Week 1 ~ Barricade + filter bubbles
This is Episode 1/10 of the Hacking 10 games in 10 weeks project.
What is this game really about?
According to The 10 Best Games in the World Barricade was invented in Germany in 1890. With that little information in mind, I imagined it was inspired by the political struggles of the 19th century, when citizens were rioting across Europe against the ancien regimes.
It turns out this game has very little to do with 1800s barricades, and more with the booming West Germany of the post-WW2 years.
The online consensus is that the game was invented in 1960 by Werner Schöppner, a 26 year-old baker who would later become a systems analyst. The original name is Malefiz, which means malicious action. Why the nasty name?
The game mechanics may offer an explanation. You and your opponents race your pieces from your home base to a single finish point, trying to get there before everyone else. If you land on someone else’s piece, you send it back to the home base.
Malefiz/Barricade is considered a fork of the ancient Indian game Pachisi. There are two big differences though: the board is structured so that everyone has to race towards the same end point, and there are obstacles along the way (hence the English name Barricade). You may pick up obstacles and use them to block your opponents: no one can move past an obstacle unless it is landed on exactly.
These mechanics foster competition and individualism. It’s a race to the top, and you may create temporary alliances with your opponents, but you’re likely to backstab them (or get backstabbed) when the end goal gets nearer. Despite the original Wild West skin (see picture above), this sounds like 20th century careerism.
The obstacles are a new game element, unique to Malefiz. Which means they deserve extra attention. What do they represent? When you do land on one, you can move it anywhere else to block your opponents’ path, however they may block your path at their next chance. Obstacles are temporary and you can never own them. Unlike your pieces, which can only proceed as far as a lucky die roll, obstacles can move everywhere. You’re never safe from them.
What will the hacked game be about?
A squirrel dying in front of your home may be more relevant to your interests right now that people dying in Africa.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and CEO (2011)
As companies like Facebook and Google personalise their services (including news and search results) to our tastes, there’s a dangerous unintended consequence. We get trapped in a filter bubble which feeds us more and more of what we like whilst hiding what could challenge or broaden our views.
This algorithmic filtering of information is as pervasive as it is invisible. Algorithms that we don’t see and don’t control are becoming the new gatekeepers, deciding which data, news and opinions will reach us and which won’t.
Eli Pariser argued in 2011 that this would ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy. So far his prophecy was spot on. Think fake news and post-truth politics, Brexit and Trump.
Through the hacked version of the game I want players to:
- Become aware of filter bubbles
- Reflect on the impact of filter bubbles on their personal experiences
- Feel some degree of frustration
- Change their media consumption habits to burst some of those bubbles
How can I hack Barricade/Malefiz so that it’s about filter bubbles?
I will try out a few ideas.
Experiment 1: the moving algorithms
Let’s start with the obstacle elements. What if they represent filter-bubbling algorithms?
This is the new mechanic to play-test: whenever you move a piece to the left or right, the obstacle/algorithm closest to that piece moves in the opposite direction.
Like in a filter bubble, the obstacle/algorithm moves to create a bias for you to keep moving the way you moved.
Here’s more about this experiment.
Experiment 2: take a walk on the wild side
Why having a single exit? The board could be laid out so that you have multiple exits. Depending on the position of your home base, you could score more points if you take your pieces to a further exit. For example if you started from the bottom left, you would score more points for ending on the top right.
Symbolically, you would get rewarded for trying a different side and hearing a different perspective, instead of sticking to the same opinion.
Here’s more about this experiment.
Experiment 3: the media
There are two types of players:
- Consumers of media. They start from the bottom of the board and try to work their way up to the top.
- Producers of media. They stay at the top and send news pieces down, trying to place them along the path of their ideal customer.
As you probably worked out, this is work-in-progress stuff. I’ll keep updating this post as I prototype and playtest the ideas above.
Meanwhile, since you made it this far, and assuming this post has sparked some thoughts in your brain, why not add a little comment down below, or give us a clap? Thanks!
Click beelow to subscribe to the BeesNEWS, a monthly email about games that get people thinking, talking and exploring real-world challenges.
It’s free, and hundreds of people read it every month.
