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Against All Odds: UNHCR Game Simulates Refugee Experience

Posted by Hsing Wei on 07-13-08

The UK branch of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) recently launched a graphically-rich online version of “Against All Odds” (originally created in 2005) with an associated factual website.  The game asks, “Can you flee and survive?  Test yourself.”

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Against All Odds puts players in the shoes of a political refugee fleeing from persecution, struggling to stay in a border country, and adjusting to a new life in an unfamiliar land.  A variety of scenarios and obstacles aim to simulate real-life struggles faced by refugees on a daily basis—including intolerance, interrogation, instability, and language barriers. 


Registration is not required, but all players must create a name, which helps to encourage identification with their refugee character.  While the “right” answers may seem intuitive, for the most part, the game design (especially the beginning few scenarios) successfully creates trade-offs that push players to feel the pressures and challenges that can defy doing what’s “correct” for themselves.  In the interrogation room, each answer we are taught as correct in the U.S. about rights and freedom is punished with bright red blood splatters inflicted by security forces (and your own audible gasps of pain).  The desire to answer for your rights is put in tension with wanting to avoid another slash.  Despite its 7+ age rating, several areas of the game can be rather intense.  Rapid heart beat sounds and incomprehensible grunting adds to the nervous and hostile atmosphere of several situations. 


Helping its objective as an educational game aimed for teachers and students, Against All Odds is free and does not require download.  Each of the scenarios also links to related “web facts” that include real-life personal stories (reinforcing the emotional connection) as well as links to articles, organizations, and other resources working to support the plight of political refugees.  Read more here or play to form your own opinion.