Censored Truths

The year is '96.

You are the chief editor at Voice of Zienicza, an underground newsletter in the republic of Naşúl. 

In the east, an autocrat strangles the last remnants of the free press with an iron grip. In the west, the seeds of an enlightened revolution are being sown.

For whom do you speak?

Game Description

In Censored Truths you take on the role of a press worker inside a fictional authoritarian regime. Working at your desk, surrounded by silent surveillance cameras following every movement you make, your task is very simple: choose which articles you want to be printed for the underground newsletter. Choiches, however, carry weight.

Each article has two versions: one aligning with the regime, the other revealing buried truths. Will you decide to hide the truths and enforce the actual regime, or will you risk everything and publish revolutionary voices? Your action influence the public sentiment and the state control, tracked through the scores  Trust in the Establishment and Revolutionary Sympathy.

Your truths shape the story of the people living in Naşúl.

Game Demo:

Visuals

EXPO Plaque:

World building:

Cover Image:

Gameplay

After the intro, the user is shown with a virtual desk with interactable objects—articles, stamp, button, printing board, print conveyor— surveillance cameras, the map of the republic of Naşúl and some news. 

Six different articles are being shown: the player can grab them to read them and choose which one to print, snapping them to the printing board. After the player has chosen the articles to be printed, he must approve them grabbing the stamp and execute a stamping motion on the printing board. 

After that, an approved draft of the newspaper is generated and the user can grab it and move it to the print conveyor to be sent for printing, and the round is over.

A new round starts and the user must choose other articles, continuing to shape the future.

Cultural Impact

Censored Truths merges an actual gameplay with meaningful civic engagements. It invites players to reflect on freedom of press, rule of law, and cultural heritage.

By choosing which version of the articles to print, the player is faced with a moral dilemma: sacrificing everything to reveal the truth, going against the law and follow a real freedom of press, speech and thought, or just go with the authoritarian control.

Every printed truth becomes an act of resistance, of rebellion against the government. The purpose of this is for the player to consider how societies record history and what is the cost of silence, but not only: dissent has also an impact in shaping cultural memory and civic awareness, which could lead to negative consequences for many.

Much like the painters from the Danish Golden Age, our game uses interactive journalism to show how stories of conflict, resistance and order can be shaped by just one person after the fact. Like in Rytterkampen ved Aarhus, where national identity and public memory is shaped even with false details, in Censored Truths every article you choose to publish — or suppress — becomes part of the narrative fabric of Naşúl, shaping its national identity and public memory.

Team Reflections

As a team we had a shared desire to explore how memory, media and power can shape the cultural heritage. During the weeks, we iterated through different and  broad ideas (media saturation, memory defense, narrative control) to a strong concept with real cultral depth, for which we are very happy and satisfied.

We tried to create a big world around this game, leaving behind no aspects. The hard part of this was to balance the narrative, limiting the size of each article keeping it enjoyable to read and highlighting their respective values.

We are aware of graphic defects, like the fade animations, text, or the lack of AR interactions. AR solutions like Spatial Anchors could have been used to give a position and orientation of the virtual objects in the real word, solving some of the problems experienced during the EXPO presentation. 

Overall, we received positive feedbacks at the EXPO, especially on the world building and concept of the game. Some feedback positively judged the mechanism of the stamp, which is basically like a real-life stamp, while others feedbacks evaluated positively the mechanism of grabbing and reading the paper. 

Credits:

• Cover Image generated with ChatGPT