What better way to celebrate your own birthday than with a computer game? The Norwegian Parliament is examining the possibilities to have a custom game about itself made for the 150th anniversary of the parliament building. 

 

The Norwegian Parliament, Stortinget, is celebrating it’s 150 year anniversary next year. And in addition to the usual activities surrounding such celebrations, the Norwegian Parliament has also decided to celebrate it’s 150th birthday with a computer game.

“In connection with the anniversary for the building in 2016 the department for visits and communication wishes to create a knowledge-based computer game based on the function and history of Stortinget,” Claus-Olav Thorbjørnsen from the Norwegian parliament’s department for visits and communication explains to Nordic Game Bits.

Our reasoning behind this idea is our wish to reach out to a target group who would not necessarily know a lot about the anniversary or the Parliament building to begin with

 

So far, the Norwegian parliament has issued a request for information which is available to the whole of the European Economic Area, to allow the different developers to send in their suggestions as to how such a game could look and play, even if there are no contracts awarded in this first stage of the process.

So far, Stortinget is considering the suggestions it has received, and if it looks good, an official call for bids will then be issued.

“We are still in the developmental phase, and the Stortinget has not yet decided, if the game is going to produced. In the end, it will be up to the director of Stortinget to make the final decision. So it’s also too early to say anything about the budget,” Thorbjørnsen explains.

 

Stortinget has also been quite particular about the game they want to have produced for the anniversary. In the documentation accompanying the call for proposals they describe how the game should not only be based on knowledge about the Stortinget and it’s function, but also that it should be made in an ‘escape-the-room’ style game.

Apart from that, the game is also required to be playable on both mobile phones, tablets, and computers (one would assume through a browser), and be made available on the webpage of the Stortinget for free.