Maybe Make Some Change

Normally I would come up with some sort of witty title but this particular piece was very serious. Before I get into the story of the game, let me discuss some of the game's mechanics. "Maybe Make Some Change" uses a two word parser. The first word must be one of the seven words that you can unlock throughout your play-through. The second word must be one of the yellow words that are displayed in the text.

The game starts you off telling you the basics. You are soldier and can only do what do what you already know how to do. Unfortunately, the only thing you know how to do at the beginning is shoot. The game starts you off in Afghanistan. The player sees a hajji (slur for middle-eastern man) ahead of the troop. The game requires you to "shoot hajji." Then you have to continually shoot the same person but described with different nouns until you learn threaten. Throughout this game, eventually words such as hug, calm, hear, warn, and miss are learned. The user is then thrown into different situations in which you answer basically the same question but it is worded differently. During this period, each sequence has the character speaking to a different person. During this phase, using the words on the people you are speaking with causes the word to disappear permanently. An example of this would be "hug uncle". Once you eliminate all of the words but shoot. Then you have to react one last time. After this you see Facebook messages from the soldier's Dad and his squad mate. The most powerful part of this story is finding out that it actually is not a story. The ending of "Maybe Make Some Change" is an article that talks about the real events that this game was based.

This piece definitely classifies as interactive fiction. "Maybe Make Some Change" puts you in the shoes of a soldier that was actually in this situation. It also requires you to make the same decision regardless of if you want to of not. The user must input to move the story forward. The voice clips and sound effects help immerse the user into the experience.

I really enjoyed this piece. Throughout my blog I referred to this as a game but honestly it is more like an empathy simulator, putting you into the shoes of this soldier and even the Middle-Eastern man's wife in a smaller way.