Maybe Make Some Change

Blog Post #6

Maybe Make Some Change + Playthrough

This week, I played a piece of interactive fiction entitled Maybe Make Some Change by Aaron Reed. It is a short game that strikes a political cord with its concept. You interact with this game by typing in the commands 'SHOOT', 'HEAR', 'TELL', 'MISS', 'THREATEN', 'HUG', 'CALM' and 'WARN' with a corresponding, unlocked noun. You are only able to use the commands on highlighted nouns through the game's text. Each command gets unlocked through navigating through the game with the ones you already have unlocked. The narrative of this game reveals a dark (and I found out later -- true) story. You play as an Army soldier who is seemingly stationed in the middle east. You interact with civilians, hostile hijjad and taliban members, and farmers. The more you play with the commands in this game, the deeper you delve into the story. 

The game reveals that you, as the Army soldier, shot an unarmed civilian and the story comes out in the public. You seemingly face jail time and felony charges and have to unravel the narrative as time goes on. Near the end of the game, the commands you spent time working toward and unlocking slowly disappear as you use them to unlock information of the story. The game ends with a real life Facebook message conversation between an actual soldier, Adam Winfield, and his father. The messages are about a real situation that happened in the Army with a squadron killing innocent civilians. 

The game has an about page that goes into detail about the inspiration behind this game, and how that story impacted and resonated with Reed. It stuck with him in a way that caused him to create the game in the first place. It's an intriguing piece of interactive fiction that horrifies and captivates you all at the same time.

Watch me play Maybe Make Some Change in the following videos below (Run Flash!):