''Against All Odds'' is an

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

developed by

UNHCR The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and Humanitarian protection, protect refugees, Internally displaced person, forcibly displaced communities, and Statelessness, s ...

designed to teach players about the plight of

refugee A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...

s. Originally released in Swedish in 2005, the game has been translated into several languages, the English edition of which was released in November 2007. Initial funding for the project came from a grant of 1 million

Norwegian krone The krone (, currency sign, abbreviation: kr (also NKr for distinction); ISO 4217, code: NOK), plural ''kroner'', is the currency of the Kingdom of Norway (including List of possessions of Norway, overseas territories and dependencies). It was t ...

s from

Statoil Equinor ASA (formerly Statoil and StatoilHydro) is a Norwegian multinational energy company headquartered in Stavanger, Norway. It is primarily a petroleum company operating in 36 countries with additional investments in renewable energy. In th ...

to UNHCR's Baltic and Nordic regional office, with the aim of developing a project to reach young people and promote integration in the region. UNHCR sought advice from

Umeå University Umeå University (; Ume Sami language, Ume Sami: ) is a public university, public research university located in Umeå, in the mid-northern region of Sweden. The university was founded in 1965 and is the fifth oldest within Sweden's present bord ...

regarding

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for schools, and discussed ideas with the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training and the Swedish Integration Board. UNHCR decided to proceed the project as a web-based game, a medium which could reach a large number of young people, require no distribution costs and minimal marketing costs. The game was aimed at 12–15-year-olds, an age where people began to develop ideas regarding refugees and similar issues. In ''Against All Odds'', the player takes the role of a refugee and plays through twelve stages depicting his persecution and flight from his native country, through to eventual integration into a foreign country as an

asylum seeker An asylum seeker is a person who leaves their country of residence, enters another country, and makes in that other country a formal application for the right of asylum according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 14. A per ...

. Complementing the game is a facts repository detailing the history of asylum and refugee testimonies. A teacher's guide section provides discussion points and lesson ideas for the classroom. The game takes approximately 45 minutes to play through, coinciding with the typical length of a lesson. Reception has been positive, prompting translations into multiple languages from its original Swedish. In 2006, the German edition of the game, was awarded the Austrian State Prize for Multimedia and e-Business in the Knowledge and Learning category. The jury praised the game for building understanding, empathy and concern for the plight of refugees in the player.

References

External links

*{{webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130724002302/http://www.playagainstallodds.com/, title=''Against All Odds'' official website, date=2013-07-24, nolink=1 2005 video games Flash games Humanitarian video games United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Video games developed in Sweden Works about the United Nations