作者：Jeremy Alessi

美国遭受到的9.11袭击影响到的不仅仅是飞机上的那些受害者，整个世界都感到大为震惊。其中包括Gonzalo Frasca，他用《September 12th》这款游戏缔造了“事件改编游戏”这个词。

这只是个简单的网页游戏，玩家可以在游戏中瞄准射杀游曳在村庄中的恐怖分子。问题在于，杀死一个恐怖分子会引来更多。《September 12th》是说服性事件改编游戏的特例。Frasca尝试在游戏中强调某些事情。

事件改编游戏

我对事件改编游戏的兴趣并非来源于Gonzalo Frasca此人。对我来说，最早的事件改编游戏是《JFK: Reloaded》。虽然这款游戏让多数人感到反感，但是我觉得它真实地反映了事件。

多年以来，我同父亲一起看过许多有关9.11事件的纪录片，他对这个事件以及其中的阴谋理论特别感兴趣。当我首次见到《JFK: Reloaded》时，这个事件在我脑中变得清晰了起来。

游戏好像让我首次真正理解了这起事件。3D游戏环境中的实体、观点和动作让我觉得好像自己身临其境。

2009年1月19日，我对事件改编游戏的兴趣进一步加深。当天，机长Chesley Sullenberger将空客A320迫降在邻近曼哈顿中央商业区的Hudson River上。我对当天的事情记忆犹新，因为那天我正驱车前往纽约访问亲戚。

为深入了解细节，我让身为飞行员的哥哥使用其MS Flight Simulator来重现这个事件。我们花了数个小时的时间来设置场景，尝试重现这个事件。当时，我们做的内容已经很接近现实事件了。

当时我正在开发iPhone游戏《Skyline Blade》，便想要制作一款应用来重现此次飞行。我没有将这个想法变成现实，但Austin Meyer实现了（游戏邦注：即游戏《X-Plane》）。《Sully’s Flight》这款游戏极为成功地登陆了iPhone平台。如果我没有记错的话，当时这款游戏位于竞速和模拟类游戏首位。

但是，最终这款应用还是被应用商店移除了，因为合众国航空公司（US Airways）声称游戏侵犯其版权，理由是它的logo出现在游戏中的飞机上。苹果随后要求Austin得先获得Sully这个名字的使用权，毕竟这款游戏确实会让许多人觉得Austin是一个投机主义者，对当天那些几近丧生的人有失尊重。所以Austin放弃了这种做法，将应用从《X-Plane》系列游戏中移除。

最近的一次事件改编游戏的想法出现于今年初日本遭受里氏9级地震时期。但是，我所构思的事件改编游戏并非以地震或海啸为目标。我的想法是以在地震中受损的福岛核电站来制作事件改编游戏。如果玩家能够参与其中并分享可供使用的解决方案，那么他们就有可能产生些能够帮助那些受害民众的东西。事件发生3周后，一款《辐射3》的mod就发布了，其主题正是受损的核设施。

3周前，我开始对事件改编游戏的想法格外着迷。我不再只是想制作某款事件改编游戏，还想让其他人也接触这类游戏。我成立了网站NewsGameplay.com，采用我认为可以为人轻易接受的样式，这样所有人就都可以在3D环境中体验新闻事件。

成立网站后并发布简单的鼠标驱动3D原型后，我开始思考要首先报道哪个事件。王室的婚礼是个不错的选择，但是这个事件刚刚过去不久。仅这个事实便可能让多数人不敢采纳这个题材。事实上，这个题材确实让多数人感到无所适从。我找不到自认为可以完成这项工作的3D艺术师。王室婚礼的新闻性就这样随时间逝去，然而我仍然找不到新网站的合适内容。

2011年5月1日

直到我妻子观看《Real Housewives of New York》的后期报道时，我才知道了本·拉登的死亡消息。主持人和嘉宾在节目中谈论9.11时间发生当时以及那天夜里城市的状况。我问妻子是否明白他们正在谈论什么事情。她摇摇头，我拿起遥控器将频道调到CNN。

当我意识到发生了什么事情时，就打开自己的笔记本电脑开始在Google Earth上搜索事件的场景。这条新闻在互联网上快速传播，因而Google Earth已经报告了事件发生的地点。不久之后，Google的3D Warehouse上就出现了两个简单的3D模型。我赶忙开始寻找事件地点的确切场景。最初所报告的地点是错误的，而且早期的3D模型也过于简单，根本没有用处。随后，我花了长达1周的时间来调查这个持续发展的故事，我想要用引人关注的3D游戏来报道这个事件。

组建团队

我确定自己会将精力放在这个项目上，但是我也知道自己单兵作战无法实现这个目标。首先，我要做的就是组建团队。过去数周时间里，我就已经跟老友John McIsaac（游戏邦注：此人帮助过作者设计游戏《Fat Rat》）谈论起“事件改编游戏”这个概念，他已经做好准备随时开始工作。

