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Australian Game Simulates Prison Escapes
An anonymous reader writes "The Australian newspaper The Age is running a story about a computer game that simulates real detention centers, inviting players to find a way to escape. The game uses actual Australian detention center layouts, and simulates things like the exact time that meals occur and "episodic violence". The kicker is that the project is sponsored by an arts group that has just received $25,000 in Australian government funding to develop the game."
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If this were in the US, then all the state would have to do is make the inmates wear uniforms with a copyrighted work printed on them. Then if you make a program that aids in circumventing access controls to the prisoners... :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I can't figure out what the overall goal of the original grant was; were they trying to design some kind of simulation that guards could use in order to figure out how to best deal with complicated, changing environments, much as the United States Army uses game-like simulators to prep for realtime battle conditions?
;) I sure do wonder how they're going to stop inmates that have a wallhack, though.
Or are they trying to make some sort of weird MMORPG out of the jail environment? I mean, it's a frontier that hasn't actually been touched yet. I don't know any MMORPG where you can be an inmate and relive your deepest, darkest OZ fantasies.
Hell, either way kinda works out for the powers that be. As players find new ways to escape, the administration can fix them in the real prison, then release a patch fixing it in the game as well..
` To open the console. /Clipping Mode Off/
;)
Noclip
This game shouldn't take to long now....
So games where you mow down armies of monsters with imaginary weapons will poison our childrens minds, but a game that teaches you to escape from real prisons gets government funding? What a wacky world we live in.
If I understand correctly (I'm not Austrailian), the sites in question are not prisons which contain Austrailian citizens who have committed crimes, but rather detention centers for unclassified immigrants who may or may not be refugees. The Austrailian government policy towards immigrants is a fairly contentious issue in Austrailian politics, which goes a long way to explain why an arts group might choose to create a game like this.
There's more irony here than meets the non-Australian eye. The facility at Woomera isn't a normal prison. It's a notorious "detention center" for refugees. The complaints about it and similar prisons in Australia is that people are locked away in horrible conditions and pretty much forgotten. Query Google for some back-story.
Seriously, this could also be good if it helps people realize jail is bad! ("This 5u><0rz! I got gibbed again!")
Lastly, if you want to prevent escapes:
"This is your collar. That is the transmitter. Get too far from the transmitter, BOOM! Take hostages, BOOM! Damage transmitter, BOOM!"
www.eFax.com are spammers
Reminds me of those companies that offer money to people for breaking into their system, so that they can learn from how it was done. I just hope its realistic enough.. I trust all the health packs and power ups are 3.4 cm. from the walls just like they are in the real prison.
Wasn't this an episode of Whiz Kids, where Richie Adler was playing a game written by a prisoner who had modeled the real prison and worked out for him how to escape by evading guards and to "change color" by dying the prison clothes the color of the guards' uniforms?
Of course back then the prisoners and guards were represented as big square colored pixels.
They've played right into my hands. Now I can familiarise myself intimately with the center for aiding a real breakout!
Muahahahaa!!
Seriously, I hate our policy and detention centers. Problem is that breaking them out does more harm than good, ultimately.
Players will be challenged to escape using the means at hand - refugee action groups, sympathetic lawyers, digging tunnels or scaling fences - all based on actual events.
"We expect people to be upset," one of the game's creators said.
"But there's been a lot of focus on the victimhood (of detainees) and we really want to focus on the bravery and heroism of these people."
Requesting anonymity, she said the project was also a reaction to the Federal Government policy of restricting media access to detention centres. "They don't want people to know what it's like, and we do," she said.
So basically, someone in the Aussie government, got the thought in their head that it'd be a good idea to show that they were sympathetic to the people that they stuffed in detention centers. looks to me like they just wanted to play both sides of the fence: getting good press from the people that liked to see the guys locked up and from the people supporting the people that were locked up.
it seems to me that by trying to have it both ways, they're going to defeat themselves on both fronts. those that are happy to see those people detained will be/are pissed that the game's getting made with government funds and those that are sympathetic to the prisoners will get greater publicity from this hitting the news.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
How the Australian Government bans GTA3, and yet allow you to play games that simulate the brutalities of imprisonment?
Wasn't this the plot of a Whiz Kids episode?
... we're going to need something like this.
Because when the RIAA, MPAA, and Ashcroft Commandos (tm) lock all the gamer geeks up, at least we can easily escape thanks to the many hours we've spent in sims.
MIB: *breaks door down* MP3 Pirate? You're goin' to jail, buddy!
Gamer: A11 r1gh7! 1 0wnz0r at 7h@7 g@m3!
Trolling-putting a rubber c0ck down your pants and cutting it off with a chainsaw: noisy and it makes you look d1ckless
Guard: The prisoner escaped, sir
Warden: How did he do it?
Guard: A walk-through on gamefaqs.com, sir.
> If I understand correctly (I'm not Austrailian), >the sites in question are not prisons which contain >Austrailian citizens who have committed crimes, but >rather detention centers for unclassified >immigrants who may or may not be refugees. Thats 100% right >is a fairly contentious issue in Austrailian >politics, No, it's only contentious with the small minority of politically correct people in this country. >which goes a long way to explain why an arts >group might choose to create a game like this It goes all the way to explain it.
Myself I'm amazed they received funding from the sources they did. But it was only a matter of time with these new First Person games coming to the console machines that a game like this would be developed.
Look at the America's Army game. This is a huge hit and millions are playing it online. Why? Because it satisfies people curiousity of war.
Speaking for myself I am anxiously awaiting the release of this game so I can satisfy my own curiousity. Im sure we have all watched a crime drama of one sort or another on tv. Well this is just another way to look into the internal experience inside the prison system.