Production 2
REFLECTING ON AND ANALYZING DARFUR IS DYING
In this assignment, I want to reflect on an online game that I played called “Darfur is Dying”. This is an online game that is designed by; inter FUEL, LLC. According to the description of the main page of the game, it is noted that “Students at the University of Southern California, winners of mtvU’s Darfur Digital Activist contest, created the winning prototype. The game was developed in cooperation with humanitarian aid workers with extensive experience in Darfur”. According to also Bogost (2011) and Thumlert et al, (2018) on production pedagogy noted that games “do things” with and share digital games - interactive visual novels and critical empathy games, role-playing simulations and non-linear multimodal narrative adventures. The authors argued that production pedagogy can enable learners to reengage with and drive their own learning, both within and beyond formal educational spaces (Thumlert et al, 2011). And this is a true note that the Bogost strategies are used as a vehicle to reengage the child into learning and enable players to feel empathy for people suffering in Darfur. Game Play: Playing a child, and by moving across the Sahara desert to get to the nearest river to fetch water for drinking and for cooking food, as you play the game, you feel the struggle of the player. Challenges include hiding from armed militants. The game will allow you to interactively follow the instructions when you are inside the camp; the instructions will allow you not to die, but survive and get food to eat and water to drink. And all that depends on how your co-ordinations like eye to hand or brain work with the options given, as you learn about the game conditions (and how they reflect conditions in Darfur). The Game was designed so that the player could understand,and experience through simulation, the conflict in the Darfur region of Western Sudan, where genocide was occurring since the start of the conflict in February of 2003: Nearly 3 million people have been affected by the conflict - and instability in the region continues to this day. More than 300,000 people have died from the conflict and related diseases, and 2.5 million civilians have been displaced by the conflict. In this game, you need to collect food and build a shelter inside a refugee camp or forage for water outside of the camp (Lesser, 2018, November 02). These were the conditions and hardships the Sudanese were experiencing and playing this game may support awareness in order to reach people and save them from all the challenges they are facing in their own homes, as well as free them from the killings of the Janjaweed militants. Darfur is Dying is a survival game, and was meant to help the Darfur community to get support from Western communities and to educate people on the crisis in Darfur. At the same time, the game simulates how to survive: to get water for drinking and food for eating, because if they don’t, all of the Sudanese in Darfur would die: this is not ‘real’, but playing the game would allow one to know the possible routes to overcome such difficulties in southern Sudan. Through gameplay, we learn problem-solving skills and understand the context, history, and plight of those in Darfur; those who play Darfur is Dying would learn best tactics to overcome such obstacles in ‘real life’, if in similar circumstances.
This is a perfect game to play for understanding the tragedy happening in Darfur. Though well-intentioned, however, not many of the people in Darfur would have access to online services; for example, people living in rural areas would have no access to this kind of service. I checked it on play store and could not find it, so there is a need to upload the game content into the play store so that many people would be able to play offline. In turn, it would also educate many other internal communities to get to know the challenges they are facing. If this game is redefined and uploaded for offline or was translated as a board game? This would help many young children living in southern Sudan get freedom.
My opinion towards Darfur is Dying game is that it is a good model in relations to my planned rebuilding Mogadishu city game. My game is based on the idea that Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, has also been in war for so long that I think using gaming to teach the civilians the way out of war and conflict is important, and developing a game model to reconstruct the capital city is one idea I hold on to. Besides that, using Darfur is Dying as a reference, I would also look into the challenges like how accessible it will be, either through the use of mobile devices or as an online like the Darfur is Dying game was played. And lastly my planned games is a little bit different in that it is not a survival game designed by NGOs to educate and support activities, but a world-building game, where the goal is not survival, but reconstructing a stable Mogadishu. My game will educate players outside of Somalia and Dadaab, the game is designed for Somali players and youth so they can envision and strategize building a new future. And not to free community or to get water to drink and food to eat but to rebuild a fallen state or city.
References
Lesser, M. (2018, November 02). Darfur Is Dying Review for Teachers. Retrieved from https://www.commonsense.org/education/game/darfur-is-dying. Darfur is Dying. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.gamesforchange.org/game/darfur-is-dying.
