gamifying colonisation

I'm making this to try out a couple of things. 

1. can you make an engaging mechanical game that reproduces a historical process - in this case, surveying land with a chain? (answer: yes, it seems so!)
2. can you use language of games which evokes notions of acquisition and expansion to question those same notions?

it makes kind of sense to me. the game makes you do things - it casts you into a position from which there are a couple of things you can do (try walking to the right or left edge of the map!), but it strongly encourages and rewards one particular thing: working through the chain mechanic, earning that sweet, sweet XP. 

the XP, of course, ends up being meaningless. it sits there in the top right corner, giving the engagement a purpose - except, it's more an excuse than a purpose, somehow. the things you have to do with your fingers, in between the walking left, right, stretching the chain, dropping the chain, pressing keys, holding down keys, positioning yourself correctly: it's just complicated enough to be engaging, you feel like you're doing something - but, what are you doing? listening to the bird song? looking at the forest? after stretching out some chains you end up at a little fireplace and have a bit of a chat with people who are apparently your colleagues, but the conversation meanders. something else is going on. the engagement with the world seems so obvious, so clear; inevitable, rational, logical, the right thing to do. and yet.

i have many ideas for where this could go. i don't know if i'm going to take them there. the pixel graphics is all made by me and, well, obviously i'm nothing more than an amateur in this world. i'd love to work with someone who had a vision for how to draw a pixellated new zealand forest. i'd love to work with someone who wants to weave their own story into this: there are countless untold pieces of history from new zealand's 19th century, in between what are kind of genteely called the Land Wars, themselves a dark chapter in new zealand's history which our schools do a really pretty crappy job of explaining. 

i want my little land surveyor dude to interact with a part of this history; i want his work to take him past a kūmara plantation, through a Māori community, into a brief engagement with the ontology of the tangata whenua whose very connection to their land his surveying work is in the process of mechanically undoing (a mechanical undoing driven by the player's mechanical engagement with the gamified mechanics of surveying as they appear right here). i think this would be amazing. if you want to help, or if you know someone who does, please drop a note in the comments below.