Global (re)Entry

 

• Mohamadreza Babaee: Design, Writing, and Directing
• Madeline Grass Doss: Sound and Music
• Fion Kwok: 2D Art and UI
  
• Avery Weibel: Unity Programming

Global (re)Entry is a critical and parodic take on the Global Entry program designed by the US Customs and Border Protection agency. Similar to other Trusted Traveler programs, Global Entry allows “low-risk” US citizens and permanent residents to use an automated machine to receive their clearance for crossing international borders. The conditions through which Global Entry considers a traveler as low risk are not disclosed publicly and are open to interpretation and bias.

My project, designed as a 2D game, borrows textual and visual assets from the US Department of Homeland Security (and the associated agencies) website to simulate and repurpose the traveler screening program. In the game, players need to answer some questions to receive their travel clearance cards. However, their resistance to participating in state-sponsored security theatres can reward them in “cosmic” ways. While players can use the game to learn more about unfair border control strategies and oppressive state policies targeting immigrants, they can also fictionally redesign discriminatory US immigration forms and generate pro-immigrant, antiracist manifestos.

This project aims to intervene in the failing current US immigration system. The game encourages a closer look at systems through which social, political, and civic ostracization of immigrants is perpetuated. Moreover, the project invites players to formulate an ideal vision of society based in equality, fairness, and inclusion. Global (re)Entry takes on a critical examination of state-wide surveillance and prejudice and asks players to reflect on how their personal choices can intentionally and inadvertently influence the border-crossing practices of immigrants locally and globally.