Game designers Malath Abbas and Tom deMajo are using playful technology to explore the consequences of drone warfare with an online game and installation.
“I’ve always had a fascination with the inner workings of objects and processes – from buildings and bridges to cartoons and games,” says Malath Abbas, co-founder of Biome Collective. “How are these amazing structures, art and entertainment created?”
Malath and Tom came together through projects linked to Abertay University in Dundee.
Their first major game was Other, a location-based audio game designed in partnership with the National Theatre of Scotland. “We worked with local communities of all ages around Dundee to generate stories, sounds, and research that we could incorporate into the overall narrative of the game,” Tom says. “We used the city’s architecture as the framework for our story.”
Partnerships and community work led to Killbox, a game which explores drone warfare through the eyes of a pilot and a child. It has been developed with American artist and activist Joseph DeLappe and programmer Albert Elwin.
The pilot’s view is recognisable as a drone’s control panel, while the child’s world is heavily abstracted, with bouncing balls representing people. Players take turns in each role, alternating between targeting and targeted, and – in the installation version of the game – face each other while playing.
“Killbox is a game that explores drone warfare from different perspectives,” says Malath, who was born in Iraq but grew up in the UK having left during the Gulf war. The Iraq war, and the ongoing violence and instability, prevented him seeing his extended family for many years.
“It is both a game and interactive installation that meaningfully touches on a disturbing issue,” he adds, as the team designed an experience that engages both players and those standing nearby while it is played.
“People often become emotional playing it, and we have had a few tears,” says Tom. “We see this as a good reaction to a game about a distressing subject.”
The game has been nominated for a BAFTA Scotland award and shown around the world at games festivals, resulting in an invitation from the A MAZE festival to take the game to a festival of social activism in Kharkiv in Ukraine, on the edge of the border with Russia.
“Ukraine was an interesting experience for us. It allowed us to show Killbox to a different culture – one that is very close to the realities of occupation and war,” Tom adds.
The game’s name itself speaks of the moral and legal tensions around drone warfare. “Aerial combat is coordinated in space using cubes containing specific rules of engagement,” Tom explains. “These cubes – or ‘killboxes’ – make up a dynamic three-dimensional map of the area. When activated, killboxes become legal zones of operation for any unit assigned to it.”
With games often facing criticism for celebrating warfare and violence, Malath, Tom and their many collaborators show how powerful game design can be – and how thoughtful design can explore troubling, contentious issues in surprising ways.
For these achievements, we are proud to include them as V&A Dundee Design Champions.
“Design is an important part of life,” Malath notes. “It enables us to problem solve, exercise our creativity and provides an opportunity to contribute to society.”
Find out more about the project on the Killbox website.
Killbox is available to download for Windows and Mac from the Turbulence website.
The V&A Dundee Design Champions are inspirational designers creating high-quality work and helping to enhance people’s lives, or champions of the power of design to improve the world.
We will announce 50 Design Champions in the run-up to the museum opening on Saturday 15 September 2018.
V&A Dundee’s Design Champions project is working with Dezeen as its media partner.
Dezeen is the world’s most popular and influential architecture and design magazine, with an audience of 2.5 million unique visitors each month.
