“Activate demonstrates how social change happens because of motivated individuals. Volunteer for an issue that affects you by holding a bake sale or writing to Congress. Directly affect your community by helping out at the animal shelter and convincing others to help you on your mission. If your movement grows large enough, you just might change the world!”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: iCivics
YEAR:
INFO: Online, free
PLAY: http://www.icivics.org/games/activate
(Source: filamentgames.com)
“A serious game aimed to warn people about teen dating violence, created for a game design contest run by a parents association.”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: Jennifer Ann’s Group. (U.S.A.) / Thomas Liu.
YEAR: 2010
INFO: Online, free
PLAY: http://www.jenniferann.org/2010-game-runner-up-1.htm
http://www.jenniferann.org/2012-game-design-challenge.htm
[You may try different browsers to play this game]
(Source: serious.gameclassification.com)
“Admongo explores the fact that children spend billions of dollars a year on products and services, and influence billions more in family purchases. Advertising is ubiquitous, and the distinction between advertising and other content in new media — advergames, for example — often is blurred. It is likely that many children may not understand when they are being “pitched” a product or service.”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: Federal Trade Commission and PR agency Fleishman-Hillard
YEAR: 2010
INFO: Online, free
PLAY: http://www.admongo.gov/
(Source: gamesforchange.org)
“In a small village of Afghanistan, a small school has been attacked. Who is behind the attack? Can peace be negotiated? Can you balance the dangers, the idealism, and the needs for education, and reach a viable solution?”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: Serious Games Interactive
YEAR: 2008
INFO: Online, 20 days-free trial for teachers. Single user 9,95 EUR. Class set (30 users) 49,95 EUR. School set (+250 users) 79,95 EUR
PLAY: http://www.globalconflicts.eu/products
(Source: http://www.globalconflicts.eu/)
“Against All Odds is about the global refugee experience from the time people are forced to leave their countries of origin to the beginning of their new life abroad. A series of short challenges illustrates the complexity and danger of the refugee experience.”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: Developer: United Nations High Commission on Refugees. Funders: Microsoft, Ericsson, Datareal AB
YEAR: 2005
INFO: Online, free
PLAY: http://www.playagainstallodds.com/
(Source: gamesforchange.org)
“AgoraXchange is anOnline community for designing a massive multi-player global politics game challenging the violence and inequality of our present political system. Phase I was launched as a commission for the Tate Online on 15 March 2004 and now contains a database of ideas for the rules, game environment, and site look-and-feel.”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: Natalie Bookchin y Jacqueline Stevens
YEAR: 2004
INFO: Online, free
PLAY: http://www.agoraxchange.net/
(Source: agoraxchange.org)
“Human rights are in peril, democracy in the dust. You: an agent of the Council on American Heritage, sent to capture mysterious fugitive Ken Asaba—and into high-risk situations that challenge you to ask: What if? How close are we already to America 2049? How can we work together in real life to build a better future? America 2049 is a new breed of Facebook game, reaching beyond the world’s most popular social network to include other social media, fictional websites, historical artifacts, real-life events, and Hollywood celebrities. Change the future—play today.”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: Breakthrough
YEAR: 2011
INFO: Online (only with Facebook account), free
PLAY: http://www.america2049.com/
(Source: http://www.america2049.com/)
“Corrupt politicians don’t stand a chance against Angry Anna, a new social game that’s captured India’s social conscience. The game has earned over 200,000 playthroughs at about 3,000 every half hour since it hit the web two days ago (on Aug 24th, 2011). True to its name, this game is a small Angry Birds clone that contains four levels and features popular anti-corruption activist Anna Hazare as an Angry Bird, along with Baba Ramdev and Kiran Bedi. The baddies, or the green pigs, are implied to be the following political figures: Manmohan Singh, Suresh Kalmadi, P. Chidambaram and Kapil Sibal.
