Horror game in the format of an art installation very appropriate for art exhibitions. The game provides a thoroughly unpleasant experience to the players by referring abstractly but never grotesquely to issue of female sex exploitation. The game conveys metaphorically what is like to be trapped, what it like be only able to decide about your own thoughts but not about your body, and how your body disintegrates gradually because of the situation you are forced into.
The player has to do the work of a sex slave, represented with a routine that the player enacts by using the elements of the game. The player has real freedom only concerning one thing: choosing his or her type of thoughts, which are represented by cards. Thoughts can be positive, like thinking on beloved people or focusing on one’s dreams. But thoughts can also be negative, such as being depressed or feeling indifference. While working or doing the routine, the thoughts chosen by the player have an impact on what happens to the metaphorical representation of the physical body of the sex slave. Positive thoughts keep the sex slave alive, while negative thoughts lead the sex slave to literally melt and eventually die. However, thoughts come and go, and there is a breaking point where positive thoughts are gone for good.
Every time the player has to do the work, the routine, the player can try to escape. But the likelihood of breaking free is very low, based entirely on your luck and thoughts, and wanes as you run out of positive thoughts over time.
After the interaction, players can open the chest and take home the leftovers of the doll that represents the sex slave in their game session (in case there is any leftover).
With this game the player can reflect upon the helplessness that people who sex slaves undergo and envision metaphorically the detriment that the body and mind experience due to the conditions and damages that issue carries.
Presented at the Board Games Workshop 2015 of the Gamification Lab, at Leuphana University.
Available for showcase at art galleries.
DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
Part of a project on serious games with the intention of producing entertaining games with political and social messages, which afforded strategic play and attracted players to play more than once. Funded by the European Union as part of the program “Art and Civic Media” of the Innovations Inkubator, Leuphana University, 2015.