Harmony Square
Description
It's a lovely day in Harmony Square, and you are a horrible Chief Disinformation Officer.
Harmony Square is a peaceful place obsessed with its local politics, and its local news media is eager to report on anything that's going on - which makes the player's job much easier. The goal of the player is to exaggerate local debates and inflame opinions, and what better place to do that than the internet? In four chapters, players learn different techniques to influence debate: trolling, emotional manipulation, amplification, and escalation. In the process, players can see the results on local news headlines and see how they're affecting the town. Actions are taken via multiple-choice options, letting players choose between various strategies to spread disinformation and influence people.
This educational game was developed by the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge in order to inform players about how real-world disinformation campaigns work. It also aimed to act as a form of "vaccine": by informing players about how disinformation works, their goal was to ensure players would be less likely to be influenced by actual campaigns.
