Could This Game Be a Game-Changer?

Imagine you were part of a secret core of elite global agents tasked with stemming the worst problems of famine, conflict and disease before they could wreak havoc on the world. Would you respond to the challenge?

That's the question at the center of Evoke, a new massive, multiplayer online game designed to get people around the world -- particularly young people in Africa -- involved in creatively brainstorming ideas for how to build a better future.

The game is set up as a 10-week program. Each Wednesday night, a new "Evoke" is released along with a Mission that gives players a task -- one that spurs them to think or act creatively with the goal of social change. The mission involves doing something and then reporting back on it with a blog post, tagged photo, or some other artifact that confirms their participation.

The game started last week, and the first Mission is "Master the mindset of a social innovator." The first part of the mission is to "Learn." You do this by reading a blog post about the traits of innovators in Africa and sharing one trait in a blog post within the game network.

The next part of the mission is to "act." In this case, action means "finding a hero to shadow." Put more simply, they're having people look at PopTech Social Innovation Fellows, Ashoka Fellows and other social innovators, and follow them on Twitter, Facebook, or blogs. Again, the Evoke agent then shares why they chose that particular hero via a blog post shared through the Evoke social network.

The last task of the mission is to "imagine." Specifically, Evoke agents are prompted to imagine where they will be in 2020 and how they will be changing the world on a daily basis.

The game is a collaboration between the World Bank Institute and alternative reality game designer Jane McGonigal. At TED this year, McGonigal spoke about how video gamers have all the attributes necessary to change the world -- drive to complete specific goals and tasks of increasing difficulty, incentives to work in teams, and more -- but that such potential represented a lost opportunity, because the worlds they were changing weren't real. The problems they were prompted to solve were fictional.

Evoke is an early attempt to change that equation. This is a fascinating approach to getting new people -- particularly young people -- involved with and excited about social change. I can definitely see how although the action taken -- reading and engaging with blogs, following social innovators on Twitter, eventually volunteering perhaps -- is not "new" per se. But adding the context of a larger narrative and community could change the intentionality of the experience and bring new people into the conversation. The most interesting part is the interface between the "game," and the real world. The context is created by the game Evoke, but all the material people are engaging with exists in the real world of real problems.

So how's it going? A little less than a week after it's release, there are about 9,000 people signed up to play, and pretty active discussions are happening around the missions. It seems like there are a good chunk of people who are passionate about it already. My user interface perspective suggests the site itself is a little hard to navigate and jump into, which may keep some people away. But all in all, for a first effort, it's pretty awesome.

I've signed up to the community and will try to post somewhat regular updates as the game proceeds.

Check it out at http://www.urgentevoke.com and watch the trailer below.

EVOKE trailer (a new online game) from Alchemy on Vimeo.

Photo Credit: Screenshot from Evoke