A Casual Game About Genocide

Casual games are the antithesis to traditional games about genocide. And that is a problem.

The Armenian Genocide memorial in Yerevan, Armenia. Photo by author.

I started working on my casual genocide game project back in Autumn 2020. The de facto, self-declared independent state of Nagorno-Karabakh (also known as Artsakh) had just been invaded by the Azerbaijan regime in an attempt to reclaim its lost territory and provide a win to its civilians, following dwindling oil reserves and internal struggles exacerbated by the pandemic.

The extent of the attacks lead to a genocide emergency being declared for the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, who had inhabited this land for millennia and for whom this was their ancestral home.

Also around this time, Ludum Dare was coming up. For those who don’t know, Ludum Dare is a game jam where people challenge themselves to make a full game, following a specific theme, within two to three days, all in the hopes of getting ratings and feedback from other participants.

I love Ludum Dare. My first ever experience making a game was for a Ludum Dare game jam in 2018 and I’ve tried to take part in every one since then. But I had been so distracted by what was happening to my fellow Armenians that I didn’t even realise it was coming up.

Luckily, my musician friend who I usually collaborated with in these jams, reached out to see if we’d participate in this one, too. He was so excited that I thought, you know what, why not, but whatever the theme is, I’m going to make something based on what’s going on back home. He happily agreed and I sent him away to listen to some Armenian duduk music as inspiration for the soundtrack.

The theme turned out to be “Stuck in a Loop”. If you’re at all familiar with Armenian history, you’ll know that it most definitely is stuck in a loop. Genocide specifically is stuck in our historical loop, with countless ethnic-based massacres against us throughout history, culminating in the Armenian Genocide at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War One and continuing on to these recent aggressions in 2020 and again in 2023.

Genocide itself forms a sort of loop. The ten stages of genocide run from Classification (the creation of an “us” group and a “them” group) all the way through to Extermination and Denial. Denial is interestingly considered part of the genocide process because until the genocide is recognised, it remains unresolved and can therefore easily slip back to the previous stages to be repeated infinitely. The Armenian Genocide was never recognised by the perpetrators; we have never left our loop.

So, I thought I’d make a game about genocide.

All the games about genocide that I had come across were these heavy, emotionally-charged linear narratives. You would get to know a character, their life, their strife in the midst of genocide. You would empathise and understand the plight, the horrors, the turmoil of a human being at one of the most treacherous moments in history, usually the holocaust.

I couldn’t even start to make a game like that. Since the first attacks, I had stopped being able to think in coherent narratives. Making sense of words was no longer a skill available to me so there was no way I could create a cohesive, effective narrative, let alone in only a few days.

Instead, I had turned to abstraction and art, so I wondered, could I make an abstract game? Could I turn the mechanics of genocide into the mechanics of a game?

That and the fact that I wanted people to actually play my game so that I could get ratings, feedback, and participate fully in the jam. I had a feeling that this would be harder to do if I said “Come play my genocide game, have a great time!”

I also thought this might be a good way to approach a game about genocide anyway.

“Genocide” and “casual” are not a natural pairing, I admit, but in terms of game design, I think they present a certain, even necessary harmony.

Genocide is one of those terms that is so astronomically huge that ordinary people have a hard time imagining it could be happening in their present, as opposed to something relegated to a more backwards, savage past. But the reality is that an estimated 43 genocides were committed between 1956 and 2016. That’s not even counting the 12 genocide emergency alerts and 5 genocide warnings active for 2024 alone.

Understandably, people are very cautious to use the G-word. It comes with a whole legal framework and refers to something other than mass-murder, as many might initially believe. It definitely should not be used willy-nilly by those who have never at the very least looked into it.

But there is also a great resistance to use it where it does, by definition, apply. I noticed it in 2020: people were open to hear about what was going on in Nagorno-Karabakh, but as soon as the G-word was mentioned, they would get their backs up. “No, it’s not genocide, it can’t be. Ethnic cleansing sure, massacres, war crimes, ok, but not genocide, it can’t be.” As though calling those horrendous acts genocide was worse than the horrendous acts the word described.

What the word represents is horrendous, but unfortunately what is horrendous is more common than most would ever want to believe.

When ordinary people are unable to call a thing for what it is, or they’re not even able to recognise it for what it is, it makes it much easier for those who aren’t afraid to do the thing to continue doing the thing and get away with doing the thing.

So, I think it needs to be knocked off its pedestal of impossibility and brought back down to the plane of reality. Not because that’s where it belongs, but because that is where it has been all along.

And then on the flip-side, you have the term “casual”.

It seems as soon as you call a game casual, it suddenly becomes less of a game. Despite the fact that millions of people spend hours of their precious time playing casual games. Despite the fact that these games are intended to be played with only a fraction of a player’s attention, during stolen moments throughout their day, and yet they’re still able to fully engage with them to the point where these games take over their minds and even invade their dreams. There’s nothing casual about a game with that kind of power.

Casual games are the antithesis to traditional games about genocide. And that is a problem. There’s only a very small audience who will happily play such emotionally-charged genocide games, and they’ll likely have to wait for a moment of particular emotional resilience before they’ll even consider it. Plus, most of these games have a very short playtime and are hardly the most replayable.

But casual games? Games that are designed to be mechanically challenging rather than emotionally challenging? They’re often infinitely replayable, require minimum emotional effort or attention, can be picked up and put down at will, and, most importantly, are played by massive audiences.

Games with the power to not only be picked up by vast audiences but to stick with them too? Maybe that’s what a game about genocide needs to be if it has any chance of affecting anyone beyond those already affected.

So, I’m making a casual game about genocide. Something like the Candy Crush of genocide games, back when Candy Crush was playable and not whatever ad-infested monstrosity it’s mutated into.

Because I don’t believe games about serious topics need to be so serious. Respectful, yes. Meaningful? Sure, maybe. But not so serious that they alienate the masses and never fulfil the potential of what a game can be.

Read more about the game here.