A Civic Game Trilogy: Consequences Instead of Lectures

WORKS

3 titles · all live

FORMAT

Browser games · zero install

STACK

HTML / JS · Vercel

YEAR

2026

The method: why games, not infographics

Traditional formats for public issues — articles, explainers, PSA videos — share the same ceiling: the audience stays a spectator. They finish knowing, but not having experienced; knowledge never becomes judgment.

What games can do that nothing else can is place a person inside the decision. Players choose, then carry the consequences — and the understanding born from consequences runs deeper than any lecture. All three WAKE titles are built on this principle, under three shared design constraints:

• Perspective inversion — don't teach defense first; let players run the offense once, and understand the system from inside
• Zero friction — opens in a browser, no install, no signup, pushing the cost of reach for educational content to the floor
• Built-in sharing — one-tap score cards for Threads / PTT turn every player into the next node of reach

Case 1: The Hand Behind the Click — media literacy

Issue: Taiwan operates under sustained, high-intensity information manipulation, yet most counter-disinformation teaching stops at defensive checklists, leaving no bodily sense of how manipulation actually works.

Design: The player becomes the disinformation operator — picking target audiences, emotional levers, and publishing rhythms, running a full manipulation campaign hands-on. Once you understand the playbook's internal logic, you recognize it in the wild.

Status: Live (media-learning.vercel.app), suited to media literacy courses, workshops, and self-guided learning.

Case 2: Escape the Rat Race — financial literacy

Issue: "Assets versus liabilities" is the most fundamental and most misunderstood concept in financial education — explaining it ten times teaches less than losing once.

Design: A life simulation built on cashflow logic: the player allocates between income, expenses, and purchases, learning to spot liabilities disguised as assets — the new car, the over-leveraged home, the lifestyle that inflates with every promotion — aiming to push passive cashflow past expenses. Wrong calls are settled by the game, in numbers.

Status: Live (mice-runner.vercel.app), with built-in score card sharing.

Case 3: Defense Allocation Simulator — defense resilience

Issue: Defense budget debates are deeply polarized, and most people lack a structural grasp of doctrine trade-offs — every doctrine has its all-in advocates, but combat resilience comes from balance.

Design: The player allocates a NT$500B special budget across submarines, foreign heavy platforms, and domestic drones; a balance-weighted scoring system generates a "defense resilience health check", calling out vulnerabilities when builds over-specialize — with humorous easter eggs dramatizing extreme allocations. Abstract policy debate becomes an operable, shareable decision experience.

Status: Released, with Threads / PTT share formatting.

Where this method applies

Any public issue where the knowledge isn't hard, but the internalizing is: fraud prevention, energy policy, public health, disaster preparedness, electoral systems. WAKE offers end-to-end production from issue analysis and mechanic design to development and launch; a single-issue lightweight web game ships on a lean timeline.

Educational institutions, NGOs, government agencies, and foundations are welcome to discuss collaboration.