现在正是最佳的时机，所以John理所当然地就成为了调查员。他的工作是尽可能地从每条新闻资源中搜集每个细节。John浏览网页查看事件相关新闻，收集相关视频、图片、图表等内容。

John就位后项目便有所改观，但是我仍然需要一名3D模型师。Rich Smith是我的另一名好友。Rich以前帮我制作过游戏《Crash for Cash》，他使用3DS Max的技术非常好，但是经验有些许不足。最大的问题在于，他通常要工作很长时间，所以我也不抱很大的希望。我抽空给他打了个电话，他说自己的前任老板已经欠了他两个月的薪水，所以他现在正赋闲在家感到很无聊，正在为自己寻找新的挑战。

项目开始

周一晚上，我们三人聚集在我的办公室里，开始商讨游戏计划。John收集最新的信息，Rich草拟了整个场景，我负责项目的编程部分。周一晚上，我们定下了场景的范围、射击的6名士兵的位置、黑鹰直升机以及像物品燃烧点之类的其他细节。

为正确划定范围，我们参照Google Earth制作等大的3D模型图片，场景周围墙体的高度按照媒体发布的内容来定。事件改编游戏的类型多种多样，但是依我的观点来看，最客观的事件改编游戏必须注重“空间现实性”。如果游戏能够精确布置事件中的某些距离和物质，那么其实体化的精确性便能够使游戏比其他方式更好地报道新闻。

确定模型的范围以及场景周围的视觉效果很简单，真正麻烦的是故事的细节。本·拉登是否携带军火？他的护卫在哪里？直升机在哪里？当时，有关这些方面的报道仍不一致。

第一周

在项目开始那周时间里，John润色了所有的细节，包括场景中的内在布局。他十分细致地安排分析场景中每个角度的图片，研究所有与场景有关的视频。参考当时可用的资料后，John草拟了场景中发生的3个故事。

不幸的是，John和Rich之间缺乏沟通。在这周时间里，John把本应直接递交Rich的信息交给了我。同时，Rich询问我的某些问题恰好最适合让John提供答案。这种交流和沟通的缺乏使得项目进展缓慢。有些John收集到的细节并没有融入游戏中。总体来说，我觉得我们成功地做出了实质性的内容。但是如果能够有更好的交流，事件改编游戏的逼真性能够再上一个台阶。

1天多的成果

周五晚上，我开始调用2009年为某款iPhone第一人称射击游戏编写的基本行为。这些脚本的大部分内容都过于贴近那个老项目，所以修改变得很复杂，最终我只选取部分内容，大部分的基本行为重新编写。在修补某些早期显现的漏洞之后，我开始帮助Rich。

当时，Rich的电脑刚刚从系统崩溃中恢复过来。所幸的是，他的文件系统仍然存在，所以他并没有失去项目相关文件。当我回想起当时面临的挑战时，对我们能够在适当的时间及时发布游戏确实感到很震惊！

当天晚上9点，我们都聚集在我的办公室里。John向Rich提供结构性信息，并向我提供详细的细节。到凌晨4点，我们完成了项目大部分的内容。Rich修正两次之后，模型的架构也几近成形。

正是由于之前提到的交流不善，Rich没有收到John根据视频制作而成的场景布置。Rich自行创造了内部空间的摆设。因为Rich是个硬核玩家，所以其内在布置有趣且紧凑，这种布置确实很适合娱乐游戏。

但是我们正在制作的是事件改编游戏，所以我告诉他说我们需要重新制作场景，以使之更贴合新闻视频。John说找不到建筑第3层的视频，所以我们就把Rich之前制作的那个场景用上了，而第2层用的是John根据视频制作而成的场景。

虽然场景在当天晚上得到润色，某些细节还是被忽略了。因为收集细节是John的工作，所以在周六发现某些细节没有出现在游戏中时，他感到特别失望。我们的计划是继续润色原有的细节，但是必须保证我们能够传达出事件中最重要的信息。

到凌晨5点，场景的结构和任务点都完成了。玩家需要在游戏中射杀五个人，就像新闻所报道的那样，要杀死本·拉登，摧毁受损的黑鹰直升机，然后用剩余的黑鹰运载本·拉登的尸体离开现场。这些主要内容确定下来之后，John就回家了，Rich和我继续润色编程和模型质量。

Rich已经完成了自己大部分的工作，但是他还是继续利用更好的资料和信息来提升模型的质量。而我要做的事情还有很多。在太阳升起时，我盯着游戏，大量的漏洞让我感到很惊恐。

我选择使用Unity的Bootcamp测试版，这是我首次使用这个引擎来制作游戏。程序员们都普遍认为，自行编写代码比学习其他人的要容易的多，但我现在的时间很紧凑，所以还是学习复制Bootcamp中的高质量代码比较好。

