Horde of Directors was designed and developed specifically for the Videogames with an Agenda exhibition, London UK Fall 2004. I was created by myself and T. Michael Keesey. The game was also exhibited at State of Play: Games with an Agenda, at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, Australia, March 22 – June 8, 2005.
The game puts the player in the role of an activist trying to advance a social agenda in the complex world of interrelated corporate and government interests. By creating simplified experience of corporate interconnectedness, the game embodies the challenges of overcoming corporate and government nepotism in the name of social causes.
Drawing on data from 2002 Ars Electronica Golden Nica winner They Rule by Josh On, players choose a real corporation or organization to influence, and set to work having heated arguments with those organization’s actual board directors. But quickly, players learn that every board director leads to a whole new network of cohorts, who sit on other influential corporate boards and government organizations. The simple, sometimes repetitive gameplay gives the player a first-hand experience of the Sisyphean struggle to be heard.