*click on icon to download game*
Giant Tank is an antiwargame. Giant Tank depicts a battle between a soldier with a rifle and a tank. You are not the tank.
[Requires free Scratch environment by MIT to run, available at scratch.mit.edu]
Giant Tank uses the language of games – action and simulation – to produce an anti-war message. The character designs may be products of modern warfare, but they are not specific to a particular conflict or nationality. The tank is an abstraction of the brutal machine of war, the soldier a hopeless, frightened individual sent to the front to fight on the losing end of this battle of unequal force.
Giant Tank questions many aspects of warfare and society. How does the value of human life change in warfare? Why do people follow orders even when they understand them to be incorrect or the situation to be hopeless? How conscious are we of these facts in games?
Giant Tank also questions the nature of games themselves. Do we really believe what the voice of authority says (including the game's rules and our concepts of what games should be)? Should we really believe the game that a rifle can actually destroy a tank? Do games require both winning and losing scenarios when reality does not?
Giant Tank is inspired by the classic Atari game Combat as well as the fictional unwinnable game Snakes and Foxes in Robert Jordan's THE WHEEL OF TIME ( http://www.wotmania.com/faqtopic.asp?ID=90 ). It also draws on the work of Gonzala Frasca ( http://www.ludology.org/ ) and Shuen-shing Lee ( http://www.gamestudies.org/0302/lee/ ). Giant Tank was built using Scratch by MIT ( scratch.mit.edu) and will require the Scratch player to run (not included). The scenario is based on many instances of mechanized vs foot soldier combat in film and literature and its horrific and frightening consequences.
