Safe Area Gorazde by Joe Sacco is a graphic novel which is far from an easy read. It tells the stories of people from the former Yugoslavia, and the atrocities they experienced. It is powerful, compelling, harrowing - but not enjoyable. I still haven't finished it because I simply can't take reading it for more than a short while at a time.
I imagined a game designed to express the same harrowing stories. It would put the player into the situation, presenting them with the desperate decisions - trying to harvest fruit under sniper fire, or trying to slip through to the Red Cross post across the river, avoiding the soldiers executing civilians on the bridge. It was tastefully done - not comic - not fun.
Developing it would be difficult to get right. Exposing enjoyment in the atrocities would turn the game into a sick joke. Joe Sacco managed to avoid this when producing his book. Graphic novels are all to often dismissed as mere comics, but he showed me they can sensitively express dark, sobering themes. I feel sure games will one day cross this boundary, and that whoever tries it will risk being seen as a sociopath.
I imagined a game designed to express the same harrowing stories. It would put the player into the situation, presenting them with the desperate decisions - trying to harvest fruit under sniper fire, or trying to slip through to the Red Cross post across the river, avoiding the soldiers executing civilians on the bridge. It was tastefully done - not comic - not fun.
Developing it would be difficult to get right. Exposing enjoyment in the atrocities would turn the game into a sick joke. Joe Sacco managed to avoid this when producing his book. Graphic novels are all to often dismissed as mere comics, but he showed me they can sensitively express dark, sobering themes. I feel sure games will one day cross this boundary, and that whoever tries it will risk being seen as a sociopath.
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