In 2011, an Iranian newspaper accused Navid Khonsari of working on pro-Western propaganda, leading his friends in Iran to warn him against ever returning to the country he left when he was 10 years old.
He did not, however, create a banned book along the lines of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses. Instead, he created a videogame.
1979 Revolution just launched its Kickstarter campaign, which hopes to raise $395,000 by Dec. 16, 2013. The game will create a virtual version of the Iranian Revolution, letting you wander the streets of Tehran while protesters speak out against the Shah.
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Plenty of video games have delved into global politics before. Usually, however, they involve the player blowing up terrorists — or, in the case of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, actually leading a terrorist attack. In other words, politics in videogames tend to be rather simplistic.
Khonsari, who worked as the cinematic director for multiple Grand Theft Auto and Max Payne games, wanted to take a more nuanced approach, portraying a pivotal moment in Iran's history without taking sides. He tells The Guardian:
Particularly in new generations, in the West and places around the world, people recognize Iran as being a place where women are covered in veils and men who are mullahs. It was so unlike the world I had experienced that I wanted to try to make what people think of as unfamiliar familiar through visuals. I wanted people to see what Iran was like in the '70s. [The Guardian]
The result is basically a shooter game without the shooting. Playing with a demo, Polygon's Tracy Lien describes talking her way out of being arrested for possessing an illegal cassette tape, tending to a protester's gunshot wound, and just talking with virtual friends about food and music.
1979 Revolution features some notable names — including voice-acting from David Negahban, who played Abu Nazir on Showtime's Homeland — and some anonymous ones, who feared the backlash from the Iranian government. Khonsari's team also integrated archival audio footage and photographs, as well as interviews with protesters who were present during the 1979 protests.
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It sounds like Khonsari is aiming for the sandbox quality of Grand Theft Auto, except players listen to real-life stories from random strangers instead of car-jacking them. Of course, that devil-may-care attitude is what made Grand Theft Auto fun. All of the crowd-funding in the world won't matter if 1979 Revolution is boring, according to Khonsari.
"I don't want to preach. I'm making a game, I need to entertain," Khonsari tells The Guardian. "If I try to educate, I'm dead in the water."
Keith Wagstaff is a staff writer at TheWeek.com covering politics and current events. He has previously written for such publications as TIME, Details, VICE, and the Village Voice.
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