The Westport Independent

The experience is a short one. [March 2016, p.81]

The game is worth playing and represents a new sign that video games have the ability to deal with serious matters, including censorship and the way even small tweaks can allow the news to shift our perception of reality and influence our actions.

Despite not fully realizing its great premise, The Westport Independent is a fun way to spend a few hours. It'll make you think about how influential media can be, but doesn't entirely explore its subject matter.

The Westport Independent will leave you more aware of the media as a whole, and how editorial direction can have wide-ranging results. While the game is short, that playtime is justified since you can replay and explore different possible outcomes. The $9.99 initial price might be too high for some people's liking, but the story is certainly enjoyable for the hour or two needed to complete it.

A cleanly executed idea falls short because of flat characterisation and a dissatisfying lack of consequence. If only real papers were this toothless.

Journalism is far from a glamourous job, but stories that make a difference are the most gratifying part. Unfortunately, The Westport Independent never made me feel that was possible.

It covers a fresh theme and delivers an interesting art design, but one run lasts merely 30 minutes. And the kind of similar “Papers, Please” shows more depth as well as emotional connection.

The game does deliver scenes between levels that color some of your writers’ inner lives, but they are too minor to establish much empathy for, say, a writer disappearing by the regime’s hand in the post-game wrap up.

Unless you’re interested in the subject matter — and, really, I was — you’d be better off spending your money elsewhere.

Very simple and repetitive, not much more than a game jam experiment. [04/2016, p.41]

Because the media can (and they also do) manipulate the crowd, it is good to remember, that nothing is only black or white – and seemingly simple decisions can bring unexpected negative results. In the case of The Westport Independent the form however wins over the content, which is desperately short and shallow. It is an interesting experiment, but only an average game.

Fun for what it is, it has an interesting premise and I really want to recommend it as there very few games like it, the only game akin to it would be Papers Please in my mind. But the length of the game and the lackluster plot as whole makes it difficult for me to recommend.

The Westport Independent has important lessons about ethics in journalism, but the game's tendency towards caricature leaves it feeling like it just barely grazed the truth of the matter.