Frankenbike is a point-and-click adventure newsgame, a genre of game that blends journalistic principles with interactive gameplay. As a satirical critique of Sydney’s share bike phenomenon, it employs narrative-based roleplay to situate the player amongst varied perspectives within the local share bike culture. Through a series of interlinked scenarios, players are able to explore and act out the relationships between the system’s actors, revealing underlying concerns over infrastructure, governance, ownership, and community–ideas that have not been addressed in mainstream media coverage– in accessible and engaging ways. By 'playing the news', Frankenbike and newsgames demonstrate the potential for interactive journalism to foster critical, empathetic, engagement with the news.
Play the demo at thefranken.bike
