PAXsims

INVESTIGATING ATROCITY: Military Observers in Carana is a new online (browser) serious game, launched today. Walter Dorn (Royal Military College and Canadian Defence College) writes:

I am delighted to announce that, after five years of effort, a new R&D product is being published today. It is not another paper or book, but a digital simulation (www.peacekeepingsim.net), akin to a video game. 

It is playable on the web browser itself, so downloading is not needed (but is an option). I  believe this new medium of training and education holds a bright future not only for peace operations but for education more generally. I am happy to be exploring this mean of peace operations training and education.

Today we are publicly releasing the simulation “INVESTIGATING ATROCITY: Military Observer in Carana.” The formal announcement was made today at the Centre of Excellence for Stability Policing Units (COESPU) in Vicenza, Italy, where I am presented this afternoon. The COESPU is hosting the annual meeting of the International Association of Peacekeeping Training Centres (IAPTC) with several dozen training centres in attendance. We also had demos for the 100+ military and police officers to try it on a PC  and in VR. 

Two weeks from now the simulation will be demonstrated as part of an address (keynote) to the Latin American militaries at the General Assembly of the Latin American Peacekeeping Training Centres (ALCOPAZ).

When I approached the United Nations with the Peacekeeping Sim idea during a sabbatical in 2020, the United Nations suggested to me and provided the Specialized Training Materials (STM) to be gamified. We have made “Investigating Atrocity” and added murder mystery elements, all set in the context of Carana, the scenario the United Nations uses for its training exercises. It is now offered to the world for free. 

We are developing other simulations. One on climate change & peace operations has been tested in a course on the environment at College Military Royale (CMR) St Jean. On the more edutainment side, we are developing several potential peacekeeping games, include one on humanitarian demining (civilian rescue), another on surveillance technologies (to detect attacks nearby), and possibly one to show the range of peacekeeper tasks.

I profoundly thank the script writers and the software developers who worked so hard to come up with the current simulation and are continuing helping to pioneer this new medium of learning and edutainment. Particular thanks go to David Valente who oversaw a large part of the development work, and Usees Waheed, who was the chief developer.

You should feel free to try out the simulation (peacekeepingsim.net). Any and all feedback is welcome!