An albertan sim city
Fort Mc Money is the door opening on Fort Mc Murray. A city that David Dufresne presents with its petrol boom, poverty and growing industry facets. The biggest reserve of oil sands, at the origin of the rapid economic development of the region.
When Fort Mc Money was released online, I was doing my Erasmus exchange in the UK. Short-term accommodation meaning low wifi and old netbook, I never managed to load the docugame further than 12% back then.
Getting back to it now and playing it doesn’t really taste the same. There are less players connected at the same time, and the debate that seems to have been so exciting on how to rule the city isn’t that lively anymore.
But still, don’t close the window yet.
Even without this interactive part, David Dufresne will manage to embark you in his trip, not only to show you the evolution of the city, but also to make you participate in it. Over the four episodes of this documentary, accessible over a period of four weeks, each person can discover Fort Mc Murray in his own way, step by step.
It starts right from the beginning, when the player arrives at the city’s camping. With 270° panorama pictures, you can look around thanks to the mouse and have a global view of the place. Every 270° picture is a multi-entry door to the next steps of the docu-game : you’re the one that decides which character of the story you should talk to or follow, or if you should ignore them all (disclaimer : you won’t go far choosing the second option).
Fort Mc Money quickly leads the player to encounter the inhabitants, commercials, politicians and oil sand tycoons that evolve in the city. The interviews aren’t delivered in a single block : you will have to take the initiative and choose among various questions which ones you’re going to ask. This is more of an informative part on the city. The concise answers have the advantage of making Fort Mc Murray’s issues clear and understandable, but don’t really enable to feel empathy or identification with the characters interviewed. They are all framed the same way and the multi-questions aspects prevents the conversation from being fluid.
In order to get immerged in the city’s inhabitants daily life, you can enjoy the more extensive videos made by David Dufresne during some events or moments spent with these people. Following Jim Rogers into the forest with his dog, or the homeless Randy along the river, the player plunges back, for a minute or two, to the pure documentary world. In these videos, there are no questions nor interactivity as in the rest of the docugame. The characters simply reveal their personalities and stories more in depth, the videos speak for themselves.
On top of the characters, the player can explore the various places, connected to each other as they are in real life, and move around town. From the Mc Donald Island Park to the strip club, the environment of the city constructs itself progressively, depending on how quickly you will collect all the informations you can in each place. There’s no need to click everywhere for that. The design has been conceived in order to lead naturally the user towards what he needs. In each place of Fort Mc Money, when the mouse passes over a character or object that is interactive, all the rest of the screen becomes blurred, so you know where to click. Once you have interacted with everything you could, you can move on to another part of town. The videos showing the shift of place can seem slightly too long and repetitive at some point in the game, but the video player enables to zap them if you are too impatient.
To get back in the pure game, you mustn’t forget to consult its interface. Fort Mc Money isn’t just about interacting with the real characters of the documentary : the player is supposed to “make his vision of the world triumph”. Therefore, you must acquire as much points of influence as you can, through your choices in the docugame as well as your answers to referendums. All of this will transform the city in its virtual ersatz.
The interface isn’t as visually attractive as the rest of the project. It is quite clear and organised, but lacks a bit of hierachization. The tab for the discussions with other players should have been, in my opinion, better highlighted. However, the initial goal of creating of a community around the docu-game enhances its impact : that way, people engage much more with the central topic of Fort Mc Money. Firstly, because people tend to be more attached to a game if there is a social interaction in it and if they can debate. Secondly, because there is also competition. The points of influence and the ranking makes players more addicted to the game, and therefore more receptive to the informations given in it.
Although you cannot register at the start of the game, which can be annoying for those who play just for a short while the first time, David Dufresne manages to use the registration as a useful tool to aggregate audience to the project. Indeed, through the progression in the game, the player receives regular emails to make him of aware of a new mission that can be completed, in a limited amount of time, in order to find out more about the oil sand industry of Fort Mc Murray.
A good opportunity to make sure that players are following the longform documentary until its end, and make up their own minds on what would be the best policies for the real Fort Mc Murray.