在这个项目中使用Bootcamp的不良之处在于，在如此短的时间内要仔细研究所有的功能确实很难。引擎中有我不需要的GUI功能，还有运动动画系统和冲突碰撞层等等内容。在Bootcamp之上还有许多自己的脚本问题，这导致了很大的问题。

Rick和我奋战到第二天早上11点，他完成了场景模型中内容的润色。当时太阳已经升得很高，我决定载他回家。我们把他那笨重的PC放在我的SUV的后备箱中。到达他家之后，我顺带买回了早餐。

在家里工作

在抽空吃早餐的时间里，我总结了许多项目中的漏洞。当我回到工作中时，我迅速地修复了这些漏洞。修补漏洞并让游戏正常运行之后，我还必须导入Rich制作的最新模型。Bootcamp用起来确实很不错，但是模型会产生些许问题。

因为我们工作时都很匆忙，所以没有制作某些给模型中物体自动加上标签的工具。我必须手动处理诸如金属、混凝土、木头、尘土或玻璃等所有场景模型，给它们加上弹孔、脚印效果以及其他与事件相关的特性。

除了标签的问题之外，模型的也无法正确导入。模型中的许多东西在场景中呈现不当。所以除了处理标签外，我还不许重新分配这些东西，让它们在场景中显得更加合理。

最后，我还必须设置让场景中的物体可以被破坏，某些物体只能用手榴弹来摧毁（游戏邦注：如铁门之类的物品），其他物体用枪支就可以打穿。

总之，完成这些工作后已经是周六晚上6点，我已经连续工作了25个小时。

媒体宣传

我编撰这篇文章时，宣传工作才算正式产生效果。我们没有制定营销计划。但是，当我写这篇文章时，各大报纸、其他开发者以及许多媒体都向我们发来了邮件。最有趣的是《Wired》的采访，该杂志在首页上刊登文章报道了这个游戏。

宣传工作正式开始，而且这些报道的基础似乎就是上述文章。其他新闻媒体在看到《Wired》的报道后也纷纷跟进。如果没有媒体的帮助，这款游戏可能会默默无闻随后销声匿迹。如果游戏的开发没有在这么短的时间内完成，也可能会有同样的下场，因为它并非传统的休闲游戏。

幸运的是，我们似乎有效地平衡了游戏质量和宣传，使游戏获得了外界关注。我们的目标是构建网站、构建技术并且继续快速地构建事件改编游戏。

未来发展

这个媒介有很强大的潜力。如果我们在事件改编游戏中足够精确地呈现事件，并且让足够数量的玩家与游戏互动，其效能便可以显现出来。也就是说，事件改编游戏可能展现出现实世界中神秘的事件。

我们可以用举个简单的例子来说明。假设我有个球，你看到我用右手拿着。在这种情况下，你对原来的情况很了解。此时，我让你转过身去。我把球扔出去，然后在球停下之后让你转过身来。最后，我让你描述球是如何从我的手上移动到新位置。

在这个例子中，无疑可以找到大量的解决方案。可能球在地上弹了两下停下来，也可能是三下，也可能弹到天花板上了。如果有足够的玩家，不仅会得出大量的解决方案，而且这些解决方案中可能就有最接近事实的解决方案。

这种假设可以被用来识别某些对游戏开发者构成障碍的元素。当《光晕2》发布时，其开发团队和QA团队为玩家在游戏中做出的事情感到震惊。有些大型的漏洞只有在足够数量的玩家尝试之后才会现形。在这种背景下，利用漏洞似乎成为了玩家潜在的解决方案。

现在，我们用Twitter和Facebook将我们的观点提交给CNN、Fox News和MSNBC。最终，我将新闻与游戏的结合视为解决方案的平台。玩家所做的不是提出观点，而是在游戏中创造解决方案。如果游戏的开发足够迅速，那么玩家在游戏的解决方案就可能被用于现实事件中。

换句话说，这些游戏众包解决方案来源于玩家。当然，最终新闻本身将被众包到3D世界中。Google Earth让我们有类似3D维基百科的感觉，但是并没有提供高逼真度的体验。当然，会有人在事件发生1个小时内将场景上传，但是场景中并没有包含任何行为或实体。这便是事件改编游戏的游戏部分的载体。游戏让新闻产生互动性，并最终提供解决方案。众包开发确保游戏体验能够获得最高的逼真性。

最终，互动性新闻将解决当前新闻系统的弊端。文字和视频之类的单向媒介倾向于将某种概念传播给最终用户。我们都知道，玩家在游戏中的视野会更加开阔，因为模拟事件的游戏并没有强加给他们任何观点。整个逻辑和流程由玩家来控制。只要发现所见的东西不合逻辑，玩家就会做出回应而不是仅仅表示赞同。

事件改编游戏能够帮助新闻业进一步发展。我希望新闻同游戏的结合能够成为这个新领域中真正有用的平台。我觉得我们开了个好头。我们用自己的行动证实，匆忙组建起的团队可以足够迅速地调查、开发并传播3D互动内容，即便这是条轰动性的新闻。

