Screedware

Homeland Guantanamo is a Flash "game for change" dramatizing the iniquities of the American system of immigrant detention. This system is indeed iniquitous -- no proper judicial oversight, no mechanism for appeal outside of the system itself, and based on the a priori assumption of guilt, a notion contrary to Anglo-American common law on which our justice system is supposedly based. Or to put it another way, I am in complete agreement with the premises of the game, so my criticisms of it should be understood not as an attack on its politics, but on its merits as a game qua game, as well as its effectiveness as an instrument of persuasion.

From the moment ICED starts up, you know we're in trouble. You see, ICED (which stands for "I Can End Deportation") is a "game for change," in this case one that advocates for reform of immigration policy, its stance being pro-immigrant. During the initial loading screen, voice-over and scrolling text tells us "No one is safe from deportation--the sick and elderly, pregnant women, families..." And so on.