A clique of game designers has proposed the idea that the 21st century will be the “Ludic century.” This theory advances the idea that, much like the 20th century was dominated by the medium of film, the 21st century will see a shift to games as a means to learn, socialize, problem-solve, and think critically about society. I propose we create a docugame to investigate this relatively new medium.
The academic Cindy Poremba seems to be at the forefront of academic exploration of “documentary games.” In 2005, she wrote a paper with Ian Bogost (subsequently published in 2008) examining the idea of documentary games, and particularly to the idea of documentary in film. Academics seem to differentiate documentary games from “lens-based media” through their relationship to a data set that represents “reality.” In traditional film that data set would consist of light that is hitting film, resulting in the photochemical reaction that captures an image. But games are not constrained by this process, and video games in particular can run through “engines” that allow for a variety of documentations to be presented to the end-consumer. Poremba writes, “Documentaries excel in specific instances, but documentary games deal in real Buy virtualities, possibility spaces in which mutiple instantiations for real world activity can exist.”
However, documentary games need not be bound to video games. The game designer Brenda Brathwaite http://www.tacolangius.com/what-is-the-price-of-ayurslim/ Pills Order is currently in the midst of creating a series, named the Mechanic is the Message, of six tabletop games, several of which deal with historical issues. She gained a lot of notice for her game ” Buy Cheap Train,” in which players are forced to deal with the logistics involved in transporting people to Auschwitz.