事后想法：设计原则

之前我说过，事件改编游戏具有“空间真实性”。Ian Bogost就我们所制作的游戏询问些许问题后，通过电子邮件告知我们这个概念。Ian询问的问题是：“游戏的新闻部分是什么？”

对于这个问题，我的回答是事件改编游戏精确真实地反映了当时的场景。所有的东西都出现在游戏中，任务的位置依据新闻报道来摆放，本·拉登未携带军火，有两架黑鹰直升机（游戏邦注：一架被损），许多物品正在燃烧，一只德国牧羊犬和几只鸡。我们根据新闻报道来设置这些细节内容，这样使玩家在游戏中的任务还原了当时的情形。

依我的观点来看，《Kuma War》版本游戏的场景看起来在细节方面更加丰富，但是显然与现实也差距较大。游戏中的房间很大，本·拉登也携带军火，而且还随机出现在某个房间里而没有固定的位置。

我觉得这两个产品间的对比显示出了事件改编游戏和基于新闻而开发的游戏的差异。《Kuma War: 107》是款供玩家娱乐的游戏，而《Bin Laden Raid》才是真正的事件改编游戏。

在某些地方，我们将《Bin Laden Raid》视为模拟游戏。因为游戏中所呈现的是现实世界的环境，已经根据当时的报道而设置的场景。之所以它可以称得上是款游戏，因为我们没有在其中描绘出参加行动的每个士兵，我们主要将其他士兵用作导航的线索，完成其中的任务也不需要现实情况中长达40分钟的时间。

我们还在游戏中添加了其他的设计，以保持故事的准确性。比如，玩家不能也不会被其他士兵击中，因为没有报告称参加行动的海豹部队有伤亡。我们并非只是想为玩家提供某个过过枪战瘾的场景，而是尝试将他们带入当时的场景中，执行海豹部队所执行的任务。

事后想法：公众反应

总的来说，《Bin Laden Raid》的公众反应还是很不错的。多数人似乎都对游戏成为新闻媒介而感到兴奋不已，尤其是那些与我们交谈过的记者。与《JFK: Reloaded》或《Sully’s Flight》相比，这款游戏的面世标志着巨大的变革。当然，其中的改变包括这款事件改编游戏的主要角色不再是美国英雄而是为世界人民所痛恨的恐怖组织头目。

我希望人们都能够接受这种新媒介。但是记者向我提出的某些问题让我有些担心，或许人们对游戏的接受只是因为想享受那种向恐怖组织头目扣动扳机的快感，而不是事件改编游戏这种新媒介形式。

就玩家而言，我想多数人喜欢的是《Kuma War》。从传统的游戏度量上来看，我觉得他们比我们更胜一筹。但是，这款游戏的开发团队都是些全职投入游戏的人。而我的团队是临时组建起来的，而且之前根本没有制作此类游戏的经验，但是我们的游戏与他们同一天发布。

有些媒体表示我们的游戏更加有趣，因为我们的游戏严肃地对待了这个事件，而不单纯是个为了发泄快感的趣味游戏。如果玩家确实因游戏而产生某种感觉的话，那也是来源于他们自身，因为我们制作游戏的初衷只是为了向人们展示发生了什么事以及当时的场景。

必须再次声明的是，我们并不是基于新闻来开发游戏，我们制作的是事件改编游戏。我们根据当时的报道来复制环境、角色和事件，让玩家亲身体验整个行动。

就事件体验而言，我知道这款事件改编游戏提供的并非是最终可能产生的体验，但截至事件发生的那个周六，游戏确实是最精确反映事实的。

游戏比《Kuma War》更加准确，同时视觉效果和互动性也比主流新闻网站上的3D动画要强。可能游戏与当时海豹部队看到的场景有所差异，但好过当时报道事件的所有3D媒介。

最终想法

在《Bin Laden Raid》发布已将近两周时间里，我细细地重新审视了这款事件改编游戏。总得来说，我觉得这种媒介能够呈现比文字或视频更多的内容。但是，我也觉得我们以一种过于新潮的方式来呈现游戏及其任务。很显然，事件改编游戏为我们提供了看待新闻的新方法。

当我得到Ian所撰书籍《事件改编游戏》时，我对书籍的客观性大加赞赏。长久以来，我们这些游戏开发者关注的只是自己脑中所构思的事物，常常忽略了世界上其他人关注的是当前发生的事情。世界需要客观的内容。

我喜欢客观的东西，并且努力创造客观性内容。我觉得《Bin Laden Raid》实现了这个目标。我们利用这个事件做出了个3D互动游戏。想到我们用业余时间来开发游戏，想到我们可以将媒体每天的报道用故事的形式完全呈现出来，我就感到很兴奋。

我并没有把《Bin Laden Raid》当成像传统游戏那样的创造性作品。真正产生这个游戏的是那些参与真实事件的人。我们只是利用了这个事实，将事件用新形式来表达出来。我觉得事件改编游戏的创造性还大有可发掘之处，其发展前景是光明的。

游戏邦注：本文发稿于2011年5月20日，所涉时间、事件和数据均以此为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

News+Gameplay: Bin Laden Raid

Jeremy Alessi

The September 11th attacks on the United States were traumatic tragedies that not only affected victims directly in the path of the planes. These events struck a chord with people the world over — including Gonzalo Frasca, who coined the term “newsgame” with a title dubbed September 12th.

