"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act"
- George Orwell
After a major economic crisis, a man who calls himself The 'Great Leader' has seized absolute power in your country. Aiming at stopping any criticism of its regime in the bud, his party – The Party – has purchased the newspaper where you work as a journalist and instructed you to present The Party's actions the most favourable way possible. Your cooperation will be generously rewarded! By shedding a 'good' light on The Party, you might soon earn enough money to buy the house with the large garden you and your family have always dreamed of! But will you really be able to publicly lie to your country by covering up The Party’s atrocities, just for the sake of accumulating wealth?
Play the game here.
The Party, a digital serious game that has been designed for its implementation in history lessons and is available for free. The game’s educational mission seems fairly obvious. By putting the player into the role of a journalist who is instructed to shed a good light on a fictional political party’s morally questionable decisions and actions, The Party aims to illustrate key concepts of media manipulation and propaganda as a means of influencing public opinion. Furthermore, by including feedback and alternative endings that address the character’s personal life and are directly related to the player’s individual decisions, the game further aims at developing an understanding of the reasons for which someone might choose to support a regime he/she does not actually advocate.
How to play The Party
The gameplay of The Party is very simple and easy to understand. In the role of a name- and genderless journalist working for a newspaper that is controlled by The Party, the player has to choose what he/she believes to be the most appropriate headline to publicly present a certain event from three given options (please watch the video below for further clarification). Each decision the player makes directly influences The Party’s supporters count as well as the character’s personal life (which is the subject of numerous feedback the player gets between the individual levels) and even the game’s ending. The player thus becomes an active agent who is empowered to co-create the game’s fictional world and, in a broader sense, his/her gaming experience (cf. Gee 2007: 3).
- George Orwell
After a major economic crisis, a man who calls himself The 'Great Leader' has seized absolute power in your country. Aiming at stopping any criticism of its regime in the bud, his party – The Party – has purchased the newspaper where you work as a journalist and instructed you to present The Party's actions the most favourable way possible. Your cooperation will be generously rewarded! By shedding a 'good' light on The Party, you might soon earn enough money to buy the house with the large garden you and your family have always dreamed of! But will you really be able to publicly lie to your country by covering up The Party’s atrocities, just for the sake of accumulating wealth?
Play the game here.
The Party, a digital serious game that has been designed for its implementation in history lessons and is available for free. The game’s educational mission seems fairly obvious. By putting the player into the role of a journalist who is instructed to shed a good light on a fictional political party’s morally questionable decisions and actions, The Party aims to illustrate key concepts of media manipulation and propaganda as a means of influencing public opinion. Furthermore, by including feedback and alternative endings that address the character’s personal life and are directly related to the player’s individual decisions, the game further aims at developing an understanding of the reasons for which someone might choose to support a regime he/she does not actually advocate.
How to play The Party
The gameplay of The Party is very simple and easy to understand. In the role of a name- and genderless journalist working for a newspaper that is controlled by The Party, the player has to choose what he/she believes to be the most appropriate headline to publicly present a certain event from three given options (please watch the video below for further clarification). Each decision the player makes directly influences The Party’s supporters count as well as the character’s personal life (which is the subject of numerous feedback the player gets between the individual levels) and even the game’s ending. The player thus becomes an active agent who is empowered to co-create the game’s fictional world and, in a broader sense, his/her gaming experience (cf. Gee 2007: 3).
The Party: Underlying Principles
The Party puts the player into the role of a name- and genderless journalist whose job it is to portray The Party and The Great Leader in the best possible way. The main character’s anonymity is entirely intentional, the assumption being that such an empty character allows the player to choose to what extent and in what ways he/she will identify with it (cf. Gee 2007: 32). Thus, a player who is eager to become personally involved will be able to do so, just as a player who prefers fictional characters will be able to invent an in-game persona from scratch. Similarly, the decision of creating an entirely fictional environment was made for two main reasons. Firstly, by not relating to any real-life historic events or parties, the game can be used in a variety of educational contexts rather than being restricted to just one (please also see the suggestions for the game’s implementation in schools below). Secondly, we felt that the inclusion of real names might provoke bias and thus directly influence the learners’ gameplay – after all, hardly any central European student would willingly help the NSDAP to gain supporters!
Another important decision that had to be considered was the extent to which scoring should play a role in the game. Each decision the player makes in the respective scenario directly influences the number of The Party’s supporters. It is important to note, however, that the scoring does not stand in the focus of the gameplayer’s gaming experience. Instead, the “Supporters” count serves the aim of providing immediate feedback after each decision as well as expressing the player’s overall tendency in a numeric value. In fact, even the definition of what a “good” or a “bad” score is depends largely on one’s individual perception of the situation presented in the game. For a player who consciously decides to rebel against The Party for ideological reasons, a low score might be just as “good” as a very high score to someone who tried to please The Party.
