Hush Wins First Better Games Contest

The jury of the first annual Better Game Contest, part of the Values at Play Project, has announced its winner, Hush, “a unique, and personal exploration of the Rwandan genocide in 1994,” developed by students of The University of Southern California’s Intermediate Game Design class. The designers of Hush were Jamie Antonisse, Chris Baily, Devon Johnson, Joey Orton, and Brittany Pirello, and the contest jurors included Katie Salen, founder of the Institute of Play, New York; Jesper Juul, independent game scholar and Suzanne Seggerman, President of Games 4 Change. The jury applauded Hush’s “innovative play style”, and successful merging of mechanic and message. In Hush, players assume the role of a mother in Rwanda during the genocide in 1994. Players must remain calm as they soothe their crying baby to avoid detection by militants. The game is to be featured in the valuesatplay.org game repository, and all members of the winning team are to receive Apple iPhones. The goal of the Values at Play Project is “to make available to students, budding game designers, and seasoned game design professionals new ways of considering human values in the game design process,” and the design of Hush emerged from a brainstorming session using the Grow A Game cards, a game design tool developed by the Values At Play project, according to Jamie Antonisse. “The idea for Hush was actually born out of a Values At Play exercise,” says Antonisse. “We had to create a game from a randomly chosen game mechanic and game theme, and we drew "Singing" and "Human Rights". The contrast between these two cards posed a challenge and yielded many unconventional ideas, including the core concept for Hush.” “One of the things that attracted us to the concept is that the player isn't viewing this horrific event from a distance and attempting to ‘solve the problem’; rather, players are immersed in the moment, experiencing the terror of a Hutu raid. It's also important that even though the player is not in a position of power, the player still has the noble goal of saving a child.”