A MAZE. / Berlin 2020

9th International Games and Playful Media Festival

Forest of Rumors

by Youngju Kim (Deutschland)

Genre: narrative-based simulation game

Forest of Rumors is a video game that simulates creating and spreading rumors about a murder mystery case. On level one, a player is told a story about the situation briefly and is requested to retell the story through six fictional characters. The player can move around the word blocks that are changed by each character. Depending on the player’s memory and the interests of the game characters, the story is inevitably distorted. On level two, the retold story is manipulated again based on the type of community the characters are part of. At the end, the rumor will greatly influence the crucial decision of residents in town. All the revised stories will be compared and analyzed alongside the original story. Forest of Rumors uses psychological game experiment to expose how rumors are made and spread.

Platform: Mac, PC