Wolfengitmo

Cory Arcangel sent me info on this Abu Ghraib mod for Wolfenstein 3D created by Evan Harper, a student of his at Parsons. In the game, you're a prisoner who wanders through a dungeon populated by attack dogs, American soldiers, and portraits of W. Since your hands are bound, you can't fight back.

From Sun Tzu to Xbox analyzes the use of mods and homebrewed games as a means to critique war: see the main site's Arcade for links to examples that are mentioned in the book. I'll use this blog as a way to keep track of new developments in this genre.

In the book, for instance, I look at example like Josh On's Antiwargame and Gonzalo Frasca's Kabul Kaboom and September 12th. None of these games allow for a traditional sense of victory. All three appear to be unwinnable: in September 12th, Frasca presents war as a game without end, Kabul Kaboom kills the player's character almost instantly, while On's Antiwargame asks players to balance military and domestic needs in such a way that must inevitably fail.

So too in Wolfengitmo, where the player enters the gameworld with a decidedly insurmountable handicap. The pop origin of the Wolfengitmo mod is itself meaningful: the Americans play roles previously held by Nazis.