Вумерадан қашу: Аустралиядағы босқындар трагедиясы

2004 video game

Escape from Woomera is an unfinished adventure video game, intended to criticise the treatment of mandatorily detained asylum seekers in Australia as well as the Australian government's attempt to impose a media blackout on the detention centres. In the game, the player assumes the role of Mustafa, an Iranian asylum seeker being held at Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre. Mustafa's request for asylum has been denied, and, fearing that he will be killed by the Iranian government upon his repatriation to Iran, he decides to attempt to escape Woomera. Mustafa must explore Woomera and speak with other individuals at the centre to devise and execute an escape plan. The game was developed in 2003 and 2004 by a team of Australian video game industry professionals and an investigative journalist, using Half Lifes GoldSrc engine. The developers received an AU $25,000 grant from the Australia Council to make the game, propelling the project to national attention, where the idea received a predominantly negative reception. The Australia Council's decision to fund the game drew condemnation from both Minister for Immigration Philip Ruddock and Australian Human Rights Commission leader Dr. Sev Ozdowski. Without further funding, a full game was never developed, and the playable prototype was made available free of charge online.

Escape from Woomera opens with three screens of text that explain the game's background. Players assume the role of Mustafa, who paid smugglers to bring him to Australia after his parents were killed by the Iranian secret police. After the boat transporting him crashed in the Ashmore Reef, Mustafa was brought to the Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre, where he was given the identification number "RAR 124". After three months, Mustafa was informed that his request for asylum was denied, and that he would be repatriated to Iran. Believing that he would be tortured and killed upon his return, Mustafa decided to escape Woomera. Because the game was never completed, only a small portion of the intended gameplay exists. During the playable segment, Mustafa, through conversations with other detainees, discovers that another detainee is planning an escape but needs a pair of pliers to make the attempt. Mustafa must join a work detail to gain access to the pliers, hide the pliers in a garbage can to prevent them from being found during a search, recover them at night (which requires Mustafa to find a way to pry open the area that the garbage cans are stored in), and deliver them to the other detainee. The playable section ends when Mustafa delivers the pliers. Other interactions during the playable section include speaking with a detainee who, after complaining that a guard threw her copy of the Quran to the ground, mentions the existence of a partially built tunnel from a previous escape attempt. The game has a meter that tracks Mustafa's hope. As he completes tasks that take him towards the goal of escaping, the meter increases. Listening to the experiences of fellow detainees, which in some cases is required to gain access to other information or tasks, drains Mustafa's hope. If he is caught breaking rules by the guards, Mustafa is placed in solitary confinement, which also drains hope. Should the hope meter run out, Mustafa loses the ability to continue to attempt an escape, and is deported.

The idea for a video game centred on asylum seekers in Australia came to Katharine Neil, then a developer at Atari's Melbourne studio, in the aftermath of the 2001 Tampa affair. Neil spent a year and a half assembling a team to work on the game and securing initial funding for the project. The game also was a statement against the Australian government's attempts to suppress media access to, and coverage of, the detention facilities. The original plan for Escape from Woomera involved several choices in playable detainees, each with a different story about how they came to seek asylum in Australia. The game would have players "battle the bureaucracy and try and survive day to day" while working towards any of several escape strategies. As originally envisioned, players could attempt to escape through the legal channels, using lawyers and activists, or could attempt to flee by scaling fences or digging tunnels. The development team worked to create the most realistic depiction of the Woomera centre possible, despite the media not being allowed in the facility. The team utilised interviews with former detainees and activists, existing press reports, and a copy of the facility's floor plan obtained from a member of the Department of Immigration. The playable demo, which was built as a modification of the video game Half Life, was made available for download on the game's website.

The Australia Council's decision to fund Escape from Woomera was poorly received. The game received heavy criticism before development even began. Chairman Michael Snelling of the New Media Arts Board, the branch of the Australia Council that granted the development money, defended the decision to fund Escape from Woomera, stating that the game's purpose was not to promote crime. He characterised the team's application for funding as both strong and closely aligned with the New Media Arts Board's goal of promoting cross disciplinary media. In the 2010s, the retrospective view of Escape from Woomera is significantly more positive. In 2013, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation called it "one of the first—and still one of the most important—politically focused videogames".