Analyling Application "my Life as a Refugee"

My Life as a Refugee

I was thinking a lot which game to describe. And then by chance I have found an application which is called ‘My life as a Refugee’. I downloaded it and started to play. Honestly, I have never experienced such emotions while playing a game. I can tell for sure that it reminds people or help them realize how great of a life we have in the countries we wear born. I am from Ukraine and due to the political situation in my country a lot of people always complain how difficult their lives are, but all people should remember that there is a world with people which are dying, suffering every day without such simple things a water, fresh food, medicaments.  

The aim of this application is to let people walk in the shoes of a refugee. People can experience minutes of the way that refugee are doing for whole their lives. Also, the purpose of this app is to raise awareness of what Unicef does for refugees. This application is made not with business purpose but with charity.

Game elements and game mechanics        

The start of the game is with text telling what it is about ‘Every day you make 1000 of decisions. Now imagine you are a refugee, forced to flee your home to escape war or persecution. Suddenly, each choice can be a matter of life or death’. After that player chooses one of three characters. There are little descriptions about life history of all of them. After choosing the game begins. First question is with emergency situation (about war, death of family etc.) and player has limited time (about 20 second) to decide what to do with his life (there are options which can be chosen). After that player gets next questions and situation where choses has to be made. All the decisions player makes are a part of the story and it is player who decides how his life will go on. During all the game player must make some of the same life-changing decisions that refugees make every day, sometimes with very little time to consider what the ramifications might be.  

 Also, there are a lot of facts about life of refugees during the game. It is really informative and interesting.

But as every game despite a great amount of advantages there is something to moderate and improve.

• For sure I would add some abilities to share the information and this game everywhere for more people to play and find out and feel for these people
• Also there is nothing said about donation. I think that a lot of people would be willing to donate some money after playing.  
• This app can be more informative
• I would add in a few more characters
• it would  nice if the player know the location of his character (it will increase empathy to the refugees by providing more personal information)  
• this app is made for old iOS

It is really cool that such charity apps are nowadays. Hope the aim of it will really help people understand how it feels to be born in countries of third world.