"Many Hundred Thousands Uncounted" is a visual novel project that addresses the topic of war, soldiers and civilians. It introduces the audience to a fictional story inspired by historical events such as the Eastern Front of World War II and Yugoslav Wars. The scenario places an emphasis on the bleakness of war, instead of passionately or emotionally delivering dramatic scenes. The player explores the story through the eyes of a soldier who entered a war between two fictional countries caused by border conflicts and hatred fueled by ethnic discrimination. They are required to read dialogues and make choices to proceed through the story, and each choice will bear different results, each of them steering the story into different directions.
The main questions will be: "what should you do for a 'better' outcome?" and "what should have you done?"
The choices will seem to be relatively easy at the beginning, but the player will find themselves stuck in situations where they are required to make more difficult choices, which will often be ethically challenging.
As of the time of the current exhibition, the project is at its demo version, with only the prologue chapter available.
"Many Hundred Thousands Uncounted" takes its name from lyrics "Viel hunderttausend ungezählt was nur unter die Sichel fällt" (Many hundred thousands uncounted, that fell under the sickle) of a medieval German song called "Es ist ein Schnitter heißt der Tod"(He is a reaper, called the death) or "Erntelied"(Harvest Song), based on the Thirty-Years War of Europe.
In this case, the title is used similarly to its meaning in the original song, referring to the civilian casualties in war.
Majority of the experience will consist of reading, thinking and analyzing.
The player will encounter multiple individuals with different background stories or available information, and they will choose what they do with the information they have collected.
The players will often be provided with dialogue options, in form of multiple choices.
Sometimes these choices may not bring any meaningful consequences or differences, but one can never be too careful.
Homepage: click here
Homepage: click here
Ernesto Klar
Alexander King
Ayo Okunseinde
Brad MacDonald
Jamie Keiles