#Notifications game puts you at the centre of online harassment
#Notifications, a short, free computer game, makes the player the target of internet harassment, in the hopes of building empathy for people who endure online abuse in real life.
The short narrative game can be completed in a few minutes. The player wakes up in the morning to an alarm clock, and the first thing they do is check their phone. A fake Twitter, called Twiddler, appears on their screen, and a stream of nonsensical or stereotypical tweets fills their feed.
The player chooses to post a tweet from a list of pre-written responses. If they post a non-controversial or inane tweet (like "Looking forward to the weekend!") and no one will reply or engage with them.
If they choose to post something controversial or political, like "How could anyone possibly think that conservative politics is EVER a good idea?!" and they'll open the floodgates to trolls.
The game's creator Cameron Baker, from Sydney, Australia, told CBC News he wanted #Notifications to let players experience, "and hopefully empathize," with the experience of being targeted for an online attack. The reason, he says, is "to highlight that often online abuse is seen as insignificant or unimportant, but in reality it can have serious effects on those who are targeted."
Baker says he got the idea from his own experience with online harassment. He also drew from the experiences of his friends and colleagues, and controversial topics such as riots in Ferguson, Mo., and the video game controversy GamerGate.
Players can continue to egg on the online mob, and more abuse comes as a result — but it also continues if they revert to inane, non-controversial tweets.
"Often these campaigns are growing or organized independent of yourself," says Baker. "So whether you engage with the abusers directly or not doesn't really matter, because there is likely someone outside of Twitter going through all your online history to try and find more things to attack."
After going through several scenes — waking up, going to work, scrolling through a sea of insults, and repeat — the player is given the option to call a loved one on the phone instead. It's about connecting to someone outside of Twiddler: "someone human rather than just another faceless troll," says Baker.
When they choose to call, the game ends.
You can play #Notifications on a Mac or PC free here.
