Do More With Reuters
Partner Services

Red Cross launches cutting-edge family search game

Mon Sep 29, 2008 9:28am IST
 
Email | Print | | Single Page
[-] Text [+]

By Ruth Gidley

LONDON (Reuters) - It could be a phone call, it could be an email, but it's from a Ugandan teenager asking you to help find the mother he has lost touch with during his country's civil war.

Joseph is a character in a cutting-edge Alternate Reality Game launched by the Red Cross on Monday -- a 21st century cross between a role-playing game and a treasure hunt.

The game called "Traces of Hope" (www.tracesofhope.com) is the first time a charity has used the interactive ARG format more commonly used to promote films and commercial products.

The Red Cross is using the real-time game to draw attention to the plight of civilians who get separated from loved ones during war, and to highlight its family-tracing service.

"It's like a puzzle," said Charles Williams, editorial manager for the British Red Cross. "It will put players in the shoes of people in conflict situations who have to make difficult decisions."

Players are immersed in the world of Joseph, 16, who is in a camp for people displaced by the war in northern Uganda.

Some 2 million people were uprooted by the two-decade conflict in which Lord's Resistance Army rebels kidnapped thousands of children to use as soldiers and sex slaves.

The game forces players to use the Internet, email and telephone to get an idea of the intense pressure civilians face in the turmoil of conflict.  Continued...

REUTERS WEEKEND

Glory for Big B

Lifetime award for Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan.  Video 

'Trashy' Affair

Beijing man turns unwanted plastic bags into kites.  Video 

 
The new Droid phone, a Motorola Inc. and Verizon Wireless phone based on Google Inc's Android 2.0 system, is shown at a media event in New York October 28, 2009.REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
Motorola Droid

Not the Droid you’re looking for?  Blog 

View of the Casa Poporului or House of the People, now the Parliament Palace, in downtown Bucharest November 6, 2009.  REUTERS/Bogdan Cristel
Travel Postcard

48 hours in Bucharest for architecture buffs.  Full Article 

 
Russian Finance Minister Alexey Kudrin poses with his G20 colleagues and central bank leaders during the family photo at the G20 Finance Ministers meeting at a hotel in St. Andrews, Scotland. REUTERS/POOL New
Pledge to support economies

G20 financial leaders pledged to prepare strategies to end emergency support for their economies, but to keep the aid flowing until recovery was assured.  Full Article | Related Story 

Photo
Miss England gives up crown over brawl reports Friday, 6 Nov 2009 

LONDON (Reuters) - Beauty pageant winner Miss England gave up her title on Friday after reports she had been involved in a nightclub brawl with another beauty queen.  Full Article