With a week to go until the end of this project, I’m putting the finishing touches on the ARIS game. Unfortunately, I still haven’t been able to test it. However, while its bones may be flimsy, the foundations behind the concept grow more solid with every tweak. Among the changes I’ve implimented so far, a few stand out the most:

Gender Imbalance

I initially scripted the game listening to the World of Warcraft soundtrack, which led to a fast-paced, adventurous, and occasionally violent plot. I love this plot, and I’m glad it goes beyond the initial tour of historically and ecologically important sites that I had initially thought of when considering ARIS. That said, Warcraft is by no means a flawless model, and there was one element I was very sure NOT to include in my AIRS game: the gender imbalance. I don’t play video games very often, but when I do I tend to gravitate toward the strong female characters, if they exist. Now that I’m building my own game, I can make sure women get their representation. And that’s already happened, with the Sisterhood of the Silver Shears and characters like Wild Jane. But while I was creating these characters, other nuances and failings became more apparent.

Lack of Representation

I don’t describe race, and this could be viewed as a form of erasure. Similarily, while I have lots of citizens and government agents enacting changes upon the landscape, I don’t have a single clearly Indigenous person reflecting on their lengthy history before settler occupation. Given that the game takes place on unceede Algonquin territory, this is a problem. However, I intend not to address this –not because I don’t believe Indigenous land claims aren’t important, but because I don’t believe myself capable of constructing a well-rounded, properly responsive Indigenous character without some form of proper consultation. Given the time span of this project, that’s not feasibe. While this isn’t meant to be taken as an excuse for a lack of representation, it is a documented justification of this decision. Hopefully it will be enough, for now. Were the audience more substantive than the four friends I’ve convinced to play this, I would likely put more of an effort into rectifying the issue. However, it seems unfair to bug Indigenous organizations with such a small return on their invested time.

Lack of Nuance when exploring local support and resistance

Another issue to contend with is the lack of nuance imposed by the narrative. You learn about the 1950 Plan for the National Capital and the NCC’s influnce on Ottawa’s landscapes, but the narrative paints these government actors as villains. I don’t have a single positive government employee, with the exception of Groundskeeper Willie, who is really just a spy for the Sisterhood. While this narrative doesn’t explicitly comdemn the Greber plan –though it is critical of the Greenbelt expropriations– it doesn’t offer players the opportunity to really evaluate the percieved strengths and weaknesses of the planning. It also fails to explore the nuances of local response, painting the discussion as one of resistance and oppression. In reality, many of Ottawa’s downtown residents were pro-Greber, having benefitted from the parkways, parks, and other planning initiatives that required very little municipal funding (however, there were some notable exceptions, like LeBreton and parts of Lowertown). The townships of Nepean and Gloucester resisted much more because they were faced with lost tax revenues, massive expropriations, and very few perks.

What is real?

Finally, the game grapples with the difficult task of showcasing narrative, fictionalized history while imparting real knowledge. I’ve tried to make the divide between real and fake more obvious through the use of documents, photographs, and other indicators of reality –though in a real videogame, this would mean nothing. So, I’ve tried ot make the divide more clear through narrative as well. The story is tied to a physical landscape with attributes reinforcing the factual narrative elements. For example, stories about Ottawa’s wharf are told at the water’s edge by the Bytown Museum and the ruins of an early industrial building, and are reinforced with photographs that contextualize both these physical cues and the narrative information. The fictionalized components, on the other hand, are delivered primarily by goofy characters with obviously fake names (groundskeeper Willie, anyone?), and a lack of contextualized evidence. They are also deliberately outrageous –not just odd, but well and truly beyond the realm of your standard local history. Jacques Greber comes back from the dead to deliver his lines, which largely involve wind spirits and the creation of the Greber plan as an act of revenge against humanity. The line is intended to be very, very obvious.