The Warden Game

Year: 1987

Designer: Ed Mead

Country: USA

Platform: Online game

Image Credit: The Warden Game (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.waprisonhistory.org/WardenGame/

The Warden Game is a text-adventure style game that helps players understand the contradictions of prison life in an age of mass incarceration. Designed by Ed Mead around 1987, while he was incarcerated at the Washington State Reformatory at Monroe, the game explores power in prison and how individuals exercise it. Being a queer prisoner himself, Mead included mentions of anti-sexist education, since in 1977, Mead cofounded “Men Against Sexism” at Walla Walla state prison. MAS used methods such as peer education and direct confrontation to stop the rape and abuse of gay and effeminate prisoners.

The Warden Game was adapted from Ed Mead’s original programming and developed for the web in 2017 by Magdalena Donea and Dan Berger.

LGBTQ references in this game:

The Warden Game

Citations:

  1. Dan Berger- University of Washington, School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, https://www.uwb.edu/ias/faculty-and-staff/dan-berger?fbclid=IwAR1bs6-0lJLrgL9RSvIvzQ033HzBfQfA9uNrW8F6dnIVsC1PwqwvAhlD_0I
  2. Ed Mead. (1987). The Warden Game. Retrieved from 
    http://www.waprisonhistory.org/WardenGame/