The activities of certain government agencies, the encroachment on privacy and anonymity, the cooperation of several companies, and the drastic increase in the number of cyberattacks show that the Internet is going through turbulent times. But the team at Monomyth Games decided to take all of that and apply it to a game called Need to Know. Are you willing to maintain "order," or do you prefer to dismantle the agency by leaking information? The choice is yours.
Books, movies, and games – the concept of espionage has not escaped these formats. In some cases, works seek to reproduce the activity in a way close to real life, while in others they prefer to take the path of the fantastic, almost to the point of turning spies into people with all kinds of superpowers. With the arrival of cyberespionage, Edward Snowden's leaks, and the actions of agencies like the NSA and the British GCHQ, today we have a somewhat more solid idea of what these elements can or cannot do. So... why not turn it into a video game?
Gameplay
Let's make some room for Need to Know, a development by Monomyth Games. Its mechanics, which in part remind us of the highly successful "Papers, Please," present a new agent (the player) of the "Department of Freedom," tasked with monitoring all kinds of suspicious activity and, if necessary, issuing additional orders. What kind of orders? The available options depend on the level of authorization. At first, the player can only investigate items such as metadata or browsing history, but as their level improves, they can obtain purchase patterns, geolocation, and even drone surveillance. Advancing within the Department of Freedom also means learning more about its activities. At this point, the possibility opens up to assist in the formation of a true police state, to start helping certain people, or to achieve the greatest personal benefit possible.
Funding and Release
How did we hear about this project? Well, one of the channels was Edward Snowden himself, who posted the project's address on Kickstarter using his Twitter account. Need to Know needs a total of 29 thousand Australian dollars (about 18 thousand euros) before March 11, and has already raised a little over seven thousand. Those who want a DRM-free copy of the game should invest exactly 11 euros and wait until December of this year to get it.
