Topic: New game idea: Escape from Auschwitz

[Quickstrike]

Okay.  I just came up with this idea to make a game about a 13 year old named Il'ya Iosif, a Jewish-Russian prisioner at Auschwitz.  You must escape and alert others.  I've done some research on the names so far, but very little.  The thing is, I can't draw sprites!  I'm planning on using actual pictures for the background.  Can somebody make the sprites for this?  You will get full credit for the work on it.  I would like to thank whoever tries in advance.  This shall be  a serious game.    

[Barcik]

I also had an idea of a Holocaust game and was ready to start a thread about it. There is a whole moral debate here.

I first got the idea while watching La Vita e Bella, a great movie. And it showed the Holocaust in different manner, creatin a whole lot of controversy. So I thought - can a Holocaust game work? Can you do a 'game' about the Holocaust? Do the two not contradict each other. So, quikstrike, I think you should think about this first, before doing this game.

[Quickstrike]

That's why I posted here and not in the "Games in Production".  

[Goldmund]

Make it set in a prison camp, or whatever.
Don't do Auschwitz.
Very bad idea.
Read a little and learn for yourself.

[Quickstrike]

I know.  I'm Jewish and I know about the gassings, the digging their own graves and being shot.  This is not a humorous game.  I;m making it to show a little of what it might have been like.  I not going to do this anymore.  It would anger too many people.

[Simon]

To an extent, I think that adventure games are a pretty valid art medium and perhaps should be able to deal with real issues like that if the creator feels like doing so, but there's a problem when it comes to what other people perceive.

It's true that 'computer game' and 'Holocaust' are things that don't appear to gel particularly. It'd certainly be extremely hard to represent the most horrific crime of the twentieth century in a way that doesn't offend or trivialise the whole thing.  

It's not something I would want to attempt, or even feel any motivation to try and do, but if you really think you can do it right then go ahead. Personally I'd take Goldmund's advice because it's a very very serious thing, and even with your best efforts you may offend someone.

[Barcik]

This is just why I did the reference to La Vita e Bella. It's a tale about the Holocaust, but tells it in a comic manner (I am not saying that it is some silly comedy). It obviously shouldn't work, should it? In fact, it can only hurt people feelings.
But it did work.
And this is why I think that a very well crafted game about the Holocaust can work as well.

[scotch]

Comedy doesn't have to just mean poking fun at or making light of everything.. it should be perfectly possible to make a funny adventure game while keeping the right attitude to the Holocaust.  Although I do think a mainly serious game would be better.
Adventure games have the potential to do anything a film or book can.

[Las Naranjas]

If we laugh at what we're afraid of....



It's easily possible, but you'd need alot of tact to pull it off (and I think that you can go a long way)

[Mods]

Go watch Schindlers List and then think again if you want to make the game I'm unsure about your idea, but if the main character is Kurt Russell, then carry on!

m0ds

[Quickstrike]

I'm not going to make it.  It's too controversial and I'm not a big fan of hate mail.

[Goldmund]

I mean, a game about escaping from a Nazi prison camp (for example, a prison camp for English pilots) could be very cool and even humorous. But not from an industrial killing complex. La Vita E Bella wasn't about Aschwitz, was it.

I don't think that "hate mail" or offending anyone should deter you from doing what you think is right.
It's just that Auschwitz, in my opinion, is a place where no "quest" is possible. I would never believe that a man who had to shave own wife and daughter before leading them to a gas chamber could suddenly combine inventory items and find a way to escape the place where earth exploded from the gas of rotting bodies buried in it. Any attempt of thinking of such a story would result in you involuntarily taking a step towards making the memory of the place lighter and less terryfying than it was.

[Barcik]

I mean, a game about escaping from a Nazi prison camp (for example, a prison camp for English pilots) could be very cool and even humorous. But not from an industrial killing complex. La Vita E Bella wasn't about Aschwitz, was it.

I don't think that "hate mail" or offending anyone should deter you from doing what you think is right.
It's just that Auschwitz, in my opinion, is a place where no "quest" is possible. I would never believe that a man who had to shave own wife and daughter before leading them to a gas chamber could suddenly combine inventory items and find a way to escape the place where earth exploded from the gas of rotting bodies buried in it. Any attempt of thinking of such a story would result in you involuntarily taking a step towards making the memory of the place lighter and less terryfying than it was.

La Vita e Bella, from a historic point of view couldn't be any of these hellholes. But it DID make the memory of the horror lighter and less terryfing, and even more than that - it proved that contrversial things like that can go out well. And it worked. Yes, it got some people angry, but I think that they are wrong.
Can this game work? It surely won't be your regular escape game. It has to be smart as well, something that makes you think.
But to say the truth, I just can't decide if it's proper or not (not that I am going to make one). Perhaps I will only know when I'll see one.

[12431]

you shouldn't make a game like that, but you could make it a little humorous. you know, like in hogan's heroes for example And change the name!

you could make tons of wacky missions, like "steal the commandants armyboots",

"paint his dog purple", that's all i could pull outa my butt.

and it could end with the commandant release them, because he's so sick and fed up with their pranks.

I'd sure play that

[SSH]

I was in Auchwitz-Birkenau and I would tell anyone trying to make anything (film, adventure, whatever) about it to go there first. It is a truly moving place. The memory that sticks most in my mind is the huge room with a display case of the millions of pairs of shoes, glasses, etc. for all the people who were killed there. You just stare at it and think "Each of these belonged to someone who was callously disposed of here".

I also went to Colditz (Yes, I was Inter-railing) and it was very different from how I imagined. It was a world apart from Auchwitz too (actually I was in Colditz first).. you could see the respect and sticking to the Geneva convention in Colditz: and there were only a few prisoners there anyway. The board game "Escape from Colditz" was  pretty good... maybe a game based on that would be good?

[LGM]

You can expand on my Holocaust "game" if you'd like:

http://www.fbc-bettendorf.com/lgm/download/holocaust.zip


hehe pimpin' is fun