FACTS AND FUTURES

FACTS AND FUTURES is a mild-mannered sci-fi puzzle pattern matching game about decoding broadcasts from an uncertain source. It paints a bleak picture of the result of widespread belief in untruths.

Important Facts

Turn your sound up. The game takes 10-15 minutes to play. You can download it for all platforms below.

Adjust the white wave's shape to fit the colored signal waves as they appear (ignore the dark grey background waves). Use the keys shown in the UI or use mouse/touch on the buttons and sliders. For most of the game, each slider will lock in place once you find the right value.

Other Facts

Unfinished for Global Game Jam 2017, finished for Resist Jam on March 13th, 2017.

All content created by @mildmojo.

Thanks to @KevKevOnFire, @VisualAdvocate, @Quixote171, and others for feedback and playtesting.

Futures

The in-game story is deliberately non-partisan, but directly inspired by US events and right-wing media. Here are some articles that appeared after the game's release that push a reality-based version of the same narrative. It wasn't supposed to be like this.

• 2016 didn't just give us "fake news." It likely gave us false memories. (Vox, Mar 22 2016)
  "Here's a reasonable fear: 20 years from now, very few people are going to agree on the details of our shared history."
• We tracked the Trump scandals on right-wing news sites. Here's how they covered it. (Vox, May 18 2017)
  "Right-wing media is creating coherent alternate storylines with different characters and different context — but a narrative that competes with contextual facts that support a more accurate story. Even amid some of the most troubling presidential news in decades, a huge portion of this country is having a very different experience of these events, and repeating it over and over. Our collective memories — and, in turn, our shared culture — are being splintered." (emphasis mine)