The tongue-in-cheek game Nothing to Hide was born out
of creator Nicky Case’s dedication to privacy rights. Using the
game, he intends to chip away at confidence in National Security
Agency (NSA) procedures and give advocates something to think
about.
The “anti-stealth” framework is an “inversion”
of more familiar stealth-based video games. In the
Panopticon-inspired environment, players must control behavior to
please monitoring powers. Rather than avoid surveillance equipment,
players actively work to remain in sight of yellow, triangle
cyclops-eyed cameras. If a player walks outside the view of the
camera, he or she risks death by summary, trial-free execution —
because clearly he or she is a criminal with something to hide.
The name Nothing to Hide is, of course, taken from a
common blasé reaction to state surveillance: “Well, I’ve got
nothing to hide.” The game confronts this attitude by drawing
attention to the unpleasantness of being constantly monitored.
Players are thrust into a dystopian environment devoid of privacy.
Digital posters with creepy comments like “Smile for the camera”
and “Thank you for participating in your own surveillance” cover
the walls.
Case’s opposition to surveillance stems from the National
Security Agency leaks, but his time in Singapore also shaped his
disapproval. He
told Vice’s Motherboard in an interview:
William Gibson once described it as “Big Brother with a
smile.” There is quite limited free speech there—you need a permit
to write about the government in newspapers, and they try to jail
filmmakers and bloggers for subversion.
The surveillance platform offers up an interesting platform for
tricky puzzles. Spooky — if kind of groovy — music guides
players through a dark maze of silver floors exposed by spotlights
projected by the surveillance devices.
The Nothing to Hide crowdfunding campaign ends March
12. It pledges 10 percent of the proceeds to Mozilla, Electronic
Frontier Foundation, Creative Commons, Demand Progress, and the
Freedom of the Press Foundation, “because we need our digital
rights in this digital age.” You can try the demo on the website.
Check out the GamePlay Trailer:
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