Thanks for your interest in What Goes Around, v1.1 released on December 2nd, 2009

This is an experimental game that has a specific anti-war message. Part of the reason it was created was to challenge myself in creating a game that could communicate a specific message through gameplay mechanics (called procedural rheteric) and use of other content that strengthens the message.

I was inspired by an anti-war ad campaign titled "What Goes Around" made for Global Coalition for Peace done by Big Ant International. The concept of the posters intrigued me, they were printed very wide and could be wrapped around a pole. On one of the posters, at one end was a soldier in a throwing position and at the other end was a grenade he threw. When the poster was wrapped around a pole, it looked like the grenade was being thrown at him. Another poster with the same concept uses an Airforce fighter jet firing a missile. When wrapped around a pole, the missile is about to hit the back of the fighter jet. When I saw the flat horizontal poster it immediately reminded me of a video game side scrolling shooter. The concept for What Goes Around instantly came to me at that moment and I knew that I could adapt the anti-war ad campaign to a video game format with a procedural rheteric.

The other reason was to express my views about war, especially because at the time the concept came to me, it was August 29th, 2009 and President Obama was debating what to do in Afghanistan. To my disappointment, the night of completing this game, he announced plans to increase troop numbers by an additional 30,000 to be deployed to Afghanistan.

Version 1.1, released on December 2nd, 2009.

• WGA_Setup.exe