USIP SENSE simulation, 27-29 March 2012

The United States Institute of Peace will be debuting the newest version of their “Strategic Economic Needs and Security Exercise” at George Mason University on 27-29 March 2012. Participation is free, but requires preregistration and a commitment to fully participate. All the details are below. My sources tell me that in the latest version includes [...]

Virtual military training and international humanitarian law

According to piece by Michael Peck at Wired’s Danger Room blog, the ICRC has been considering the international humanitarian implications of military simulation- and game-based training: The International Committee of the Red Cross, based in Geneva, is pondering whether the violence in video games violates international law. Lest anyone fear that UN helicopters are going [...]

Playing at the Eurozone crisis

How could we have missed this? Last month the European Central Bank has recently launched an iPhone and iPad version of its monetary policy game €conomia. The actual game is flashy (with catchy music too), but at its core very simple indeed: you simply adjust interest rates to keep inflation under control. That’s it. You needn’t worry [...]

Review: Rulers of Nations

There are a few global political simulations available to computer gamers—perhaps the most ambitious of them all is Rulers of Nations: Geopolitical Simulator 2, by the French simulation and serious games company EverSim. In it, players are presented with a truly overwhelming number of choices: c170 playable countries (plus their various regions), online or solo [...]

Fate of the World: Tipping Point

The environmentally-themed computer game Fate of the World, which we reviewed earlier on PAXsims, has now been rereleased in an upgraded version—Fate of the World: Tipping Point. Revised, rebalanced and expanded, Tipping Point is Fate of the World as its meant to be played. Take control of the GEO through the five original missions, plus [...]

Warco: A war correspondent videogame

This looks very clever indeed—a contemporary first-person shooter game that isn’t about killing, but rather about reporting on a conflict. Quite apart from providing a very different player experience, Warco could well illuminate the difficult practical, moral, security, political and other dilemmas faced by journalists in the field. According to a new article at Wired and Ars [...]

Review: Fate of the World

Fate of the World. Red Redemption, 2011. $9.99. Available for MS Windows and Mac OS. * * * I  had been intending for some time to do a review of the environmental management computer game Fate of the World, which was released earlier this year by the serious game developers at Red Redemption. Red Redemption [...]

Arrrr mateys, here be MMOWGLI…

The MMOWGLI (“Massively Multiplayer Online War Game Leveraging the Internet”) crowd-sourcing/simulation platform being developed by US Navy and the Institute for the Future will launch a live online playtest next week. As Wired has reported, the playtest will encourage participants to suggest new and innovative ways of dealing with the challenges of maritime piracy off the Horn of [...]

On being the bad guys

As many PaxSims readers may know, there has been considerable controversy in the electronic gaming world over the forthcoming release in October of Medal of Honor, a first-person-shooter that allows players to assume the role of US Special Forces—or Taliban insurgents. UK Defence Secretary Liam Fox has called for the game to be banned. Canadian [...]

Gaza to Ramallah

The Israeli NGO Gisha has released a new flash-based game, “Safe Passage,” which is designed to highlight some of the rather Kafkaesque residency regulations in the occupied Palestinian territories. According to their press release: Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement today launched the first computer game of its kind in Israel: “Safe Passage” [...]

build-your-own nuclear weapons

The Stimson Center has developed fascinating online education game/simulation—Cheater’s Risk—in which you play the role of a country trying to evade nuclear proliferation safeguards and monitoring. The simulation is interspersed with informative videos which examine both the various routes to the covert development of nuclear weapons capability, and the safeguards that might lead to detection. [...]

empowering creative geniuses everywhere

As we have in the past, PaxSims is pleased to present a guest post by Skip Cole from the United States Institute of Peace—where, among other things, he’s been working on the USIP Open Sim Platform. Comments are welcomed below, or Skip can be reached directly at rcole (at) usip.org. * * * What if [...]

more online development games

I’ve posted below two more online games that I probably should have included in my earlier post on sustainable development games. At some point I may collect all these into a single page of gaming and simulation resources. * * * Jason: Energy City JASON is a project sponsored by National Geographic that seeks to [...]

virtual cultures, virtual wars (or: how I plan to spend my summer holidays)

A hat-tip to PaxSims reader Carolin Kaltofen for pointing out two recent articles of interest on the military’s use of computer-based simulation for training. (Keep the suggestions coming please!) The first is a short piece by Katie Drummond in Wired’s Danger Room blog on the Pentagon’s use of video games to teach cultural sensitivity and [...]

online sustainable development games

A recent posting on the socialissuegames list highlighted a number of online games now available focusing on issues of sustainable development. Most are aimed at youth and young adults, and almost fall into the category of what might be termed “advocacy” or “consciousness raising” games rather than educational simulations—that is, they present a view that [...]