It was a simple web game that allowed players to take aim at terrorists roaming about a village. The problem is, killing one terrorist only spawned more. September 12th is a prime example of a persuasive newsgame. Frasca was trying to make a point.

Newsgames

Until about three weeks ago, I didn’t know who Gonzalo Frasca was. My interest in newsgames was formed independently of the founders of the movement. For me, newsgames began with JFK: Reloaded. While the title disgusted most people, I found it to be a valuable frame of reference for the event.

For years I watched the documentaries about the event with my father, who was always particularly interested in it, and the conspiracy theories surrounding it. When I got to see JFK: Reloaded for the first time, it all became so much more concrete in my mind.

It was as if, for the first time, I could really understand the events that took place. The physics, viewpoint, and general motion available only in a 3D game environment gave me an understanding that I could have only otherwise achieved by having been there in the first place.

My interest in newsgames was furthered on January 19th, 2009. It was on this date that Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger landed an Airbus A320 in the Hudson River adjacent to Midtown Manhattan. I remember the day well. I was actually driving to New York that day to visit family.

After some of the details poured in, I got my brother, a pilot, to set up his MS Flight Simulator rig for me to recreate the event. We spent several hours tweaking the settings, attempting to recreate the flight. We got pretty close.

At the time I was working on Skyline Blade for the iPhone and thought about doing an app to recreate the flight. I didn’t act on it but Austin Meyer (X-Plane) did. Sully’s Flight was launched on the iPhone — quite successfully, in fact. If memory serves me, it took the number one slot of the racing and simulation categories.

In the end, though, the app was removed from the store because US Airways claimed copyright infringement — its logo was on the plane. To add insult to injury, Apple further requested that Austin acquire approval to use “Sully’s” name. This was all on top of the fact that a lot of people viewed the game as cheap, opportunistic, and disrespectful of the people who almost lost their lives that day. Austin gave up, and removed the app from the catalog of X-Plane games on the App Store.

The final straw for me came just two months ago, when Japan was devastated by an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale. It wasn’t the earthquake or the tsunami I was interested in doing a newsgame about, though. No, instead the thought crossed my mind that a newsgame about the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant could actually be useful. If users could get down to ground level, take measurements, and share potential solutions, they might actually come up with something to help those in need. About three weeks after the event, a Fallout 3 mod was announced that showcased the damaged nuclear facility.

Three weeks ago, I became really obsessed with the idea of newsgames. Never again was I going to think about making a newsgame, only to have someone else do it. I set up the website NewsGameplay.com and began work on a format that I thought would be easily consumable, so anyone could experience the news in 3D.

After setting the website up and throwing up a simple mouse-driven 3D prototype, I thought about which story to cover first. The Royal Wedding was non-offensive, but it was only a week away. That alone would scare most people off. In fact, it did scare most people off. I couldn’t find a 3D artist who thought they could handle the task. The Royal Wedding came and went, and I still didn’t have content for my new website.

May 1st 2011

I didn’t hear about the death of Osama bin Laden until my wife was watching the Real Housewives of New York after-action show. The host and one of the women were talking about being in the city on 9/11, and then being in the city that night. I turned to my wife and asked her if she knew what they were talking about. She shook her head as I grabbed the remote and switched to CNN.

As soon as I got a handle on what occurred, I pulled my laptop out and began searching for the compound on Google Earth. The news moved so fast through the internet that the Google Earth location of the compound had already been reported. Before long, there were two simple 3D models on Google’s 3D Warehouse. I rushed to find the specific aesthetics and location of the compound. The initial location reported proved false, and the early 3D models were too simplistic to be useful. That was the beginning of a long week of research on an ever-evolving story that I needed to cover with a compelling 3D game.

The Team

I knew I was going to go for this project, but I also knew I couldn’t do it alone. The first order of business was to put a team together. I had been telling my longtime friend John McIsaac (who helped me design Fat Rat) about this “newsgames” concept for the past few weeks, and he was already ready to jump onboard when the time was right.

Indeed, the time was right. John became the designated researcher. As such, it was his job to collect every detail from every news source possible. John scoured the web and watched the news collecting videos, images, diagrams, and more.

