Compassionate Exclusion is an escape room by award winning artist Gazelle Samizay based on her experiences helping artists and queer people flee Afghanistan during the fall of Kabul.
EMMA provided the conceptual development, game design, software development and hardware fabrication that brought the room to life.
Set in a thinly-veiled 2021 Afghanistan, players play as a family in the fictional Republic of Watan trying to arrange their escape as the zealots of the Students of the Burning Book militia advance to fill the void left by the abrupt retreat of the occupying United Atlantic Provinces army.
Players are assigned an in-game identity in the form of a passport. Their age, occupation, and sex as stated on their passport determines how they interact with puzzles and what escape opportunities are available to them.
Depending on their performance in the game player passports are stamped "ACCEPTED" or "DENIED", leaving them with a keepsake of their experience. The passports were fabricated by Ingrid Burrington.
A game-specific internet full of in-universe apps, services, blogs and news sites immerse the players in the banal panic of discovering and pursuing visa opportunities. The room also features a working telephone that tied into in-game events and puzzles.