Ross: ‘We are Chicago’ is a video game worth mastering
May 30, 2017, 6:44 AM
A video game called “We are Chicago” is designed to be more than just entertainment. It’s designed to keep kids alive.
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Four years ago, 28-year-old Michael Block came up with the idea to develop a role-playing game based on a Chicago neighborhood run by gangs.
You play the role of a high school senior and the choices you make determine whether you end up getting shot.
“The focus of the game is trying to educate people about what’s happening and trying to inform them about what’s going on in these kinds of personal situations that you don’t typically see because you’re making those choices,” Block said. “You’re having to decide what this player — what this character — is going to do in any situation.”
Block recruited Tony Thornton, who grew up in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, to head the story team.
“I wanted to represent my neighborhood well, but I didn’t want to sugarcoat it,” Thornton said.
CBS’ Dean Reynolds talked with Larone Robinson and Grady Griffin after they played through the various scenarios.
Reynolds: “Would you do the same thing that you do in this game? Would you go to the other side of the street and all this stuff?”
Griffin: “Yeah, yeah, I have to. That’s how you survive. …Playing this game, it’s not an experience to me, it gets personal.”
Reynolds: “You’ve actually been attacked.”
Robinson: “Numerous times.”
But the idea is, if you get good at playing “We Are Chicago,” there’s a chance those times will end.
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