Reliving the Orange Revolution: Are You Sure You Want To?

As a teacher of World History I have found myself particularly interested with the waning days of the Cold War and the plight of former Soviet republics. I found the "Orange Revolution" off of the Games For Change website.

The game's tries to recreate the key events that took place during Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution in which two Ukrainian presidential candidates, Viktor Yanukovych and Viktor Yushchenko struggled for power in the hotly contested 2004 Ukrainian presidential elections. Yanukovych is the pro-Russian candidate who initially wins a slim majority over the pro-Western Yushchenko. But soon allegations of election fraud bring legal challenges from the Yushchenko camp sparking protests from both pro-Russian and pro-Western Ukrainians. The player is charged with making key decisions for both Yanukovych and Yushchenko during a tense 34-day political standoff. Each turn allows players to read a short summary of the daily developments and choose from one of three actions that each candidate must take. A rather simple public response meter tells players how the Urkrainian public reacts to the decisions made by candidates. The correct combination of answers from each candidate keeps citizens content, pleased, or otherwise peaceful. Poor decisions, or rather, a poor combination of decisions causes the public to steadily escalate from contentment to violence or all-out rioting. Decisions resulting in all out rioting result in losing the game (I lost after 3 rounds of decisions after my first attempt).

The object of the game is to keep the Ukrainian public content throughout the 34-day crisis and move your nation towards fair and peaceful elections without sparking all-out riots. I found the idea behind the game to be interesting, however I get the sense that this is an early beta-version of the game. There were several "fast facts" available through pop-up flash animations on the screen, but I found them irrelevent to the decisions that needed to be made. Each daily scenario is introduced through photos of the 2004 Orange revolution, but aside from the graphics onscreen there is an eerie silence to the overall gaming experience. After a few turns I found myself a bit bored by the experience. If this was to be used in the classroom setting with high school students, I think the game would need to have more pictures, animation, and sound to hold their interest. After a few failed attempts at "solving" the game, I lost the will to find the right combination of decisions to see the Orange Revolution through to its historic and peaceful solution.