Promoted solely from Facebook ‘Likes’ and word-of-mouth via Twitter, Geek Mentors Studios plans to eventually release the game for the iPhone and iPad.”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: Geek Mentors Studios
YEAR: 2011
INFO: Online, free
PLAY: http://www.angryanna.com/
(Source: blog.games.com)
“Antiwargame explores the politics of the war on terror via a game simulation. In Antiwargame you take actions such as setting your budget, sending troops overseas and manipulating the media, with the goal of maintaining a popularity high enough to remain president.”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: Josh On
YEAR: 2001
INFO: Online, free
PLAY: http://www.antiwargame.org/antiwargame.html
(Source: grandtextauto.org)
“Ars Regendi is a browser-based political game that lets you take the reigns of your own, realistically simulated state. You will be asked to weigh in on various matters of state and - faced with a number of choices - any decision you make will have ramifications for the well-being of your virtual populace! In addition, you will be able to form alliances with other countries, initiate reforms and adjust the budget.”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: Responsable: Redmaze Marc Böttenberg
YEAR: 2008
INFO: Browser-based, online, basic version for free
PLAY: http://www.ars-regendi.com/
(Source: http://www.ars-regendi.com/)
“Step into the world where food is often scarce and difficult decisions have to be made every day.”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: Oxfam America
YEAR: 2007?
INFO: Online interactive media, free
PLAY: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/multimedia/flash/a-seat-at-the-table
(Source: http://www.oxfamamerica.org/multimedia/flash/a-seat-at-the-table)
A game created to let the player discover children’s rights with Asterix: the exceptional ambassador of the children’s rights defense.
” ‘Asterix et le tour des droit’ est un jeu crée pour vous permettre de découvrir les doits des enfants avec Astérix, ambassadeur exceptionnel du Défenseur des Enfants”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: La Defenseure des Enfants. Republique Francaise
YEAR: 2009
INFO: Online, free
PLAY: http://www.asterix.com/tour-des-droits/
(Source: http://www.asterix.com/tour-des-droits/)
“A serious game aimed to warn people about teen dating violence, created for a game design contest run by a parents association.”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: Jennifer Ann’s Group. (U.S.A.) / Jared Sain
YEAR: 2008
INFO: Online, free
PLAY: http://www.jenniferann.org/2008_game_contest_runner_up1.htm
http://www.jenniferann.org/2012-game-design-challenge.htm
[You may try different browsers to play this game]
(Source: http://www.jenniferann.org/)
“Global Kids has established itself as an innovative leader in using online games to promote global awareness and engaged citizenship. Through the Playing 4 Keeps program, Global Kids trains urban youth to develop games about important world issues.” “The youth chose to design a game that focuses on the issue of poverty as an obstacle to education and uses the country of Haiti as a case study. The game and its associated curriculum were released through UNICEF’s Child Alert: Haiti website and TakingITGlobal’s network of over 170,000 educators worldwide. Curriculum material is available for educators. Since it was released in October 2006, hundreds of thousands of people have played Ayiti. The game and the after school component are being evaluated by the Center for Children and Technology.”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: Global Kids Youth, GameLab, UNICEF, and TakingITGlobal, among others
YEAR: 2006
INFO: Online, free
PLAY: http://ayiti.globalkids.org/game/
(Source: gamesforchange.org)
“The game BlackLash is part of the Mongrel’s campaign National Heritage, an international project that forces audiences, artists and collaborators to confront their complicity with cultural, biological and technological racism. Mongrel is a mixed bunch of people and machines working to celebrate the methods of an ‘ignorant’ and ‘filthy’ London street culture.”
“El jugador asume el punto de vista de un joven negro que sobrevive en una ciudad de los años 90 eligiendo su propia representación entre 4 estereotipos de personajes negros que deberán pelearse contra las fuerzas de Satán. La premisa del juego es que las autoridades dominan la sociedad porque han reforzado sus filas con oficiales de policía racistas, con nazis y con miembros del Ku Kux Klan que mantienen el control de las calles con sus pistolas y sus drogas. Los jugadores deben aniquilarlos para conseguir el coche de sus sueños, ganar su libertad,… y el juego.”
DEVELOPER/DESIGNER: Mongrel colective: Matsuko Yokokoji, Richard Pierre-Davis Harwood, and Mervin Jarmen
YEAR: 1998
INFO: Online, free
PLAY: http://synworld.t0.or.at/level2/gaming_reader/artofgaming/backlash.htm#
(Source: mongrel.org.uk)
