You might have heard people saying that politicians treat Prime Minister’s Questions like a game. Now, you can, too! Mark Richards of Pixel Politics has created PMQs, a text adventure where you duel with competing wild accusations and attempts to blame the previous administration. It even features the dulcet tones of John Bercow.
What’s your day job?
I don’t have a day job. I’m a graduate seeking employment. PMQs is part of what I’m doing at the moment as work on my portfolio; I’m hoping eventually to get a job in the games industry.
How did you get into games design?
I must have been about 14 when I decided to start designing games. That was when I began to play games with stories and characters that the player could really invest in. I didn’t decide it was the career for me, however, whether independently or in the mainstream industry, until I started loathing my degree about a year ago. I talk about what inspired me to start developing adventure-driven games using Adventure Game Studio (the engine PMQs was built with) in an article I wrote for A Hardy Developer’s Journal.
What was the idea behind PMQs: the Game?
The idea came directly out of what I was doing with Pixel Politics. I had really enjoyed doing retro video game-style caricatures of political figures and, one day, it just occurred to me that Prime Minister’s Questions is a real-life turned based battle, like those bits from the old Pokemon games. The game also happened not to be the straightforward, easy-to-script adventure game format I was used to, so it provided a nice challenge in terms of coding.
How long did it take to make?
It is pretty difficult to pin down how long it took before I was developing it in fits and starts during my final year at university. I suppose it took a few months, maybe. It was a relatively short project.
What were your influences?
As I’ve already mentioned, definitely “those bits from the old Pokemon games”. The HP bars are a mix of all the role-playing games I have played with a hint of fighting games like Street Fighter. The biggest influence, though, of course, is politics. I am obsessed with the drama and image side of politics and Prime Minister’s Questions embodies all of that perfectly. I suppose it wouldn’t be inaccurate to say I made the game just to use the line “I lead my party; he follows his!”
What do you think of PMQs — valuable democratic check or juvenile shouting match?
This has been the most-discussed issue since I released the game and, funnily enough, I did not intend for it to be. I made the game purely because Prime Minister’s Questions could be squashed nicely into a standard game mechanic and I thought I could make it quite funny.
As a direct response, I would say this: I admit the pantomime of it all is silly and the Prime Minister and leader of the opposition do end up exchanging scripted insults but Prime Minister’s Questions is a very important part of holding a government to account in the public eye for a couple of reasons. First, the PM has to be fully briefed for the event and this means he knows what’s going on in his own government. Second, it gets all the parties in one room to face each other on the issues of that time and, most importantly, their differences are made public. At least then they are not able to pretend the other does not exist.
As the for the shouting-match issue: the Commons is a small room, so it must be pretty terrifying. Surely the PM should be terrified at his weekly public trial, rather than relaxed?
Are there any other political games out there people might not be aware of?
There are a few but I would be lying if I said I had played them all. Politics-based games hardly occupy a saturated market and people should certainly make more of them.
What’s next for you?
I do have another political game planned out but next on the list is a short, quirky platform game. Hopefully, I will be using the release of that to launch my indie games studio, for which I have had the logos and blog prepared and sitting around for a while, now. It will be nice to get that up and running and to have all my projects under one banner. Oh yeah, sorting a job out would be great, too. One can hope!
You can download PMQs here.
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