Games for good

Another entry in the growing category of games for (positive social) good, this time about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Global Conflicts: Palestine.

What makes this game particularly interesting is that you encounter the conflict through a professional role, in this case as a journalist:

I’m out on my first assignment as a Middle East correspondent for The New York Times, embedded with the Israeli Defense Forces in an area captured during the 1967 war. No one trusts me, not the IDF soldiers I’m with or the suspected terrorist they’ve been sent to collar. As I chat first with the soldiers, then with a captured Palestinian man named Khaled, my job is to build the trust I need to get the story.

Fortunately, I can tell how well I’m doing by looking at a trust meter in the corner of my screen….

Made by Danish company Serious Games Interactive, Palestine is best described as a first-person talker. You get your digital boots on the street and speak — using a choose-your-own-adventure-style navigation tree — to soldiers, terrorists and the people caught in the middle. The violence, poverty and hope are all rendered in real-time 3-D.

Advancement makes you a more prestigious journalist, and the process uncovers personal stories and complex issues. Like real life, there’s nothing stopping you from becoming unabashedly pro-Israel or pro-Palestine, or trying to stay objective. “It’s a conflict that fits well with the game context,” says Serious Games Interactive’s Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen. “To succeed you have to be knowledgeable and understanding.”