Triggered: Gun Violence Simulator
I started building a controversial indie game last week. Before I describe the project, let me explain my motivation.
Science over politics
A few friends and I enjoyed a wintertime hike to a waterfall near Seattle last month. As we trekked through the forest, talking about politics, someone raised the topic of gun control. Being a liberal bunch, most of us had predicable points of view. One of my friends, however, shared ideas that didn’t fit neatly into a partisan box. He was liberal, but he owned rifles. He believed in gun control, but he criticized policies that restricted guns based on ambiguous classifications.
Truthfully, I don’t understand the evidence behind most gun control policies. I only know that gun control is “good” because of my politics in the same way that conservatives know it’s “bad.” But what if we approached the topic like social scientists? Instead of proposing rigid solutions, what if we agreed on the problem of gun violence and treated each public policy — or repeal of policy — as an experiment to end violence?
We can’t change political discourse for a hot-button issue overnight, but let’s explore the idea through a game.
“In the open-world game “Triggered,” you are a mayor tasked with ending gun violence in their city. You have the power to enact or repeal any gun-control policy.”
Introducing Triggered
Triggered is a top-down, open-world 2D game. You play the role of a mayor determined to end gun violence in their city.
Your first task is survival. You must last 60 seconds in the presence of one aggressive citizen. You can flee, buy a gun or build barricades to defend yourself. Each strategy has pros and cons. In the case of self-defense, every gunshot, whether you or the enemy fires it, increases a violence meter. A maxed-out meter means game-over.
At the end of each round, you can invest in new public policies that change your citizens’ relationship with guns. Examples:
If you enact a mandatory waiting period, citizens will wait at a gun licensing office before picking up their guns, prolonging the time until you’re attacked.
Invest in education to make citizens visit a local university. Gun owners with higher levels of education are less likely to commit crimes.
Hire more police officers to arrest citizens who attack others. The catch is that prison may increase the likelihood of citizens repeating gun crimes.
So far I’ve developed the basic city environment including a public park and gun store. I’ve built out the basic combat mechanics such as enemy pathfinding, shooting, and the player’s ability to construct defensive forts.
Stay tuned
I don’t expect a small indie game to change anyone’s mind about a hot-button topic like gun control. On the contrary, I want to let players of all political leanings manifest their beliefs, watching the pros and cons play out in realtime. The open-world sandbox is an interesting environment to illustrate some of the complex relationships among crime, education, law enforcement, poverty, and gun ownership.
From a technical perspective, I’ve come to enjoy working with the Godot Game Engine. I’m currently working on behavior trees to dictate how citizens spend their time. Some of their behaviors are complex. For example, if the player attacks an unarmed citizen, the citizen may visit a gun store before returning to retaliate. I’ll share more gameplay updates in the near future!