After some very busy months, I finally got round to writing about a fun game the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party officially released for smartphones this past summer: あべぴょん (Abepyon) is a casual jumping game in which the player has to swing the device left/right to jump from one platform to the next and climb the ladder of fame towards the top: the prime minister’s rank. And the best thing is, the character you control is no one else than Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō in various outfits. Before I say more, check out these links to get an idea of the game, or simply download it for your smartphone if you have one (careful, its addictive).
applink
youtube video 1
youtube video 2
Abepyon is surprisingly fun and addictive, because its
mechanics are simple and rewarding. You climb, receive points for each meter
you elevate the character, with which you can unlock new outfits for the PM.
More importantly, your achievements are signaled by displaying known buildings
which match the current height of your climb, and a rank in the
party/government corresponding to the height you achieve before falling, from
“member of parliament” over “leader of a parliament committee” to “cabinet
minister” and, finally, “prime minister.”
If you are
not content with simply enjoying it, you might want to ask 1. what it
communicates, 2. what it wants to achieve, and 3. if it is effective to this
end. However, I’m not entirely sure about 1., so 2. and 3. are even more
difficult to evaluate. Let’s start with the obvious. The game creates sympathy:
it’s fun, addictive, and not lacking self-irony, featuring a cute and
modifyable character and a playful overall design. Maybe I should stop here.
This is enough and I think the LDP PR office has done a good job in this sense.
Everything else is pure speculation...
But let’s
speculate for a moment. In his book Persuasive
Games, Ian Bogost (2007) shows how rule based gameplay can be used to
represent or evaluate simple or intricate systems by making the player part of
the system and granting him or her the ability to influence it. In one of his
examples, Bogost discusses the U.S. Republican Party’s 2004 campaign game Tax Invaders, arguing that by replacing
the aliens in the original Space Invaders
with John Kerry’s taxes and by positioning the player as the defender against
this assault, the game successfully turns the player into an active part in the
campaign against Kerry and the Democrats, which are at the same time framed as
alien intruders (103-109).
Whereas Tax Invaders
charges the player with defending the country against a threat, Abepyon offers a quite different message . The game prompts us to help Abe(chan), the game's character, climb the career ladder. Although one
could say that this contributes to the awareness that our individual actions
(votes) count, this message is weakened considerably by the fact that the
ascent leads no-where, at least in terms of political direction. (By the way, I’m
not sure where the comparison with all the buildings fits in, beyond its
feedback function. Maybe the LDP thinks of hierarchies in architectural terms?)
But maybe that is expecting too much. What do you think?
