The Game: Join The Team
Empowerment is a revolutionary new game that makes changing the world addictively fun. Gamers experience both real learning in useful skills and real recruiting opportunities to take real action and join groups or start new ones.This project plan details how the game is being developed and how you can contribute.
Game GoalsAddictive Fun: Empowerment should be first and foremost about fun gameplay. If a game isn't addictive, why bother? Empower Players: To create a game that promotes empowering ideas as a positive force for change around the world. Reach Everyone: To make a difference, Sim Empowerment must reach the widest possible audience with the best possible game. Smart Action: Empowerment features an innovative memetic AI "combat system" that makes conversation a kind of "first-person talker" as exciting as first-person shooters where you fire and dodge ideas instead of bullets. Revolutionize Gaming: To revolutionize the gaming industry with a new genre of game and to encourage the industry to explore more meaningful storytelling. Platform: To provide a platform for other game developers to innovate with. Freedom of Choice: The player is so free to choose their course that they can choose their own ends and the means to achieve them. Immersion: The environment is so realistic that it suspends disbelief. Sustainability: The game sustains itself by making money for its developers because of open source freedom, not in spite of it. Go nuts and Get It Out Of Your SystemYou can improve your activist skills with lessons learned from role-playing and simulation games, but are responsible for the real risks you take. Life is not a game. There is no saving and restoring in reality. Many things that are funny in games are deadly wrong if acted out. So remember to keep your mayhem virtual. Act out hair-brained schemes where no one is hurt. The Sims, Best-Selling Wish Fulfillment Of All TimePeople thought that nobody would want to play The Sims. It’s the best selling game of all time because people find real life fascinating, especially if they can live out fantasy scenarios. For example, a swimming pool is something most people lust after and can make in The Sims. Simple thing really, but it sells games to be able to live out fantasy lives in dream houses. “What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?” —Henry David Thoreau Many people long for a worthy government and world in which to live. With Sim Empowerment, we can finally engage in wish fulfillment of the highest order and fantasize about changing what really matters. First-Person ImmersionThere is a big difference between playing games in first-person and watching from a third-person perspective. Most politically oriented games make players godlike leaders manipulating agents by clicking on them from the sky. In Empowerment, leadership happens on the ground and you coordinate with teammates by speaking to them in person or calling them on a virtual cell phone.
—Postal 2Video First-Person Petitioning Against Videogame Censorship in Postal 2
Postal 2 is as politically satirical as it is violent. It is the first game to date to feature first-person petitioning. It even teaches valuable lessons like not't bothering people who want to be left alone. Games Are Instant Gratification FunGames are first and foremost fun because they make it easy to win meaningful victories immediately. It might be realistic for change to be gradual and hard-fought, but it is hardly entertaining. Role-playing a dramatic success is encouraging to activists who might face years of diligent work before achieving success in the real world. In the context of the game, winning is exciting and easily achieved unless you opt for high realism and increased difficulty. If you must wait for something gradual, you can compress time to skip ahead years into the future. People understand the issues but feel hopeless. they have to find ways to act. Games give them a way to start doing that in an easy way until they work up the courage to do real work. Games Reward Try-Before-You-Die LearningGames are powerful learning tools because we can try many different things without fear of long-term consequences. You can afford to experiment with creative strategies every time you play until you discover what works, what fails, and what causes hilarity to ensue. Good games are designed such that you can have fun becoming more skilled by understanding the rules and discovering how to exploit them successfully. |
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Project HighlightsInspiring GamesThere are many excellent games that provide inspiring lessons for Empowerment to incorporate. Game Development PlanLearn more about the creation of the game Prototyping Systems
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