Created by Global Kids youth leaders at Canarsie High School in Brooklyn, Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City is a side scrolling game that focuses on the heroism of a young girl named Vivica Water during the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Although the Vivica's heroic rescue efforts are only played out in her dreams, the situations she and her neighbors overcame were definitely real.
According to Tempest's website, the three main goals for the game were
1) Teach players about how everyday residents of New Orleans acted heroically to help each other.
2) Emphasize what are perhaps the two most important priorities in any disaster: communication and use of local resources, needs, and knowledge.
3) Draw attention to the continuing struggle in New Orleans as residents fight for housing in 2008.
Tempest did a good job at 1) and 2), highlighting how many residents helped each other during the rescue efforts by sharing food, shelter, medicine, tools and hope. I appreciate the game's positive portrayal of the survival efforts during the disaster because at the time it seemed like all the mainstream press wanted to focus on stories of "looting", "pillaging", "general chaos" perputrated by people of color. Although Tempest was created in 2007 after the Katrina converage had ended, I believe the positive portrayal of all Louisiana citizens both white and people of color sends a subtle, yet very powerful message to players that everyone can be a hero.
Unfortunately in terms of 3), the focus on the continuing struggle for housing, I didn't get the sense that the game raised that issue other than the fact that Vivica is not living back home in Louisiana even one year after being evacuated. A whole new game to focus on the contining struggle for housing and infrastructure could be useful because it's a multifaceted issue facing many communities both in the US and internationally.
General Critique Disclaimer: I understand that the socially conscious games that I'm reviewing are independently developed usually with very limited manpower and funding. I also understand that these games have been created with a target audience in mind (which usually doesn't include hard core gamers). The critiques that I make are not intended to be jabs at the game designers and developers because I respect the time, effort and heart that went in to creating their game. However I believe that providing feedback is a good way for both game developers and the game community as a whole to learn what improvements can be made in future projects.
Now with that out of the way, let's get down to reviewing.
Gameplay
Gameplay consist of standard side scrolling elements such as running, jumping, swimming, collecting and delivering items and interacting with NPCs. Since the game only consist of 5 levels and can be beaten in about 10 minutes, the gameplay remains fresh with the first level focusing on jumping and ducking and the remaining levels focused on running, jumping and swimming. For a 10 minute game, I was pretty impressed with the variety in Vivica's move set because many similar sized games only have a run and jump gameplay.
Sound
Each level has a different background beat with a similar unifying theme. A small set of sound FX covers all of Vivica's moves as well as environment interactions like smashing roofs, opening doors, taking damage from sharp debris, etc.
Controls
Controls are intuitive and should be familiar to anyone who has ever played any post-Mario Bros era side scrolling platformers. As a gamer who was raised in the console style of using my left hand to control player movement, it would have been cool to have the option of using the WASD keys first person shooter style.
Social Conscious Content
The socially conscious aspects of the Tempest are much more subtle than other games like Molleindustria's McDonald's Videogame, but are powerful none the less because they come across so naturally. Here's what I observed.
1) The main character Vivica is a young African American female - These three facts are important because they break with video game convention which primarily features main characters who are male, either racially white or Asian and range between 18 to 30 years old.
2) The game's story involves child's dream of finding her mother who in reality is most likely dead. Most games, especially those targeted at a younger audience usually don't cover serious issues such as mortality and parental separation or death. Although the game never explicitly mentions whether Vivica's mother is alive, I would assume that since Vivica hasn't heard from her mother even after a year, Vivica's mother didn't survive. I commend Tempest for raising such a mature issue.
3) There is no mention of Vivica's other parental figure, which I would assume either means he or she passed away or was not a part of Vivica's life either by choice or not. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but I am glad that the game touches upon the point that single parent households are becoming more common place.
4) In the last level, I found it impossible to save all the residents in trouble becase I ran out of daylight. I'm not sure if this was intentional or perhaps I just wasn't good enough to time every thing correctly. I interpretted the failure to save everyone in the last level as a statement about the futility of trying to save every person in need even if you do everything perfectly and try your hardest. The thought of having to leave people behind in order to save yourself and others is an unfortunate and disturbing concept, but I think it touches on the grim reality that decisions made in diaster and life or death situations have very serious outcomes some unavoidable.
Overall
Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City is a solid, yet short side scrolling platformer that will appeal to a younger audience with its bright graphics, intuitive controls, young herione and message of youth empowerment, community heroism and diaster preparedness. More experienced gamers will have no problem finishing the game in under 10 minutes or may tire of the simple gameplay before completing the five levels, but all gamers will walk away with a better understanding of the situtation many faced in 2005 and are continuing to face in the aftermath Hurricane Katrina. In terms of socially conscious content, Tempest touches upon several serious and mature issues that are important to players of all ages and to people of all cultures.
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