SPENT – http://playspent.org/
Playing SPENT was an eye opener, it shows how difficult life can be while being poor in america can be and how devastating ones life can be. SPENT puts you into a similar situation and it challenges you to survive a month while being poor. It sounded easy in the beginning because I am studying accounting and I somewhat know how to manage my expenses, but right away it challenges you to make tough decisions such as the insurance payment and rent payment. And then it hits you with real life situations like choosing a job and whether to buy your kid a gift or not. And based on the choices that you make, statistics pop up to show you that people are actually living like that and that there are people who are less unfortunate than you. It also gives you a holistic experience, where if you try and do something for your child it brings up how it will affect your work and life. Suggestions on improving the game would include giving players more options, for example why am i forced with one mode of transportation (car) even though i know its not economically feasible, also why did not let me search for another job after I was fired, and why wasn’t I able to take the bus after my car was towed. Its small stuff like that could have changed the game completely. I felt empathetic because it had put me in a poor persons choose and the decisions that they face, and how hard the world can be.
BBC Syrian Refugee – https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32057601
This game shows you the life of a Syrian refugee trying to make it to a safe haven. I feel like the game was short and did not give me many options that could be faced by a refugee when fleeing, but some of the choices made in this game made it short. But when i played it again i had the same fate of losing most of money and once i was stranded in Turkey, and once i was left in a refugee camp. I learned that being a refugee is hard because many countries will not allow you to enter their homeland even though international law gives you the right to enter a country. A suggestion on improving the game would be to make it longer and have more options, for example if i want to stay in turkey or europe what would happen then and the repercussions, cause the essence of a refugee is to flee is home and go to another country and stay there, so if i had already made it to turkey why not stay there and try and become a resident.
Depression Quest – http://www.depressionquest.com/
This game aims to put you in the shoes of a depressed person. the reason i did not like this game because it was not very interactive and it contained a lot of reading to do, which is very unusual in a game. I did not feel what a depressed person is like because it was not able to show me quiet well and it would’ve been better to include some pictures or statistics. I recommend that the game gets a major redesign and get a much better interactive interphase and a better flow rather than just ask you questions and you pick the choice. Also the game is longer than it should be for its intended purpose which is to raise awareness about depression.
Project Honduras –https://www.trocaire.org/education/project-honduras
The game was about helping locals in time of uncertain weather conditions and to raise awareness about climate change. The game was fun to play and somewhat high paced because you had to try and allocate your volunteers to the best jobs that would benefit the locals as a whole. A problem is that at first the time keeping was clear enough and I had to race against the time to read everyone situation to be able to allocate the volunteers to the best jobs possible. A change that I would make to this game is to have a clock to race against instead of the sun graphic. Also if it was more interactive it would have been better, for example instead of sending volunteers we could have sent supplies or aid of any sort.
Single Moms – https://oldinklewriter.inklestudios.com/stories/fzvq
I didn’t feel like this was a game because it was just a series of events unfolding and telling me what would happen if you choose an option from the two options given. Also not all events must unfold like that so it felt like the events where narrow and not full of options. Also the game was extremely short. In my opinion it was not much of a game like i said, rather is was picking one option of the two options given and seeing what happens.
Know Yourself – https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfifJhjetTC2YS3gJ-QHtbfYG_PNcpjy6d4WWT1KrgG9RHveg/viewform
Again similar to the “game” above. i dont feel like this is a game because it is just asking a series of questions and you end up choosing from the listed options, and the result you pick will is not going to be the correct one since they always made up an assumption about the scenario that was not even listed, so it does not tell anything about my personality.
overall i feel that the SPENT game was the most fun and somewhat challenging out of all of them because there was actually a challenge and the time span of the game was just right, meaning it was not to long or to short to play. And the options that it gave us was more than the other games at every level/choice. Even though most of the games were trying to raise awareness i believe SPENT is still best at raising awareness about poverty in america because it puts you in a poor persons shoes, and actually provides the player with real world statistics.
Omar Shiha 