolent
change and public awareness, in a situation with volatile factions
and the true potential for violence. From that perspective, I kept
saying “aha” when I received the demo of this game. Time and time
again I recognized the situations, struggles and choices that had to
be made in such circumstances. In short, this game rang true for me.
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