6. The broken toy tactic: Clockwork worlds and activist games

The focus of this chapter is on ‘activist simulation games,’ which are motivated by an activist or political intention on the part of the gamemaker, and which attempt to harness simulation and procedurality in the game to convey the maker’s political critique or message to the playing public. Schleiner argues that that the ‘toyness’ of the world of such games, the miniature abstraction of the model that announces itself as game, not life, contributes to a nullif ication of the game’s critical impact. To break away from this situation, she argues, requires a ‘broken toy tactic’ of interruption or sabotage that breaks the spell of games’ procedural,