Examining war and conflict through unsettling play
We designed two 'agonistic games' that encourage critical reflection on difficult topics through role play and unsettling choices.
Set in a railway station near the border of Poland, Umschlagplatz '43 challenges players to convince Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, that their character should be the one saved from imminent deportation to a Nazi concentration camp. Heightening tension and pace, Endless Blitz simulates a perpetual and ultimately purposeless cycle of bombing raids and evacuation drills.
Endless Blitz and Umschlagplatz '43 were exhibited at the Ruhr Museum in Essen as part of the Horizon 2020 project, UNREST. Presented in German alongside a diverse range of artefacts and stories related to European war and conflict, our agonistic games invited players to engage the actions and motivations of victims, perpetrators and bystanders.
All Ages
Museum Game
WWII Dark Heritage
The Challenge
This was an open brief that challenged us to develop games that compliment the concept of 'agonistic memory'. That is, an approach to remembering the past that unsettles the moral pitting of 'the other' as an enemy by contextualising conflict socially, politically, and historically. We started by devising a set of tenets for agonistic games that align with the principles of agonistic memory. These include depicting multiple perspectives through roleplay and compelling players to make unsettling choices.
As our first game designed for installation in a museum space, we learnt a lot from the experience. We shaped strategies for onboarding players quickly and engaging complex topics via short-form gameplay. Alongside this, we developed ways to embed video games within a largely non-digital exhibit, as well as automate their presentation to minimise intervention by museum staff.
Echo Games are passionate and professional. It was a pleasure to create unique and meaningful digital experiences with their highly skilled team.