With John on board, things were looking up, but I still needed a 3D modeler with the time to pull the project off. Rich Smith is another long-time local friend. Rich had helped me work on Crash for Cash in the past, and he was pretty good with 3DS Max, but he didn’t have much real-time experience. The biggest problem is that he usually worked long hours, so I wasn’t too hopeful. On the off-chance that he had a day or two off, I gave him a call anyway. As it turns out, his previous employer had bounced payroll twice so he was home, bored, and looking for a good challenge.

Monday Night Kickoff

We all gathered in my office Monday night to draw up our game plan. John collected the latest information, Rich sketched out the compound, and I examined the programming needs. For the most part, Monday night was about getting the scale of the compound down, as well as the placement of the six individuals who were shot, the Blackhawk helicopters, and other details, like the trash burning site.

In order to get our scale correct, we cross-referenced Google Earth (for perimeters) with the isometric 3D model image released to the press that detailed the heights of the walls surrounding the compound. There are many types of newsgames, but from my perspective the most objective newsgame is a “spacial reality”. The thought process is that if the game is modeled to scale along distances, masses, and forces, that the game could potentially report the news better than any other source by virtue of its physical accuracy.

Getting the scale of the model and the surrounding visuals from within the compound was pretty straightforward. Where things got murky was the details of the story. Was Osama bin Laden armed or unarmed? Where were the guards? Where were the helicopters? Reports were still conflicting at the time.

The Week

Throughout the week, John refined all the details, including the interior layout of the compound. He meticulously arranged arrays of pictures analyzing every possible angle of the compound and studied all the video walkthroughs of the compound. By cross-referencing the visual media available at the time with basic building practices John created floor plans for all three stories of the compound.

Unfortunately, John and Rich didn’t communicate well. Throughout the week, John sent information to me that should have gone directly to Rich. Meanwhile, Rich was asking me questions that John had the answers to. This lack of communication took its toll on the project. Some of the details John picked up on didn’t make it into the game. Overall, I think we managed to produce something very solid, but with better communication the newsgame could have reached a higher level of fidelity.

The 24+ Hour Crunch

Friday night started off slowly. I began dropping in some basic behaviors I’d written in 2009 for an iPhone FPS project. For the most part, these scripts were too specialized to that old project, and contained unnecessary complexity, so I ended up ripping them apart and writing mostly all my basic behaviors from scratch. After squashing some early bugs, I broke to go pick Rich up to help him carry his monster of a computer over to my office so we could crank on the last night locally.

It should be noted that Rich had just recovered earlier that day from a massive system crash. Luckily, his filesystem was still in place, so he didn’t lose anything. When I think back on some of the challenges we faced, it’s truly amazing we were able to deliver the game in a timely fashion!

Anyway, by 9 pm, we were all cranking in my office. John was feeding structural information to Rich and circumstantial details to me. By 4 am we had finally covered the major points of the mission and the structure of the model was pretty close after Rich iterated through the interiors twice.

Due to aforementioned poor communication, Rich never received the layouts John created from the video footage and general building practices. Rich had gone ahead and created his own version of the interior space. The cool part was that Rich is a core gamer, so the interior was really interesting and tense. It would have been a good interior for an entertainment game.

Since we were making a newsgame, though, I told him we needed to redo it to line up closer to the videos available. In the end the first two floors were close to what John derived, but the third floor remained mostly fiction. John stated that no video footage was available from the third floor so Rich ended up keeping the layout he’d originally created with the exception of the location where the stairs came up, which followed the second floor plan that John created.

Although the compound was refined that night, some details were simply overlooked. Since it was John’s job to collect the details, he was particularly disappointed that some details he found didn’t make it into what went out on Saturday. Our plan is to continue to refine those details, but it will have to be balanced properly so that we deliver the best information without impeding the development of new newsgames. I can certainly see traditional “feature creep” working its way into newsgames, which would be detrimental overall.

By 5 am, the structure of the compound was finalized, and the mission points we covered. It was decided that players would shoot five individuals, as was reported, kill Osama bin Laden, collect intelligence, destroy the damaged Blackhawk, and finally extract using the remaining Blackhawk with bin Laden’s body aboard. With the major points decided, John headed home while Rich and I continued to refine the programming and quality of the model.

For the most part, Rich was done, but he continued to improve the quality of the model mainly through use of better materials. I, on the other hand, was swamped. As the sun rose, I looked at the game, horrified by the number of bugs.

I had chosen to make use of the Bootcamp demo that comes with Unity, but this was the first time I’d ever worked with this “engine”. It’s widely acknowledged that it’s easier to write your own code than learn someone else’s if you know what you’re doing, but in this case I didn’t have the time to replicate many of the good qualities present in Bootcamp — so I wisely chose to learn it.

The downside of using Bootcamp for this project is that it was pretty complicated to dissect all of its features in such a short period of time. There were GUI features I didn’t want, the locomotion animation system wouldn’t walk up our stairs, there were conflicting collision layers, and more. On top of Bootcamp I had several of my own script issues, which were causing inconsistent behavior (the worst kind).

