Progressive Gaming Possibilities

Having some extra free time over the holidays, I’ve found myself indulging a bit in a favorite pastime that I’ve missed for the last few months. After spending some time on my two recent purchases — The Movies and Civilization IV — I found myself drifting back towards some old favorites. I blew the dust off my copy of The Sims 2, and even dug out my copy of Tropico, still probably one of the best political simulation games I’ve come across.

While I enjoyed playing the new games, and revisiting the old favorites, I couldn’t resist the urge to go looking for another new game. So, I did. But after a few trips down the aisles of various stores, and some online window shopping, I realized something. As a gamer, I’m something of an odd duck. By and large — with the exception of Quake and World of Warcraft — first-person shooters don’t appeal much to me. Those, however, are most of the games on the market’ games in which you mostly run around killing stuff.

And while I’ve sometimes found that playing a round or two of Quake is an effective way to burn off frustrations, most of the time I’d rather be building something, or working out a strategy to achieve a certain goal, like in political simulation games. And I’d like do it without “killing stuff” if possible. So, I didn’t find anything out there that caught my eye, at least not until I stumbled across an old del.icio.us link and remembered an upcoming game that meets all of those requirements.

It was a link to Breakaway Games that refreshed my memory about a game that I’d forgotten was in production. It’s called A Force More Powerful, and if it’s as good as it sounds, it will be my next computer game purchase.

Can a computer game help people learn how to defeat dictators, military occupiers, and corrupt rulers—not with laser rays and AK47s—but with a non-military strategy and nonviolent weapons?

Such a game will soon be available: A Force More Powerful – the Game of Nonviolent Strategy is the first and only interactive teaching tool in the field of nonviolent conflict. Developed by The International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), media firm York Zimmerman Inc. and game designers at BreakAway Ltd., the game is built on nonviolent strategies and tactics used successfully in conflicts around the world.

Featuring ten scenarios inspired by history, A Force More Powerful simulates nonviolent struggles to win freedom and secure human rights against dictators, occupiers, colonizers, and corrupt regimes, as well as campaigns for political and human rights for minorities and women. The game models real-world experience, allowing players to devise strategies, apply tactics and see the results.

Base on that description, I just might buy it on principle alone when it becomes available for purchase in February, just to support the effort in the hopes that there will be more to come. (I’ll ignore, for the moment, that BreakAway is also launching a simulation for military-style planning and analysis to be used by the federal government. In business I suppose some degree of compromise is inevitable, though — given that the military and the DoD are some BreakAway’s major client — I’m left wondering which is the compromise. A Force More Powerful or the military planning and analysis simulation?

Nonetheless, I can’t afford to be choosy as a gamer. I traded my copy of Empire Earth, because I couldn’t play it without the AI kicking my butt. When I play Civilization IV it’s in custom game mode, with the “Always Peace” option checked and the victory-by-conquest option unchecked. It’s pretty clear that I’d rather play than fight, and when is comes to most games these days, playing is fighting.

The violence issue aside, even when I’m playing a game like Sim City 4, I find myself wondering why gameplay seems weighted towards one side politically. The only real way to “win” or build a successful city seems to be to build an industrial sector, with a commercial sector that serves as a buffer between it and the residential sector. Then you plant enough amenities in neighborhoods further from the industrial sector in order to raise property values and entice wealthy Sims to move in. But you have to put some neighborhoods near the industrial sector in order to supply it with workers, and you can’t plant too many amenities there or low wealth Sims won’t be able to afford to live there. Essentially, you build suburbs, you build slums, and then you lower taxes.

It leaves me wondering when there will ever be high quality computer games based on progressive principles, that can serve as educational tools for people to try putting those principles into practice — even in a simulation — and see how they could work. A Force More Powerful, sounds like a great start in that direction, and I hope it’s successful enough to encourage more like it. For example, what about a “Sim City” type game built around the concept of New Urbanism.

NEW URBANISM promotes the creation and restoration of diverse, walkable, compact, vibrant, mixed-use communities composed of the same components as conventional development, but assembled in a more integrated fashion, in the form of complete communities. These contain housing, work places, shops, entertainment, schools, parks, and civic facilities essential to the daily lives of the residents, all within easy walking distance of each other. New Urbanism promotes the increased use of trains and light rail, instead of more highways and roads.

That’s just a brief description, but a look at the more detailed explanation of the principles suggests that it might be a good basis for a pretty challenging simulation game; maybe one that challenges users to take an existing urban area that’s in decline and successfully restore it according to those principles. Or, take a something like the Build Better Project, a grassroots contest to build “the world’s first hybrid city.” Again, another basis for a computer simulation game along the SimCity model. There are probably more out there that I just haven’t thought of.

But, alas, I’m not a game designer or programmer. Nor do I know if there’s a market for these particular kinds of games, even though I’m sure they’d sell at least one copy. (The one I’d buy.) I’m just an oddball gamer with a few crazy ideas.

How crazy? Well, even the Army has caught on to the use of computer game to train and indoctrinate. We have a war now being fought by a generation of soldiers who grew up playing first-person shooters. Even the wingnut authors of the apocalyptic Left Behind book series have a real-time strategy game in the works.

So, how crazy is the notion of progressive gaming and its potential? When A Force More Powerful becomes available, we may just find out that it’s crazy enough to work. Maybe.