Narratives for Interaction: Documentation and Progress I

The project


Japanese Occucaption – The Tale of a Traitor

Area of focus:

The sook ching massacre

The team


Goh Cher See

Nicholas Makoto

Zhou Yang

The concept and objective


Japanese occupation of Singapore is a piece of history that is both familiar and alien to the younger generations. They might have come across various sources of information about the fall of Singapore to the Japanese through numerous mediums such as history textbook, television shows, and online articles. However, our team feels that the information provided by these mediums are not doing enough. They are not providing their audience with the necessary ingredients to appreciate the sacrifices the forefathers of Singapore performed during the period of hardship under the Japanese rule.  Therefore, our team decided to create a documentary-styled game. We hope through the interactive nature of the game and the narrative elements of documentary; our audiences will be able to acknowledge the collective past that we as Singaporeans have. Most importantly, we will be able to recognize those that gave up their future so we can build ours. 

Every year on 15 February, a memorial service will be held at The Civilian War Memorial to remember those that have fallen during the Japanese Occupation. 

The background story


The Sook Ching massacre was a purge conducted by the Japanese military on the Chinese community in Singapore during the Japanese Occupation. It took place from 18 February to 4 March 1942 at various places such as the Changi beach and Punggol beach. The estimated death toll resulted from the massacre was between 50,000 and 90,000. It was an inhumane mission ordered by Tomoyuki Yamashita and carried out by Masanobu Tsuji, the leader of the Kempeitai (Japanese military police). The extermination of the Chinese aimed to eliminate all potential threats against the Japanese and to force them into submission.

The sook ching massacre.

The battle for Singapore.

The plot


Role of the player:

The player will be playing the role of a traitor (汉奸) of the Chinese community. His job is to identify the rebels among his people and report it to the Japanese.  By doing so, he will be able to survive the purge and get valuable resources to keep his family alive from his work for the Japanese. 

Act 1: The beginning of the end.

The player was going through his daily routine of identify the rebels for the Japanese. His earning was determined by his quota of identifying the Chinese rebels. He had to ignore his sense of guilt as he was committing acts that were harming his people. He felt bad about it but he had no other choices. Adapt or die. 

Act 2: The struggle.

Conflict:

Some of the people that he had identified were people that he knew. However, he had to continue to do his job as it was the only way to provide for his family and to keep them safe. The pressure from the Japanese and the mental trauma from sending his people to their grave was slowly eating him away. 

Climax:

The Japanese took away his family as they believed he was helping the Chinese rebels behind their back.

Act 3: The aftermath.

The Japanese surrendered and he survived the war. However, It was at the expenses of many innocent lives and wrecked families. His suffering was just beginning. 

The narrative of the game will vary depending on the choices the player made during the game itself. 

The inspirations


The technology


Our team had decided to use the GameMaker: Studio as the main platform to develop our documentary-styled game project.