By The Associated Press
PITTSBURGH - A Palestinian suicide bomber blows up a bus, leaving the newly elected Israeli prime minister to puzzle over a response. A missile strike could ease security fears, or prompt more violence. A diplomatic approach might anger Israelis, leading to an assassination plot.
The complex choices facing leaders in the Middle East have long confounded observers. But two graduate students at Carnegie Mellon University are hoping their video game based on the conflict will help players find solutions - and raise capital for their new company.
Asi Burak and Eric Brown, along with a team of fellow students, have spent more than a year building PeaceMaker, a computer game that attempts to simulate the violence and political turbulence of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle.
With graduation just weeks away, Burak - a 34-year-old former Israeli intelligence officer - and Brown - a 29-year-old game developer with a degree in painting - recently formed a company, ImpactGames, to try to take the game to market.
But will a video game focused on a sensitive geopolitical standoff attract both players and investors? Proponents of so-called serious games, an emerging genre of interactive games that tackle real-world problems, think so. But major video game makers, while applauding such efforts, are wary of investing in them.
Serious games seek to educate and train public officials, students and professionals in various fields using video game simulations - technology used by the U.S. military for years.
"We had a challenge to make a peace game engaging," Burak said. "What we see out there is all of those war games. There is a reason people are making them - because they're engaging, there is a challenge, there is a conflict."
In PeaceMaker, players choose between the role of an Israeli prime minister or a Palestinian Authority leader. They make policy decisions, communicate with the international community and monitor opinion polls while coping with "black events" - bursts of violence that threaten to throw the game off course.
"They might happen at any time, like a suicide bomb or an Israeli military attack, and they can ruin your progress in one day," he said.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/701599.html
Will it have a "end the military occupation" option?I guess not, that would make it the shortest game ever LOL
