Disposable Mentality Needs Re-Design

Michael Ciaglo and Dave Philipps recently published an amazing story, Disposable: Surge in discharges includes wounded soldiersfor the Colorado Springs Gazette. Amazing multimedia integration, heart-wrenching story, thorough documentation—just fantastic.

Reading the story got be thinking about videogame design—what would a FPS look like that begins with the IED blast, then tries to reintegrate a soldier (un/successfully) into society? Real people are being forced through this experience by the thousands; maybe a game could provide for a more comprehensive facilitation in terms of both societal reintegration (for military) and cultural reconstitution (for non-military).

It could be a FPS and RTS integrated system in which a player has the opportunity to analyze and affect the social and legal systems in place that create barriers to re-entry. The player should also have the ability to manipulate time—move forward and backwards—in order to experiment with different solutions and mechanisms.



When I think I have time for something other than homework or grading papers