Take a look around you in this, the gaming environment we’ve crafted for ourselves. Does it remind you of a museum or a demolition derby? I’ve often come away from a gaming session feeling drained if I’m playing an RPG, or shell shocked if I’ve been playing something like, say, Battlefield 1943. But have I been educated? I’m not sure, unless you count running in terror from active grenades or falling off a cliff a learning experience.
For that, I’m not sure a major developer can deliver. They’re too interested in reaching the middle; what’s good for all is good for one. Over the past weekend however, I was lucky enough to attend IndieCade, my first time doing so, and in another first, I’m left feeling rather worldly.
Take The Cat and the Coup, a game developed by Peter Brinson and Kurosh ValaNejad out of USC’s Game Innovation Lab. In this trek through the memories and events leading up to the US backed coup of Iran’s first democratically elected prime minister, we play as Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh’s fictional cat in an effort to persuade him through open doors and through the headlines of an American perspective of the event itself.
