Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You

If you love a good mystery, than you’ll enjoy looking for clues in Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You. This mystery is similar to “found phone” games such as A Normal Lost Phone, but the data is more broad than just a phone.

In the game, a murder happens in a dystopian country, and you are tasked by the titular surveillance system to find the murderer.

Help “Big Brother” Stop Terrorists

The game opens with your first day at the job for the company. You are looking for clues to help stop terrorist attacks. In order to find out who set a bomb off at Freedom Plaza, you must use the system in order to find clues. The player can tap phone calls, look at e-mails, and look at less private data such as social media accounts and blog posts.

The goal is to upload information called datachunks to a system that include important information like a suspects name, email address, phone number, and other relevant information.

Every time you upload these datachunks, it has a big impact on the outcome of the game, and of the lives of the people you disrupt. This can mean innocent people are brought to justice, or that bad things continue to happen if you get it wrong.

An uncomfortable truth

Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You makes the player feel dirty while doing their ‘job.’ The tactics used to get information are very invasive, and has real life implications for our own version playing out in the real world. It is certainly an eye-opener, and the results can feel serious and stay with you long after you’ve gotten the results. It’s easy to jump to the wrong conclusion in the game, and hurt people who are completely innocent simply based on an out of context connection.

This is likely the goal of the developers—to showcase how close we are to a similar reality, and how invasive it can be.

Some disturbing themes

This game holds nothing back, and because of this there are disturbing instances that may make some uncomfortable. In particular, there is reference to a character being ‘doxxed.’ Doxxing is where a hated person’s private address is revealed, and others are encouraged to cause harm to that person in a physical sense.

Other references to violence, drug abuse, strong language, and drinking occur. This is all text based as it is a reading adventure, but still could make some players uncomfortable.

Pros

• Well written
• Thought provoking

Cons

• Can feel slow
• Overwhelming amount of information