Rich and I worked side by side until 11 am, when he finished redoing the materials on the compound model. By that time the sun was shining, so I told him I’d take him back to his place. We loaded up his titanic tower of a PC into the back of my SUV; I dropped him off, and then picked up breakfast for my wife.

The Home Stretch

While taking a break for breakfast, my mind worked out many of the problems plaguing the project. When I came back to it, I squashed the bugs quickly. Once the game was functional and bug-free, I still had to import the latest model from Rich. Using Bootcamp was great, but there were a lot of setup issues for the model.

Since we were working completely on-the-fly, there were no tools in the pipeline to auto-tag objects in our model with certain properties. I had to manually tag every surface on the compound model as metal, concrete, wood, dirt, or glass in order to get the proper bullet holes, footstep sounds, and other associated reactions to play correctly.

Beyond the tags, though, the model didn’t import correctly. Many of the materials were missing their associated diffuse maps. So in addition to tagging I had to reassign materials and get them looking decent on about half the surfaces in the compound.

Finally, I wanted to spruce the compound up my making it destructible; certain objects can only be destroyed by the grenades (like the steel doors and satellite dishes) while other objects can be destroyed with the gun as well.

All in all, I tweaked with these features as well as experimenting with various lighting setups and other presentation level concepts until about 6 pm Saturday night — 25 hours after I began.

Publicity

As I write this, things are just starting to take hold. We had zero marketing plans. As I type this, though, emails have started flooding in from newspapers, other developers, and other publications. The most interesting of which has been an interview with Wired, which featured an article about the game on its front page.

So the hype is just building, and it appears to primarily be based on that article. Other news outlets started jumping on the story after seeing the Wired piece. Without the help of the media, this would be dead in the water. Without the game being developed so quickly, and without the basis, of the subject matter, again it would be dead in the water, because it’s not a traditional entertainment game.

Luckily, we seem to have hit just the right balance of quality, journalism, and subject matter to garner some attention. Our goal from here is to build the website, build the technology, and continue to build news stories quickly.

The Future

This medium has some powerful potential. If the circumstances presented in our newsgames are physically accurate enough, and we let N number of players interact with them, patterns will emerge. The “Holy Grail” will be solving a real-world mystery with a solution derived from within a newsgame.

Another way to explain this is with a simple real-world example. Let’s say I have a ball, and you can see I’m holding it in my right hand. In that instance, you would know the original circumstances. At that point, I ask you to turn around. I throw the ball and ask you to turn around once the ball has come to a stop. Finally, I ask you to describe how the ball got to its new location.

In this example, there are literally an infinite number of solutions. Perhaps the ball bounced twice and stopped, maybe three times, or perhaps it bounced off the ceiling once. One person could never present all the solutions, much less the precise, actual solution that took place. With enough players though, not only would a huge number of solutions become available, but also the most likely solution would statistically begin to stick out like a sore thumb.

This hypothesis basically aspires to take advantage of something that has traditionally hampered game developers. When Halo 2 was released, the development team and QA teams were shocked to learn some of the things players were doing within the game. There were some pretty big bugs that only emerged when N number of players reached a certain threshold. Viewed in the right context though, bugs might actually become potential solutions.

Already, emergent behaviors have created realistic but unintended side effects. The game was designed to be free of any explicit challenge. This mission had to be carried out with surgical accuracy in reality. Players who didn’t mirror that surgical approach in the game (i.e. used only the grenades) complained that they had a hard time locating the intel.

By only using grenades, players were pushing the physics-enabled intel objects (laptops) all over the place, sometimes making it difficult to find them. In reality, using such a chaotic approach would yield similar results; most of the intelligence would be unattainable because it would be destroyed or buried.

Currently, we use Twitter and Facebook to pass our opinions on to CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC programs. Ultimately, I see News+Gameplay as a platform for solutions. Instead of stating your opinion, you will create your solution in-game. If the game is delivered quickly enough, then perhaps that solution can be used in reality.

In other words, the game crowdsource solutions from the players. Of course, eventually the news itself could be crowdsourced in 3D. Google Earth gets us close to a 3D Wiki, but it doesn’t contain high fidelity experiences. Sure, someone put Osama bin Laden’s compound up there within an hour of the press conference, but it didn’t contain any behavior or physical ability. This is where the games part comes into newsgames. Games make the news interactive, and eventually provide solutions. Crowdsourced development will ensure the highest fidelity possible for the experience.

Eventually, interactive news can overcome limitations present in the current news system. One-way mediums like text and video are prone to force-feeding a concept to the end consumer. As we all know gamers call “bullshit” quicker than anyone because they aren’t led by the hand through the simulation. Players control the flow of logic. As soon as something presented is less than logical, players realize it and reject it rather than nodding their heads.

