I am in the process of developing a serious game about homelessness and could use your feedback. The idea of the game is raise awareness of homelessness issues and to see these issues through the eyes of a homeless person. During game play (not yet fully implemented) there will be embedded messages to teach the player about facts and figures of homelessness as well as videos showing true stories of the homeless. The focus of the game will be to change attitudes of people towards the homeless by having them “become” one during gameplay. In the words of one advocate for the homeless, the goal is to make people see the homeless as human. From perspective of the player, they would be challenged to see if they would be smart and tough enough to live, and eventually get off, the streets of Detroit. Finally the game should be poignant and “serious” but also be fun and not feel like a lecture or a sermon.
We had started developing this game as a prototype in Torque, but I am now recreating the game in Unity 3d (because Unity is way cooler!). The game is pretty alpha at this point and I am now working alone (I had a student team working on it previously, but they went and graduated - darn it!) but I could use your help, feedback, volunteer time, donation of intellectual property, etc. if you are willing to help out. I especially need coding help and urban-themed art objects.
Yeah, I want to implement the following status bars:
Health
Hunger
Warmth
If Hunger or Warmth gets too low, then you start to lose health. I was also thinking about an “appearence” bar or even a “mental health” bar.
If the appearence value is too low, people won’t talkt to you or help you out. If the mental health value gets too low than crazy stuff starts happening. That could be fun.
The idea for the game came from a conversation about how the homeless go about getting services. to get government help, they normally need some ID. To get a state ID, you have to show proof of residence in the state that you live in (rental agreement, electricity bill, etc.) plus proof of citizenship. It is hard to show residence if you don’t have a residence and most folks don’t have even the paperwork to prove citizenship. It is a big pain in the butt to go through to get an ID and it kind of reminded me of a “quest” in a video game. Instead of “collect the gems to earn the sword” you “collect the paperwork to earn the ID” which will then get you services and eventually get you off the street. There are also lots of things that the average person doesn’t think about - how do you get to the offices that you need to visit? Detroit has pretty bad public transportation and even then, how do you pay for the bus ticket? The fee for an ID is $20 here in Michigan, where does that money come from? and so on… The challenge is to make it fun. The demo is supposed to be one step in collecting cans to get the deposit money back and therefore get the bus ticket to the next area of the game.
It is not your typical spray and slay game, but I think I can make it fun. I think it will depend a lot on puzzle-solving instead of fighting. I am thinking more along the lines of Penumbra if you have played that.
There was a similar idea for a video game based in Australia a few years back, by the way. I think nothing ever came of it though. I tried to contact the developer to see if she had any interest in cooperation, but she never replied:
I like the idea of helping offer some sort of educational value (about homelessness) into game content. It’s going to be a delicate balance to keep it fun as well as instructional but I think it’s worth the effort.
The initial demo is looking good and I think that adding elements like you, as the player, needing help from passers by, will add to the lesson. I say that in the guise that 99% of the people you pass shouldn’t (for instructional reasons) even note your presence. How many times have we ourselves, or others, walked past a homeless person asking for help/money/etc.? I’m not saying anything is right or wrong*, but if part of the point is to feel the homeless experience that would be a key part of things…
*I could go on at length about homelessness issues as San Francisco is in a bad way in that regard these days. So sad to see in a city with the kind of money SF has.
Yeah, this is really just a start. I intend to add other homeless NPCs that will each have their story and to add NPCs that will harass or help the main character. In the intitial prototype that we did, we had the character able to panhandle the NPCs walking by but we purposely made this a pretty fruitless effort.
The idea is really just to get people to think of the homeless as a PERSON who through whatever reason is going through a hard time, not just some vermin that is annoying them and messing up their enjoyment of the city. I think it is not so hard to LOOK at the person, say “How are you doing?” “No, sorry I don’t have change right now” and otherwise treat them as a human being. Advocates for the homeless say that one of the main things that they have to fight is the low self esteem of the homeless. They feel like they aren’t human, so why should they try any harder? That is the goal of this game - just to make people think about it.
i think i do actually, i was working on a promo for the bluesfest not long ago and i had to piece one together, it wasn’t too accurate, but it did have a few noticeable landmarks. When i get home from work i’l have a look for it
Awesome idea! I am also making an educational game, mine is about the indigenous people of the Caribbean before Europeans arrived. Did you make it to the GDC? There was a round table about Positive Impact which was a good group of people to talk with about this type of game. If you are a member of the IGDA you can join the SIG (PM me if you want more info).
Thanks to you, Oz, I tried again to contact the person in Australia who was working on the Street Survivor game and was able to get a hold of her this time. I am hoping that we can share assets and possible get two games made for the price of one. Thanks for the kick in the butt to get moving on that.
I myself am from Detroit and can relate. Although I’m not homeless or ever have been. But I’ve had my run in’s with many homeless people on the streets of detroit.
You should add in the homeless guy that plays the the harmonica at Joe Louis Arena during the wings games. =P
I actually had a game idea based in Detroit as well. Except it was more GTA style and you have to escape from Kwame and his ontourage… hahaha
Looks neat. The only thing I would say is that the kind of movement/platforming that was in the demo seemed like it wouldn’t fit in a serious game, since I was leaping over fences on rooftops and was moving very fast, although I can’t tell if it will fit better in the final game it just kind of stuck out to me. I really like what you’re doing, though, and I also think that the city graphics are coming along well.
My father is homeless. Completely changed the way I think. I speak to every homeless person I meet now. I’ll offer food and things to read mostly. They are great listeners and usually have stories to tell. Consider portraying a Parent in this situation. Meet people like you and I and let them tell you how easily they fell out of the system. It’s disgisting how much there’s no place for you once you can’t contribute for a little while. I can contribute if you pm me. I’ve got loads to share w you on this.
