If the voice acting and full-body
motion capture are any indication, great care went into making The Curfew, a
polished and attractive interactive work. Every line of dialogue is spoken; each of the characters
is fully animated. The game is published by Channel 4 and written by Kieron
Gillen, former editor of Rock Paper Shotgun, who is currently focusing his
attentions on his comic book writing.It is 2027
and you are living in an authoritarian state where the politics of security and
safety have superseded citizens' freedoms and rights. It has reached the point
where a curfew is imposed on the city. You find yourself at a safehouse and
appear to be part of an underground resistance movement. You have been charged
with relaying "the information" to someone you trust--one of four strangers in
the safe house--in hopes that they will use it to "change the course of history."
The structure of the game is quite simple:
after initiating a conversation with one of the strangers, you get to revisit
and play through the story of how they arrived at the safehouse. There are
four strangers in total: Lucas (The Boy), Aisha (The Immigrant), Leah (The
Dissident), and Saul (The Ex-Policeman). In the flashback, you will talk to
some people, gather some clues, and play a minigame or two before returning to
the present and entering what is called the "questioning phase." This consists
of a series of questions in which you interview the stranger to determine their
trustworthiness. This repeats for each of the characters until you reach the end
of the "web-game" (the site's own label for itself).Using this
specific name creates certain expectations in the audience:The
Curfew is both a game and designed specifically for the web. Littleloud, the
creation team, does an impressive job of the latter, using Flash to create
detailed environments, an easily navigable UI, and an aesthetically pleasing
browser-based experience. It is the inclusion of "game" that raises my
objections.The Curfew is a linear, dialogue-heavy narrative with
ludic interruptions. This is by no means a dismissal of The Curfew as such--linear
narratives can be expressive, creative, and powerful ways of communicating. Though
I admit that the label might be being applied rhetorically ("web-narrative" doesn't have
the same ring to it, after all), "game" is not a word to be taken lightly. As a
game, The Curfew ends up feeling forced and gimmicky, which ultimately
detracts from both its political rhetoric and its dystopian narrative experience.
The structure of the game is quite simple:
after initiating a conversation with one of the strangers, you get to revisit
and play through the story of how they arrived at the safehouse. There are
four strangers in total: Lucas (The Boy), Aisha (The Immigrant), Leah (The
Dissident), and Saul (The Ex-Policeman). In the flashback, you will talk to
some people, gather some clues, and play a minigame or two before returning to
the present and entering what is called the "questioning phase." This consists
of a series of questions in which you interview the stranger to determine their
trustworthiness. This repeats for each of the characters until you reach the end
of the "web-game" (the site's own label for itself).Using this
specific name creates certain expectations in the audience:The
Curfew is both a game and designed specifically for the web. Littleloud, the
creation team, does an impressive job of the latter, using Flash to create
detailed environments, an easily navigable UI, and an aesthetically pleasing
browser-based experience. It is the inclusion of "game" that raises my
objections.The Curfew is a linear, dialogue-heavy narrative with
ludic interruptions. This is by no means a dismissal of The Curfew as such--linear
narratives can be expressive, creative, and powerful ways of communicating. Though
I admit that the label might be being applied rhetorically ("web-narrative" doesn't have
the same ring to it, after all), "game" is not a word to be taken lightly. As a
game, The Curfew ends up feeling forced and gimmicky, which ultimately
detracts from both its political rhetoric and its dystopian narrative experience.
There are three main ludic elements to The Curfew. The player encounters the first two--badge-collecting and minigames--mostly through flashbacks and the explorative phases. The third is the questioning phase, which I will discuss in detail in Part Two. Badges in The Curfew are not entirely similar to the ones made popular by social games such as Foursquare. Whereas the latter rewards a player for reaching a specific (and often arbitrary) goal, the former awards badges for exploring the virtual space.Each character that you play has a cell phone that can detect "airtags," graphical symbols that mark objects. When the player clicks an airtag, she will get a little blurb of information relating to the marked object. This can be a useful tool for adding depth to a fictional world by providing supplementary information that is not critical to the narrative but is available to the player should she choose to learn more.This is rarely the case in The Curfew. Airtags sometimes offer propaganda or a jingoistic slogan, which contributes to the tone of The Curfew. Often, they offer information that is irrelevant to the narrative, like the airtag on a starfish that reads: "The starfish is capable of sexual reproduction. Or, if it is unable to get a date, asexual reproduction." While mildly amusing, the player does not get any information that is meaningful to the plotline.
