Nelson Mandela's island prison hell to become game
Win and you become the boss
Computer game violence continues to raise hackles around the world, having been fingered as a cause of gun violence in the USA and suggested as an underminer of civility just about everywhere else.
What to make, therefore, of an imminent game that will simulate nearly two decades of imprisonment and mind-numbing labour on a hellish prison island?
The folks behind this imminent game believe it will have historical and educational value, because the software will offer players the chance to understand Nelson Mandela's long ordeal on Robben Island, where he spent 18 of 27 years as a political prisoner.
Mandela developed a philosophy of forgiveness when on the island and, after release, became South Africa's first President elected by all South Africans of all races.
The game offering insights into his life may therefore sound banal, but needs to be understood in its context, namely a project called Mandela 27 that aims to help children understand Mandela's life.
The EU-funded project will see Coventry University's Serious Games Institute do some of the work on the game, which will offer an interactive map of Robben Island, the site of the prison where Mandela was held. As visitors to the exhibition leave a replica of Mandela's cell, they will “... go outside to the prison yard [and] play the serious game – a dark graphic novel about his time at Robben Island.” The game will simulate activities like breaking rocks.
The Mandela 27 project will tour the UK, South Africa, Sweden and Belgium from 2014. Once the physical component of the project concludes, the online content will remain online for three years. ®
COMMENTS
Re: Games are never realistic
> 27 years of breaking rocks (clicking the mouse) is not going to be fun.
My son seems to spend a lot of time doing just that on minecraft
If you manage to find the rocket launcher and jump nelson up to the quad damage on the prison roof you can pretty much wipe the map and win in 10 minutes
Re: Stupid
I'm sure WW2 veterans are united in their anger at the Medal of Honour franchise.
Or not.
Games are never realistic
They are not educational, they are entertainment.
A "realistic" Robben Island game would be as boring as hell. 27 years of breaking rocks (clicking the mouse) is not going to be fun. They'd have to insert so many off-script modifications to make it fun that it would no longer be realistic or educational.
The same pretty much goes for all FPS games. Real war is generally very tedious and only a tiny fraction of soldiers get to fire a weapon in anger and then only very few will get a kill. Again, a "realistic" FPS would be so damn boring nobody would buy it.
Re: Games are never realistic
"Again, a "realistic" FPS would be so damn boring nobody would buy it."
The Arma (previously Operation Flashpoint before some kind of kerfuffle over naming rights) series? Your character gets shot, he's probably dead. If he's not dead, he's rolling around on the floor screaming for help. If your medic gets shot on the way over, or if you both get shot while he tries to manhandle you to a safe spot.. well, too bad. Yeah, the medic isn't a miracle worker either. You'll never get fully healed by magic, though you might be able to stand up and sort-of-maybe aim the gun. Which in the case of an arm injury will wobble all over the place and cause all kinds of flashing red "this hurt like hell" warnings when you pull the trigger and it recoils practically straight up.
Oh, and plinking tanks with small arms fire will not steadily reduce their health to popping level. You need a sodding big rocket launcher for that, and even then you need a really good aim.
I wouldn't call it boring. Nintendo-Hard perhaps.
