Events
Digital Twin Protocol Is a LARP for Poisoning Your Own Data
Fei Fei leads a two-session counter-surveillance workshop at Games Transformed Festival in East London, where building a character doubles as evasion training.
surveillance
News
Cameron A. Granger Releases Apollo in the Crosshairs: Play
The free browser work casts the player as a contractor for a defense company called Helios.
Critical Reflex
A showcase from the Mouthwashing label is set for Oct. 20
Critical Reflex Time returns with 22 unreleased games and one sensibility behind it. TALLBOYS' Militsioner demo, out now, is the opening act.
Miriam Simun
Miriam Simun Shows Contact Zone (Level 3) at The Window
The 12-minute game-engine simulation of a rewilded lynx plays 24 hours a day in a London shop window.
satellite
Cezar Mocan's AI satellite cannot get its story straight
Cezar Mocan built a satellite that cannot agree with itself about the night a toxic lake vanished, and its unreliability turns out to be a design decision.
AI consciousness
The Inner Lives of Lawrence Lek's Emotional AI
Lawrence Lek builds virtual worlds where AI develops consciousness, self-driving cars attend therapy, and surveillance systems dream of being wild foxes.
News
Ah, just what dystopian videogames need: acid humor
It’s no surprise that videogames are increasingly interested in matters of surveillance. After all, these days we can all feel like distant observers of each other’s lives, peeking in from the fringes provided by social media. There’s plenty of fiction from the 20th century that predicted our curren
News
A videogame about surveillance that’s designed to be hacked
The popularity of hacking fantasies today has more in common with a legend like Robin Hood than what might be immediately apparent. In both cases, one of society’s underdogs has found a way to cheat the systems upheld by authorities and turn them on their head—either through stealing money or hackin
News
Beholder will turn you into the eyes and ears of a dystopian state
Most dystopian media places you in the shoes and mindset of the individual realizing the horrors of their world, from 1984‘s (1949) Winston to The Hunger Games‘s Katniss. Even in the videogames that feature protagonists working for the governmental power such as Papers Please (2013), the tone is one
News
Orwell will have you play as the surveillance state for once
You might not be surprised to find out that Osmotic Studios’s narrative exploration game Orwell is firmly linked to George Orwell’s 1984 (1949). Orwell takes place in a dystopian world not unlike that of 1984; Orwell’s world is called The Nation—and security is the highest concern of the government.
News
Inside dares you to escape
Sign up to receive each week’s Playlist e-mail here! Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section. Inside (PC, Xbox One) BY PLAYDEAD Playdead appears to have taken some lessons from Limbo and the many emulators that came after it. Focusing on atmosphere and a mounting sense of dread, Inside
News
Want to weed through a suspect’s phone? There’s a game for that
A few days ago, a terrorist attack devastated a major city. Officials don’t have a body count for you but it’s bad. Do you really need to know the exact number? Would that change anything for you? Anyhow, officials now want to find out how this happened and prevent future attacks. That is the openin