Is gaming political?

motorhackz
17 nov. 2014
2 min de lecture

Political aspects are always an implicit feature in a game offer, mostly due to the gameplay itself, that let you understand its political intentions through its rules.

So far Motorhackz game project can be seen as a car combat game.

I recently changed the baseline for "Car Survival Game" (or in my early mistake Survival Car Game!). But my ambition is not to propose a never ending online battle arena.

I should add a pinch of strategy. I have in mind that the benefit of the combat usually resides in looting your victim. But if a player fires rockets until the target blows out, then no goodies will be spawned. Just as in real. So better saving a life and letting the victim escape, as to get a reward.

It's a simple example of (soft) in-game policy.

But what I have in mind is more complex.

I would really like to engage the player into a more tactical gameplay through online encountings and human-based decisions.

As to survive in this hostile world, the player would either have to find the protection of (and share resources with) a clan. Could be few in-house "roomates", or a bigger community.

Depending on the political algorithm of each clan, the player would virtually administrate his/her community by tweaking a dashboard. My idea relies on simple rules:

already existing clans have a finite number of members (NPCs / AI driven characters): they may pass away and real players may join in as well.
The player member reverts to NPC when not present
Each clan has its own political pattern (particpatory, democratic, dictatorship) determining your voter's rights, resources sharing ratios, etc.

Because of the clan's rules, the member has full, partial or no admin rights as to have an influence over how many npc should be affected to exploration, defense, looting or production. Or define missions goals for players who request membership.

So the life span of a community would rely on players decisions, until it gets no longer sustainable...

Mad Max genre, post-apo fashion, abandoned worlds... with such a (common) background, I'm frequently bumping into political issues beyond clichés of the genre, when considering a ruled-out territory.

Survivalist militias, paranoid preppers, nihilists punks, Wasteland neo-hippies, open source idealists...

There a wide range of political influences in there, from anarchy to libertarian communities to martial dictatorship...

I won't to state about what's good and evil... but I'd rather like to "flag" them and design playful communities. This is a coarse attempt in designing different clans : a civilian militia, a hippie settlement, a gang of punks...