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04/20/2005 Archived Entry: "What is a 'documentary' game (revisited)"

Idle Thumbs' Games Beyond Games is a report on the Innovation in Game Design Symposium in the Netherlands (Feb 2005), including a wonderful formulation by Ian Bogost on how games meet reality, and reality meets games in the 'documentary' game: exposing the system underlying a process based in reality (e.g. Civilization); games that refer to real events as the backdrop for a fictitious scenario (I wonder how this relates to games that include real historical artifacts like Brothers in Arms); and my personal favorite, games that tell a specific story using a system (e.g. Waco Resurrection, and possibly Escape from Woomera?) Ian puts forth these categories for 'historical' works, but I would argue a documentary does not have to be historical-- in fact, some of my favorite docs are social activist or character driven works.

This is great to find as I start to think about whether there is in fact such thing as a documentary game, and if so, what are the potential strengths and limitations of the genre, and what are the social responsibilities inherent therein.