What is more significant is the way in which airtags functions as a mechanic. A loading screen instructs the player: "There are three collectible items in every scene. Find them all and you'll unlock bonus content." This puts more emphasis on exploration as a primary activity. In The Curfew, however, this creates what Clint Hocking refers to as ludonarrative dissonance, where the mechanics of a game conflict with its imagined narrative.In the fictional 2027 environment, there is a pervasive sense of urgency. The very title of the game is indicative of this, but it is also apparent in the main premise ("You are hours away from capture," says the loading screen). However, much of The Curfew relies on exploration: looking for airtags, finding clues, and initiating conversations. There is one point in the game where this dissonance is made explicit: The Immigrant's parents are in detention and slated for deportation because they didn't have identification at a security checkpoint. She finds herself in a warehouse of stolen goods, looking for the stolen passports.This is one of the few sections in The Curfew where the mechanics match the narrative: there is a countdown timer, creating a literal sense of urgency to match the imagined one. The player must click through the boxes of contraband (art, vinyl records, books) in search of the passports. Each click elicits an explanation from the character. On discovering a box of comics: "Whoa, I heard about these! They used to have comics that weren't on the web. Mental!" Listening to the spoken monologue wastes precious seconds in what is supposed to be a scene of rushed panic. Ironically, the scene in which the mechanic matches the macro-narrative is the scene where the micro-narrative clashes with the mechanic.
Similar dissonance occurs when the player encounters minigames in The Curfew. Minigames are often used as parentheses, as a break from the primary game mechanics. This intermittent play is out of place both thematically and mechanically. The rhetoric of The Curfew is heavy and explores rampant militarization and the loss of civil liberties. Though the minigames make sense within the context of the narrative, they feel trivial when juxtaposed with the overarching themes. When playing as The Dissident--the government employee/underground party organizer--you sneak into her office to get some damning information against a high-level official. The minigame is to deactivate the security cameras by spinning a series of geometric shapes until they line up. There is some pattern recognition involved, but the game itself can be reduced to spinning the shape in one direction until it flashes green. I do not need to exert any effort, nor is there any sense of accomplishment when the task is completed. This is immediately followed by a minigame where The Dissident "uploads" a "hack app," which is a matching game with QR codes.This is not to say that play is fundamentally incompatible with serious thematic content, but there should be some correlation between the two. Because there is no logical relationship between the narrative and the mechanic, the minigames feel arbitrary, like they are included so as to legitimize the "game" label. Moreover, the player feels arbitrary; the way she interacts with the game is inconsequential. This is particularly damaging to The Curfew, where "your" choices are the key to combating the government's authoritarian rule. The blatant illusion of player agency made evident by poorly-planned mechanics creates dissonance with the implied agency of the narrative.
What is more significant is the way in which airtags functions as a mechanic. A loading screen instructs the player: "There are three collectible items in every scene. Find them all and you'll unlock bonus content." This puts more emphasis on exploration as a primary activity. In The Curfew, however, this creates what Clint Hocking refers to as ludonarrative dissonance, where the mechanics of a game conflict with its imagined narrative.In the fictional 2027 environment, there is a pervasive sense of urgency. The very title of the game is indicative of this, but it is also apparent in the main premise ("You are hours away from capture," says the loading screen). However, much of The Curfew relies on exploration: looking for airtags, finding clues, and initiating conversations. There is one point in the game where this dissonance is made explicit: The Immigrant's parents are in detention and slated for deportation because they didn't have identification at a security checkpoint. She finds herself in a warehouse of stolen goods, looking for the stolen passports.This is one of the few sections in The Curfew where the mechanics match the narrative: there is a countdown timer, creating a literal sense of urgency to match the imagined one. The player must click through the boxes of contraband (art, vinyl records, books) in search of the passports. Each click elicits an explanation from the character. On discovering a box of comics: "Whoa, I heard about these! They used to have comics that weren't on the web. Mental!" Listening to the spoken monologue wastes precious seconds in what is supposed to be a scene of rushed panic. Ironically, the scene in which the mechanic matches the macro-narrative is the scene where the micro-narrative clashes with the mechanic.Similar dissonance occurs when the player encounters minigames in The Curfew. Minigames are often used as parentheses, as a break from the primary game mechanics. This intermittent play is out of place both thematically and mechanically. The rhetoric of The Curfew is heavy and explores rampant militarization and the loss of civil liberties. Though the minigames make sense within the context of the narrative, they feel trivial when juxtaposed with the overarching themes. When playing as The Dissident--the government employee/underground party organizer--you sneak into her office to get some damning information against a high-level official. The minigame is to deactivate the security cameras by spinning a series of geometric shapes until they line up. There is some pattern recognition involved, but the game itself can be reduced to spinning the shape in one direction until it flashes green. I do not need to exert any effort, nor is there any sense of accomplishment when the task is completed. This is immediately followed by a minigame where The Dissident "uploads" a "hack app," which is a matching game with QR codes.This is not to say that play is fundamentally incompatible with serious thematic content, but there should be some correlation between the two. Because there is no logical relationship between the narrative and the mechanic, the minigames feel arbitrary, like they are included so as to legitimize the "game" label. Moreover, the player feels arbitrary; the way she interacts with the game is inconsequential. This is particularly damaging to The Curfew, where "your" choices are the key to combating the government's authoritarian rule. The blatant illusion of player agency made evident by poorly-planned mechanics creates dissonance with the implied agency of the narrative.
