Game Log 3 - Imagine

Process and refinements - From Play to Prototype

After the PLAY phase, we moved from concept discussions to concrete mockups and interactions. The game, Censored Truths, was selected as the main concept because of its strong connection to the EPIC-WE theme of Heritage Remixed, and its meaningful focus on European values like freedom of speech, rule of law, and critical citizenship.

In the IMAGINE phase, our goal was to make an interactive mockup and a functional AR prototype that allows players to interact with censored or biased news articles and explore the consequences of spreading the truth or propaganda.

IMAGINE Methods Used

Interactive mockup

To evaluate our idea and imagine if our mechanics are feasable, we decided to build a functional AR mockup with Unity. This includes different mechanics and objects:

• A set of news that can be read by users, who will have to decide which of these send to print.
• Articles are grabbable and placeable into a “Print Area”, which triggers variable changes (e.g. Trust in Establishment, Revolutionary Sympathy). At the moment, articles are simulated by already dragged-out green squares.
• Each article has a title and summary text.
• A stamp grabbable by the user.
• An area to reproduce videos, giving feedbacks on the consequences of the player choices during the game.

Cultural Provotyping

We framed the game as a provocative simulation of resistance under a fictional authoritarian regime. Having created a fictional narration of the events in the news, highlighting in them revolutionary or dictatorial preferences, the game provokes discussion about press freedom and civic responsibility by forcing players to choose how to report sensitive events.

To write the narrative and create the fictional world in which the story takes place, we created a story board on miro with a section for worldbuilding, and a flowchart visualizing how the different articles affect the storys progression. After coming up with an interesting cast of characters and a world for them to inhabit, we began to think of different sub plots and ways in which they could be framed as articles with different biases. The result is a story that loosely parables the events of the french revolution and the age of enlightenment. Set in the fictional island nation of Naşúl, the story revolves around of a cast of different factions, each of which has their own ideological goals. 

The Establishment, led by an unnamed autocrat known simply as "the chairman", seeks to maintain total control through censorship, fear, and the illusion of unity. The aristocracy, wealthy industrialists like Pietr Vassbotten, prop up the regime to protect their privileges, caring little for ideology beyond preserving the status quo. The gerdarmilja, a militarized police force, officially serve the Chairman, but under the uncertain leadership of general Costace, their loyalty is fragile. Finally, the revolutionaries, led by poet-philosopher Guarin Delacroix, seek to awaken the people and overthrow the regime in favor of an egalitarian republic. Their movement gains momentum after Vassbotten’s murder and the circulation of Delacroix’s manifesto. The investigation of the murder, and the subsequent trial of the prime subject Danté Lacusta, is a central plot point, the outcome of which depends on the players previous choices. The player, editor-in-chief of the illegal underground newspaper Voice of Zienicza, must navigate these factions — choosing which truths to reveal, which lies to spread, and who ultimately shapes the fate of Naşúl. By framing articles such that the narrative either contradicts or aligns with the goals of each faction, the player chooses how the different subplots play out. Towards the aim of a playable prototype, we wrote the stories for the first round of the game. Here, the player picks the framing of three selected stories. One regarding the murder of Vassbotten, one regarding the censoring of a novel by Delacroix and finally a memoir by an officer of the Gendamilja. Here the player has the choice between a memoir from a torn soldier, calling into question the actions of the Gendarmilka, and a memoir from a loyalist, affirming the Gendarmilja's authority.

We also discussed the various ways in which to implement the internal logic that determines progression of the story. Here, we settled on a system where some events are direct outcomes of previous choices, and other events happen when the internal counters measuring the public sentiment and development of the different subplots reaches some particular state. For instance, at some future point in the game when the trial of Dante Lacusta takes place, he is either found guilty or acquitted depending on the sentiment of the jury, and the choice between articles the player is offered reflects this outcome.

Prototype and Playtesting

Short demo of the prototype

The prototype uses the Snap Interactable interface so each article can be presented to the player and handled more easily. This keeps the desk area in the game neat and helps make everything feel more organized. It also makes scoring easier, since the player’s choices are tracked directly through the snapped elements in their respective lists.

To let players grab and move the articles without interfering with the scrollable UI (which shows the article text), a few solutions were tested. One that worked well was adding a small handle—like the green square shown in the video—under each article to make it easier to drag around

Playtesting 

We conducted an internal team playtest with the interactive AR mockup. Players were introduced to a short scenario where they worked in a press office and the description of the game concept.

Multiple observation have been pointed out, on both the technical and emotional side:

Technical observations:

• The interaction with the papers feel incomplete, due to the missing feature of dragging out the news from its container, while there are some issues with scale/grab precision.
• Lack of cohesion with the idea, as the news are not graded yet for managing the revolutionary or dictatorial statistics. 
• Having explained the mechanics beforehand was helpful, but having some narrative voice or written directions woud be appreciated.

Emotional observations:

• The feeling of oppression could be expressed more, using visual and audio effects. The propaganda videos set in loop would definetely make it more suggestive, which aligns with our idea
• The core idea reflects with the EU values we stated
• The feeling of doing the correct choice or not cannot be valued yet, as the core mechanic of evaluating the choice is still not implemented.

Before completing the playtesting, we already listed out what we were working on, and told them after the players expressed their ideas. The Improvements that we are already working on:

• A visual indicator (color-coded) on the news showing which side it supports (revolutionary or establishment), to make the first choices for the user easier. An easy algorith will manage the "scoring" system.
• An article container with two selectable news fragments. Articles will be dragged out the container of the news and moved by users into the Print Area.
• The stamping function.

Postponed Playtest with Group 13

We had a post-poned playtest with another Cultural Game Jam team to test our AR prototype of Censored Truths. The session strongly reinforced our core mechanics and narrative vision.

The players understood the gameplay loop — collecting articles, reading between lines, and the mechanics to choose what to publish. The physicality was described as "satisfying and symbolic", even though at the current state of art "something is still missing".

Narratively, the game was described as captivating. The testers gave positive feedbacks on the ethical question of maintaining propaganda or risking exposure of the truth. They said that the experience transmitted well the feeling of working for an oppressive regime, but they suggested the inclusion of further environmental effects (sound, visuals) to enhance immersion. The articles seemed too long, risking "to get bored easily".

The articles mechanics "needs to be fixed" as they snapping interaction was not satisfactory, to cite the tester: "you take many tries before trying to get the correct article in your hand and put it in the printing board". 

While some UI clarity issues remain and the scoring system was not visible, testers were excited about how their choices could shape public opinion. The session confirmed we’re on the right track and highlighted the importance of finalizing feedback mechanics and emotional tone before the EXPO.

The playtests confirmed our thought, which is that our mechanics and ideas are on point, engaging and intuitive, but they are not fully implemented yet. The mechanic of grabbing the news seemed reasonable and not annoying on the long run, as it resulted as not tiring movements.

Finally, we need to refine our prototype and implement core mechanics which will change the feelings of the game, making it emotionally and technically more complete. We plan to make the grabbing system smoother, to implement the statistics system and the dragging mechanic of the single news out of a double-news container. 

We look forward to work on it and get it ready for the EXPO!