tahta al-hisar—under siege
↑Tahta al-Hisar—Under Siege is a “real life 3D game shooter” developed and produced by ↑Afkar Media in Damascus, Syria. The game strives to mediate a middle-eastern view of the middle-eastern conflict to middle-eastern youngsters—and yes, (for technical testing ONLY ;-) there even is a playable demo online [.zip | 23.1MB], able to spread the idea way farther. Here is the game’s official description by the developers:
When you live in middle-east you can’t avoid being part of the image, as a development company we believe that we had to do our share of responsibility in telling the story behind this conflict and targeting youngsters who depend on video games and movies (which always tell the counter side) to build their acknowledgement about the world.
This game is suitable for 13+years age players, it contains graphical violence and shooting at military personal models, it does not includes shooting at civilians or abusing them, it does not include suicide bombing or any terrorist simulation, level contents are inspired by real stories of Palestinian people, that were documented by United Nation records (1978-2004), west bank and Gaza strip are occupied land according to UN law, and military actions performed by local fighters against occupying forces is considered eligible.
UnderSiege is about the modern history of Palestine and it focuses on the lives of Palestinian family between 1999-2002 during the second Intifada. All levels are based on true stories and we look forward to publish it all over the world on PC/windows platform.
Thanks to Vít Šisler there’s already ↵academical reflection on Tahta al-Hisar and related issues.
top pic from Tahta al-Hisar PC CD-ROM cover | the other pics are from the Tahta al-Hisar trailer