Orwell: Keeping an Eye on You (2016)

J'aime les jeu en réalité alternée. Ceux qui se font passer pour des téléphones ( A normal Lost Phone, Another Lost Phone), pour une application de messagerie (Mystic Messenger ou Emily is away même si il m'a un peu déçue). Je trouve que l'expérience immersive est décuplée. Je peux devenir un agent secret, un flic, ou une joueuse aspirée dans un autre monde.

On m'a présenté Orwell comme un simulateur d'OSINT. Pour celles et ceux qui ne sauraient pas ce que cela veut dire, c'est un acronyme qui veut dire Renseignement d'origine sources ouvertes. En gros c'est un travail d'enquête à partir des informations publiques que vous laissez de vous sur internet.

Le concept était vraiment vendeur sur le papier et quand j'ai vu qu'il était gratuit sur l'Epic Game Store, je me suis dépêchée de me le procurer. Après une après-midi de jeu, je me retrouve un peu déçue.

En effet, le jeu même si il a une direction artistique en Low Poly super sympa l'interface est bordélique et sur un jeu de ce type ça ne pardonne pas. Glisser déposer les informations demande de naviguer entre les épingles des différents profils à chaque fois qu'on change de perso, il y a un milliard d'onglets à surveiller en même temps, des archives internet à faire pâlir ma bibliothèque Zotero... Le tout est en plus desservi par un problème de rythme: de grandes sessions de recherche où il se passe pas grand chose et une fin qui semble presque rushée pleine de révélation invraisemblables.

Il faut ajouter à ça que le jeu manque de subtilité. Je pense que c'est une chose commune dans les jeux qui se veulent militants (coucou Alt Frequencies) de débarquer avec des gros sabots manichéens. Genre personne PERSONNE ne peut avoir l'impression de bosser pour les gentils dans ce jeu. Je veux dire, la Nation a littéralement un bon gros programme bien Facho sur son site web et je crois même que l'image du premier ministre est une retouche d'une photo de Donald Trump. Votre collègue fait littéralement des phrases psychophobes et parfois à la limite du sexisme...

Et malgré tout la fin est foireuse. Ok vous êtes sensé jouer le rôle d'un lanceur d'alerte mais la manière dont vous y parvenez est capillotractée et juste pas réaliste. Et à moins que j'ai loupé quelque chose, le terroriste n'est jamais puni. Je ne sais pas si les créateurs du jeu se rendent compte d'à quel point cela dessert leur message contre la surveillance de masse.

Le jeu tombe aussi dans un des écueil de la SF en plaçant son action en 2017. C'est une jolie date de péremption...Il s'en sort par une jolie pirouette scénaristique en se plaçant dans une nation imaginaire mais tout de même.

Est-ce que tout cela ne nous détourne pas des vrais combats pour la neutralité du Web qui se jouent en ce moment-même ?

In Orwell, a country referred to as The Nation decides to set up a massive surveillance system that can spy on their citizens. The targeted data includes web pages, emails, text messages, phone calls, and devices such as computers and mobile phones. This system is named Orwell. The player character is an investigator for the Orwell system, recruited from outside The Nation so as to provide unbiased surveillance. As the player, you are tasked with investigating specific citizens connected to a recent terrorist attack. You do this by collecting pieces of information, called Datachunks, about each person. Datachunks lead to new datachunks, and therefore, new information.

According to The Nation's laws, any information uploaded into the Orwell system is actionable. This is where the game implements its choices. By choosing to upload or not upload specific datachunks, you can influence how the story plays out. Selection of some datachunks also pose a moral/ethical dilemma. For example, can you really consider an angry rant on social media as the true intentions of a terrorist? Or when you see conflicting information about a person's opinions, which version should be considered the truth? Choices like these and how they influence the story are what's unique about Orwell. As the person who's tasked to find out the truth, you'll soon find out that you can shape the truth in a way that you see fit.

However, the story is not without its flaws. Towards the end of the story, I found myself unconvinced by the arguments presented. It's impossible to discuss them without going into spoiler territory, so I'll leave it at that. Also from a technical persepctive, I found the game's UI to be a bit clunky at times. You can certainly get used to it, but it's not quite intuitive and there are a few problems. One minor example is how the Page-Up & Page-Down keys don't work on the web pages. Another, slightly bigger problem is how you have to watch calls and text message exchanges unfold in real-time. There's no fast-forward option for these, which make subsequent playthroughs rather tedious.

To summarize, Orwell is a interactive-fiction game based on an interesting concept and a unique story. It's not perfect, and it probably does not reach up to its ambitions at times. But with the increasing presence of digital information in our day-to-day lives, Orwell presents a dystopian view of how things could come to be in a few years. At least for that reason, Orwell is worth taking a look at.

I thought this game was quite interesting at first, but started to feel uncomfortable at times with all the spying -probably something the developers wanted me to feel, though-. What I thought they didn't want me to feel were some sort of lack of freedom while going through. Few decisions were actually something that I felt changed the outline of the story, while most of them were only like going with the flow.

I'd rate it with 2.5 stars, but as it's not possible, i'd say it approves. Barely.

This was a humble bundle freebie & it looked interesting. Orwell is an interactive narrative style game. You come for the story not the gameplay.

The story, as the name hints at, sets you up as a government investigator who spies on the civilian populace to make sure they don't have seditious ideas. I reckon there'll be spoilers ahead. The game starts with a terrorist attack on a national monument. It's up to you, your handler, and a new online surveillance system to piece together who was behind this attack. As the story continues you find out about a group of defunct activists who formed in college, because of course. Each chapter focuses on a different member of the group and how they all interact with each other. The story is well paced and they know how to use a cliffhanger effectively. Though the end of the story is a bit out of left field, and sort of discredits all the work you did. Towards the end there is a few hints dropped, but for the most part it's a twist for twist's sake.

The gameplay is a lot of sifting through phone & website logs and news articles to piece together bits of information & build the story. As someone who enjoys investigating stories, it was fun playing detective. Not so fun was sitting and waiting to watch the text messages and phone call texts slowly scroll out. It was a bit tedious and boring. There are points in the game where you have to pick between two sets of conflicting info and that sets the story on a different course, though sometimes it didn't feel like I saw the impact of these choices, especially since the game ends with the same twist no matter what.

All in all, while it's a fine little narrative game, I'm glad I didn't pay anything for it. If you like a good political thriller, I'd say go for it. Given the game was called Orwell, I was surprised they didn't really dig into the ramifications of too much surveillance, not til the end at least. If reading through a lot of text that can be stale at points doesn't strike your fancy, avoid this game like the plague.

A clever and visually appealing interactive story told in conversations, webpages and status updates. Beautifully made and presented. I also enjoyed the concept of being a surveillance expert trying to piece together a potential crime netwerk. I liked the ambiguity.

Sadly, the actual digging through information was kind of a slog and at times just not very interesting. Following the realistically slow text messages was a drag. Then there's the weird conflicting system where you have to "make a call" on what is the right data, without any real information to back that up. Which is uncomfortable? It's not quite clear if the game wants you to guess or make a narrative decision? That part of the game is not very clear at all. It seems to want to give you choices, and the main choice you can make, is omitting information. But the story doesn't progress until you do a certain thing, so you end up just doing everything you possibly can to advance the story. So that creates this weird experience where it feels like you don't have a lot of input.

The last chapter fixes this a bit, but it's not enough and too late.

Cool concept, but flawed.