Written by Yiling 2022 Cohort
This week we had a chance to play a narrative game – Orwell: keeping an eye on you, as our homework. Compared with other video games, this game is more like a visual novel, as it is story-rich. In this game, Orwell is a governmental and surveillance program that investigates all the information of suspicious citizens. The player will work as an investigator of the government and look into all the news, websites, messages, and calls of potential terrorists and report crucial information to the security department. The information you upload will affect the government’s actions and the game’s ends.
In the beginning, I thought this game was about finding the hazard of the nation as a government official; however, as the story continued, I realized the meaning of this game is more profound than this. It creates an Anti-Utopian World, and Orwell- the surveillance program – could be a tool of centralized government; also, the player, myself, could be an accomplice of centralized politics. In these five episodes, players will peek at many NPC’s stories, understand their political opinions, and detect the criminals of bomb explosions in the city. Some of them are radical revolutionaries but have good initial intentions. Some of them look crazy but are innocent. Some of them are obscured but have deep and sad backstories. Also, some seem sensible and calm but disregard the lives of others. These twists make this game more and more attractive as players explore and read.
Additionally, the mechanism of this game is unique. I am not a gamer, but I’ve played some narrative games in the past. In my perspective, a narrative game is more about watching the game passively and making vital choices in the middle of stories. While Orwell, on the other hand, is more about searching for information and using it to influence the storyline. It is exciting. However, it is difficult for non-native speakers to understand the whole story. Most of their information is conveyed in a complicated and implied way, which confused me from time to time.
To understand the story, I watched some game anchors’ videos and surprisingly attached to the account of Orwell. I think it is not just a narrative game but also an Anti-Utopian visual fiction that brings us more profound thoughts about personal information security and dark political sides.