Honestly I donât consider this is my project anymore, least of all as I have been contributing very little in the past few weeks. If this is the direction you want to take things I am happy to support it as best I can.
Mostly I am concerned by how we might plan on incorperate story-telling into this project, particularly with the subject matter. My point of view on story telling based on real-world issues is that the themes should be subtle, inspiring the story rather than directing so that the player thinks about the story after they have finished playing it, mentally deconstructing it and then considering the issues involved.
Having the game set so that the antagonists are hate filled islamophobists burning down an occupied orphanage and otherwise straightout murdering childrenfor no reason beyond hate-filled ignorance while the brave muslim player has to step in and save the innocent children is probbably more of a sledge-hammer approach to storytelling.
I very much dislike the simple narative of âMuslims are victimsâ and âIslamophobia is a mindless hatredâ as it has no benefit beyond simply telling other muslims what they already feel. Ultimately this narative seems to do more harm than good by feeding our own echo chamber, telling ourselves that we are under attack and making ourselves feel more isolated.
At the end of the day, I can not ethically can not seperate victims of these attacks. I feel equally for the muslims attacked in the mosque attacked by the alt-right as I do for the victims in Paris and the christmas truck attack in germany carried out by supporters of isis. Every time it is the exact same story, only told from a different perspective.
Regardless of their origin, Extreamist elements are a danger to everyone but even they themselves would not consider themselves to be evil, instead convincing themsleves that they are the heroes.
Might I suggest that instead we take the narative you are suggesting and invert it. For example (Tailor the example in practice to make it a little less extreme/more palitable):
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Set the narative in a fictional location involving 2 fictional sets of people (A few added details here and there can make it obvious what the real-world inspiration is).
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Replace the hallways of the house with streets and adjust the lighting algorithm so that our map-gen creates a village of small houses instead of a large mansion. Set the game in a civil war between 2 ethnicities or something similar. (Who these 2 groups are is upto the player, everyone will see themselves as they hero with the other faction being evil. Ultimately it does not matter if it is the alt-right attacking muslims, muslims attacking the alt-right or even muslims attacking other muslims. There is no black and white conflict and every side has innocent victims.)
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Have the player take control of an arsonist who belives his people are being invaded/endangered setting out to take matters into his own hands. (In the players imagination they are likely a solid-snake or sam fisher type character infiltrating a terrorist stronghold)
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Replace the jinn with the ficticious equivalent of the Muslim men trying to defend their homes/families.
They canât communicate with the player as they speak different languages and the player is too weak to fight directly so he has to sneak and sabatage the place.
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As they player makes progress reaching different locations to cause damage they are given text-based developments about the damage they are doing as well as some bits and peices that humanise their targets slowly showing the previously demonised faction as being regular humans as flawed and scared as the players own people.
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Ultimately leaving the player to realise the horrific act of evil that their previous anger has driven them to do incontrast to the heoric narative the player was fed at the start of their mission.
We have all played games where a lone player is heavily outnumbered and has to sneak into a dangerous situation to bring it down and ultimately save the world. Especially when you start by labling the enemies as terrorist we are immediately placing the player into a position they are already comfortable with,
As the player progresses however the game does not react as they expect it to, rather than reciving a sense of justice from their mission as they would otherwise get in that sort of black&white narative, they start to see the shades of grey in which they are destroying the homes of innocent people and becoming themselves what they are trying to fight
- He who fights with monstersâŠ
If you havenât played it, there is a fantastic scene in âSpec-ops the lineâ that pretty much explores this narative, setting the player up in a situation where they unthinkingly cause such horror, than after the fact making them look at exactly what it is they did.
Ultimately with this subject matter you dont want the player to leave the game feeling good. Even more important than this, you donât want to leave them feeling greater anger against the aggressors as this just feeds the cycles but instead hightened sympathy for the victims.
It is a terrible situation on all sides. You want them to start as the hero, but then start to gain empathy for the people they are being told to fight as this is what leaves them with something to think about after the game is over.
