Villains and Heroes

Villains and Heroes is an experimental publication in the form of an interactive fiction. The story is based on a real event: the costume party hosted by multi-billionaire Robert Mercer shortly after the election of Trump, December 2016. It all starts when you are accidentally invited to the party. As the story unfolds, you try to uncover the identity of the disguised guests – among who key players in climate change denial and disinformation campaigns, a network of opaquely funded libertarian think tanks and election manipulation – carefully maneuvering the rooms in the mansion without getting exposed as an uninvited guest. You hone your bluffing skills and gather poker chips in the hope of winning a luxury prize that might help pay your rent this month, in a secret, one-person mission to infiltrate the 1%.

How to play: You can play the game directly in your browser by going to https://villains-and-heroes.com/

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Marloes de Valk (NL) is a software artist and writer in the post-despair stage of coping with the threat of global warming and being spied on by the devices surrounding her. Surprised by the obsessive dedication with which we, even post-Snowden, share intimate details about ourselves to an often not too clearly defined group of others, astounded by the deafening noise we generate while socializing with the technology around us, she is looking to better understand why.