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Australian Game Simulates Prison Escapes

Posted by simoniker on from the escape-to-neighbours dept.

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."

5 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Easy to prevent in the US... by Danse · · Score: 4, Funny

    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
  2. Amusing by Wingchild · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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?

    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.. ;) I sure do wonder how they're going to stop inmates that have a wallhack, though.

  3. Right by HopeUnknown · · Score: 4, Insightful
    The game uses actual Australian detention center layouts, and simulates things like the exact time that meals occur and "episodic violence".

    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.

  4. Those are immigrant detention centers, not prisons by McMuffin+Man · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  5. Woomera not just a "prison" by sakyamuni · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.