Game:

1979 Revolution: Black Friday (2016)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 2:22:29

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11

Buy the game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/388320/1979_Revolution_Black_Friday/

Not many video games that got their director into de facto exile, or compelled members of the dev team to adopt aliases! Though it wasn't the game that did that to them, but the government and culture.

This is a playthrough of iNK's Telltale-style adventure game 1979 Revolution: Black Friday. While it suffers from the rather phony choice problems of Telltale's interactive dramas, and the sometimes clearly limited budget, 1979 Revolution is overall unique in the world of video games, so far as I know. It tells the tale of Reza Shirazi, an Iranian journalist being interrogated in prison following the Iranian Revolution. Most of the story takes the form of extended flashbacks detailing how he became wrapped up in a left-wing revolutionary group and the strained relationship with his family that he suffers as a result of his class background.

The most bizarre element of 1979 Revolution, aside from re-used background NPCs, is that it strives to both be a gritty, intense, choice-driven drama for adults while also being full of educational content. "Let's take a break from removing glass from a man's wounds after the bomb went off," the game seems to say, "to tell you some fun trivia about Persian food! Yum!" I appreciate the attempt at using media for a clearly educational purpose. Video games have great potential as tools of building empathy and understanding between cultures, even if this one's steps in that direction are rather clunky.

Also, sorry that the Reza comes across as a wishy-washy whiner. I'm not sure if I just played him poorly from misunderstanding dialogue options, or if he just comes across that way.

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