Newsgames can provide a powerful check and balance system to help journalism evolve to the next level. I hope News+Gameplay can become a truly useful platform in this new field. I think we’re off to a good start. If nothing else, we delivered proof that a team assembled on the fly can research, develop, and deliver 3D interactive content quickly enough to be relevant, even on a breaking news story.

Afterthoughts: Design Principles

I stated above that this newsgame is considered a “spacial reality”. Ian Bogost informed me of this classification via email after asking me a few questions about what we created. The answers I gave Ian were in reply to the question “What’s the journalism part of it?”

My answer to that question was that the intended journalism was the physical accuracy of our newsgame. Everything was built to scale, the people were placed where they were reported to have been, Osama bin Laden was unarmed, the woman ran at the SEALs, there were two Blackhawk helicopters (one damaged), there was a pile of burning trash, a German Shepherd, and chickens. By laying out all of these details where they were reported to be, we summed up the mission in the most succinct way possible and simultaneously presented the highest level of fidelity at the time.

Kuma War’s version of the compound looked more richly detailed, in my opinion, but it was also clearly not to scale. The rooms inside were cavernous, Osama bin Laden was armed, and he also appeared in random rooms.

I think that the contrast between these two products demonstrates the difference between a newsgame and a game based on the news. Kuma War: 107 is a game intended to entertain; Bin Laden Raid is a newsgame, intended to inform.

In some places we referred to Bin Laden Raid as a sim. It’s a sim because it presents a real-world environment built to scale, as well as circumstances based on the most accurate reports at the time. It is a game because we didn’t include every soldier that actually participated in the event, because we used the other soldiers mainly as navigational clues, and because it doesn’t take 40 minutes to complete the mission.

There were other design decisions that we made in order to keep the story accurate. For example, the player cannot be shot or shoot the other soldiers, because there were no reported injuries to the SEAL team. We weren’t trying to give players a playground to wreak havoc upon; we were trying to bring them into the compound and execute the actions (generally) that the SEALs executed.

Afterthoughts: Public Reaction

In general, the public reaction to Bin Laden Raid has been good. Most people seem to be excited for games to become a news medium (especially the reporters we talked to). This signals a huge change from JFK: Reloaded or Sully’s Flight. Of course, it could simply be the fact that this newsgame isn’t about an American hero but rather a terrorist leader who is widely hated around the world.

All the same, I’m hopeful that people are opening up to the medium — but from some of the questions reporters have asked I fear that the game’s acceptance hangs on the fact that people feel a certain degree of catharsis when they pull the trigger on the former terrorist leader.

When it comes to gamers, I think most prefer Kuma War. In terms of traditional game metrics, I think they trumped us. However, it’s true that they are in business full-time to make what they made. My team was assembled on the fly with no prior experience delivering a game this way, and we delivered our game on the same day as Kuma.

Some of the articles proclaimed our take on the situation as the more interesting one, because it was intended to be taken seriously and not just be a fun game with some catharsis on the side. If anything, the feelings people have are completely independent of our game, because we didn’t intend to make any sort of point with Bin Laden Raid other than “it happened” and “here’s the 3D interactive interpretation of what occurred”.

Again, we weren’t making a game based on the news. We made a newsgame. We laid the environment, characters, and events out in such a way as to replicate the reports of the time and let players experience them from the ground.

I think that some of my comments have been taken too seriously (judging by other peoples’ comments on the Wired piece). I realize that this newsgame isn’t the end-all, be-all in terms of experience, but on the Saturday after the event it was the best available.

It was more accurate than Kuma War and it simultaneously looked better and was more interactive than any of the canned 3D animations on the major news networks. With those facts in mind, yes, we had the premiere window into the mission as it looked on the ground. It wasn’t exactly what the SEALs saw, but it was better than any other 3D recreation at the time.

Final Thoughts

At this point it’s been nearly two weeks since the release of News+Gameplay’s Bin Laden Raid. I’ve had a bit more time to think about this newsgame, and even about this article. In general, I do feel that the medium presents many benefits that are not present in text or video. However, I also feel that I have presented our game and mission in an overzealous fashion. Clearly, newsgames offer us a new way to view the news. Today they give us a 360-degree ground level view of models built to scale. Tomorrow they will offer us new possibilities.

When I got my copy of Ian’s book Newsgames, I complimented him on the objectivity of the book. Far too often, we game developers are so excited about what we see in our own minds that we forget the rest of the world sees only the here and now. The rest of the world wants objectivity.

I like objectivity and strive to create things that are objective. I think we did that with Bin Laden Raid. We took the facts and made a 3D interactive piece with them. The quality of what we created is amazing to me considering that it wasn’t our full time job, that we weren’t plugging a map into a pre-defined pipeline, and that we were actually reporting on a story in which new facts were being reported every day.

I don’t see Bin Laden Raid itself as a creative work like traditional games. The people involved in the actual event created it. We compiled the facts and spit them out in a new format. I think the creative part is seeing what newsgames can be in the future. I think that future is bright and wide open. (Source: Gamasutra)