There is a very basic principle underlying this decision: rather than focussing on one’s “success” in the game (i.e. on winning/ reaching a high score/…), The Party aims to provoke both personal reflection on one’s ideologies and priorities as well as a deeper understanding of the ways media can be used to influence individuals. In a similar manner, the game’s two alternative endings cannot be seen as “black or white”. Both outcomes have positive and negative elements to it, and none of them is likely to entirely satisfy the player. In one ending, you are wealthy but will never be able to forgive yourself for covering up The Party’s atrocities. In the other you are poor but glad to have stood for your ideologies. This highlights the moral dilemma people who live in absolutistic regimes face every day and aims at illustrating the reasons for which individuals would support a certain regime despite not advocating its policies.
How to implement The Party in school
It is undeniable that the topics addressed in The Party are highly relevant in an educational context. Apart from the obvious importance of teaching the role of media in history in general, which is also stressed in the Austrian history curriculum (cf. BMBF), it is also important to note that the role of media, in all its different forms, in the students’ personal lives cannot be overestimated. Everyday, learners are confronted with printed and online information, and it is thus vital to help them develop a critical understanding of the ways the media functions to persuade them to believe certain ideas, or in the case of this game, the news. This development should of course not be restricted to the history classroom and is in fact a central part of any subject’s curriculum, and while it is true that the political focus of The Party lends itself most to being used in history courses, there are some ways to create meaningful and engaging follow-up activities in the form of cross-disciplinary projects.
As for its implementation into the history classroom, The Party would be a good means of playfully introducing the topic of media manipulation and propaganda in whatever larger context deemed appropriate. Meaningful follow-up activities would, for instance, include the active analysis of real-life material (such as newspapers, speeches and/or posters from the respective period). In order to maintain the role of students as active agents, it could, for example, be a good idea to make learners discover appropriate material by themselves and present their findings in posters/ Prezi- or Power Point presentations/ videos/ etc.
In a similar manner, if teachers of other subjects (e.g. languages or arts) are willing to cooperate in a cross-disciplinary project on media manipulation, there is a broad variety of possible follow-up activities that would be likely to ensure that the gaming experience develops into conscious knowledge/awareness. If, for instance, a language teacher would agree to participate in a project on media manipulation, students could be encouraged to write their own biased newspaper articles or speeches (depending on which skill the language teacher wants to focus on) on events that affect them personally (e.g. an article on lengthy homework assignments, written from the teachers’ and the students’ perspective by two different groups). Similarly, a co-operation with an arts teacher would lend itself to the analysis of visual material in a “discovery”-phase of the project which could then lead up to the learners creating their own posters/advertisements).
Conclusion
The Party is a valuable educational game that lends itself to a large variety of creative in-school projects and activities on the topic of media manipulation. We would like to stress, however, that The Party is still a prototype, not a finished game. There are still some aspects that will be/ could be improved. For instance, apart from working on more general aspects such as including more and a larger variety of scenarios, including sounds or improving the feedbacks’ layout and graphics, we would like to also include a German version of the game so that it could be used in German-speaking classrooms regardless of the learner’s proficiency in English, so if you’re interested in using “The Party” in your classroom, stay tuned!
Final remark
We would love to hear what you think! Thus, if you have any questions or comments to make, or if you were even thinking about using our game in school, please do not hesitate to get in touch, either via e-mail or via the contact form on http://playtheparty.weebly.com/contact.html
Iris Paur Philipp Thar
iris@paur.at p.thar@gmx.net
Bibliography
BMBF. 2000. Lehrplan AHS Oberstufe. Geschichte. Wien: BMBF. https://www.bmbf.gv.at/schulen/unterricht/lp/ahs8_782.pdf?4dzgm2.
Gee, James Paul. 2007. “Good video games, the human mind, and good learning”. In: James Paul Gee. Good Video Games Plus Good Learning (Vol. 27). Chicago: Peter Lang. http://rhetoricalpeaks.pbworks.com/f/Good+Video+Games+Gee001%5B1%5D.pdf
„George Orwell Quotes“. 2015
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgeorwe136282.html
The Party puts the player into the role of a name- and genderless journalist whose job it is to portray The Party and The Great Leader in the best possible way. The main character’s anonymity is entirely intentional, the assumption being that such an empty character allows the player to choose to what extent and in what ways he/she will identify with it (cf. Gee 2007: 32). Thus, a player who is eager to become personally involved will be able to do so, just as a player who prefers fictional characters will be able to invent an in-game persona from scratch. Similarly, the decision of creating an entirely fictional environment was made for two main reasons. Firstly, by not relating to any real-life historic events or parties, the game can be used in a variety of educational contexts rather than being restricted to just one (please also see the suggestions for the game’s implementation in schools below). Secondly, we felt that the inclusion of real names might provoke bias and thus directly influence the learners’ gameplay – after all, hardly any central European student would willingly help the NSDAP to gain supporters!
Another important decision that had to be considered was the extent to which scoring should play a role in the game. Each decision the player makes in the respective scenario directly influences the number of The Party’s supporters. It is important to note, however, that the scoring does not stand in the focus of the gameplayer’s gaming experience. Instead, the “Supporters” count serves the aim of providing immediate feedback after each decision as well as expressing the player’s overall tendency in a numeric value. In fact, even the definition of what a “good” or a “bad” score is depends largely on one’s individual perception of the situation presented in the game. For a player who consciously decides to rebel against The Party for ideological reasons, a low score might be just as “good” as a very high score to someone who tried to please The Party.
There is a very basic principle underlying this decision: rather than focussing on one’s “success” in the game (i.e. on winning/ reaching a high score/…), The Party aims to provoke both personal reflection on one’s ideologies and priorities as well as a deeper understanding of the ways media can be used to influence individuals. In a similar manner, the game’s two alternative endings cannot be seen as “black or white”. Both outcomes have positive and negative elements to it, and none of them is likely to entirely satisfy the player. In one ending, you are wealthy but will never be able to forgive yourself for covering up The Party’s atrocities. In the other you are poor but glad to have stood for your ideologies. This highlights the moral dilemma people who live in absolutistic regimes face every day and aims at illustrating the reasons for which individuals would support a certain regime despite not advocating its policies.
How to implement The Party in school
It is undeniable that the topics addressed in The Party are highly relevant in an educational context. Apart from the obvious importance of teaching the role of media in history in general, which is also stressed in the Austrian history curriculum (cf. BMBF), it is also important to note that the role of media, in all its different forms, in the students’ personal lives cannot be overestimated. Everyday, learners are confronted with printed and online information, and it is thus vital to help them develop a critical understanding of the ways the media functions to persuade them to believe certain ideas, or in the case of this game, the news. This development should of course not be restricted to the history classroom and is in fact a central part of any subject’s curriculum, and while it is true that the political focus of The Party lends itself most to being used in history courses, there are some ways to create meaningful and engaging follow-up activities in the form of cross-disciplinary projects.
As for its implementation into the history classroom, The Party would be a good means of playfully introducing the topic of media manipulation and propaganda in whatever larger context deemed appropriate. Meaningful follow-up activities would, for instance, include the active analysis of real-life material (such as newspapers, speeches and/or posters from the respective period). In order to maintain the role of students as active agents, it could, for example, be a good idea to make learners discover appropriate material by themselves and present their findings in posters/ Prezi- or Power Point presentations/ videos/ etc.
In a similar manner, if teachers of other subjects (e.g. languages or arts) are willing to cooperate in a cross-disciplinary project on media manipulation, there is a broad variety of possible follow-up activities that would be likely to ensure that the gaming experience develops into conscious knowledge/awareness. If, for instance, a language teacher would agree to participate in a project on media manipulation, students could be encouraged to write their own biased newspaper articles or speeches (depending on which skill the language teacher wants to focus on) on events that affect them personally (e.g. an article on lengthy homework assignments, written from the teachers’ and the students’ perspective by two different groups). Similarly, a co-operation with an arts teacher would lend itself to the analysis of visual material in a “discovery”-phase of the project which could then lead up to the learners creating their own posters/advertisements).
Conclusion
The Party is a valuable educational game that lends itself to a large variety of creative in-school projects and activities on the topic of media manipulation. We would like to stress, however, that The Party is still a prototype, not a finished game. There are still some aspects that will be/ could be improved. For instance, apart from working on more general aspects such as including more and a larger variety of scenarios, including sounds or improving the feedbacks’ layout and graphics, we would like to also include a German version of the game so that it could be used in German-speaking classrooms regardless of the learner’s proficiency in English, so if you’re interested in using “The Party” in your classroom, stay tuned!
Final remark
We would love to hear what you think! Thus, if you have any questions or comments to make, or if you were even thinking about using our game in school, please do not hesitate to get in touch, either via e-mail or via the contact form on http://playtheparty.weebly.com/contact.html
Iris Paur Philipp Thar
iris@paur.at p.thar@gmx.net
Bibliography
BMBF. 2000. Lehrplan AHS Oberstufe. Geschichte. Wien: BMBF. https://www.bmbf.gv.at/schulen/unterricht/lp/ahs8_782.pdf?4dzgm2.
Gee, James Paul. 2007. “Good video games, the human mind, and good learning”. In: James Paul Gee. Good Video Games Plus Good Learning (Vol. 27). Chicago: Peter Lang. http://rhetoricalpeaks.pbworks.com/f/Good+Video+Games+Gee001%5B1%5D.pdf
„George Orwell Quotes“. 2015
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/g/georgeorwe136282.html
