Games that reflect Turkey

NOTE: You need to be familiar with some of the turkish words that will be mentioned in this article in order to fully understand it.

In recent years I had several ideas about games that would reflect Turkey and the turkish life style. Usually I combined them with already existing and worldwide reknown franchises. Here are some of them:

Need for Speed: Istanbul Dolmush Edition

In this game you are a dolmush driver and try to make your way up from the outskirts of the city to the best and most profitable dolmuş routes in the city of Istanbul. Your goal is to reach a high score which is a combination of reputation points, available cash and financial assets.

You compete with other dolmush drivers for passengers that wait to be collected from the streets. Competition is fierce and it is not easy to always have all seats in your vehicle filled with passengers. You might take more passengers than it is allowed by the administration and earn some extra bucks, but be careful, the police might wait just around the corner. The streets are not in the best conditions and you need to drive carefully if you want to avoid too high repair and maintenance costs.

Will you be able to pay the yearly fee in time and also make a profit to invest into a better route? Or will it be a far dream for you to serve in the nobler city districts?

As the game progresses you will unlock new dolmush models (vans and minibusses instead of the 1950’s Chevrolet’s), decals and stickers (“Atam Izindeyiz”, “Huzur Islamdadır”, “Liselim”, “Sollama Beni Sollarım Seni”, “Babam Aldı Sana Ne?”, Bismillahirrahmanirrahim”, “Sarı Kanarya”, “Cim Bom Bom”, “Kara Kartal”, “Rahmetli de Sollardı” etc), accessories (Nazarlık’s etc).

The game will also feature a variety of thematic radio channels: The arabesque channel, the turkish pop channel, the foreign pop channel, the patriot channel, the alternative music channel… Listen to Orhan Abi, Müslüm Baba, Ahmet Kaya, Neşet Ertaş or Duman.

Drive through the streets of a realistically modelled İstanbul and experience the day-by-day struggle of a Istanbul dolmush driver.

Sim Gecekondu

In Sim Gecekondu you are the major of one of the big cities in Turkey (Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, Adana, Eskişehir, Bursa, Gaziantep etc). Your objective is to stay at the helm of the city as long as possible. With an interval of 5 years elections will be held and you got to please as many people as possible in your city to be re-elected. For this you have to do both, please the already settled upper and middle-classes as well as the migrating lower-classes that invade the city districts illegally.

You will also play through scenarios such as “Istanbul Olimpiyatları” in which your goal will be to bring the Olympic Games to Istanbul by fullfilling the criteria of the IOC within a certain time frame.

Hulki

His name is Mülayim and he is a calm guy. But if you scare him you wake up a giant in him: the green külhanbeyi Hulki, the Ottoman Hulk with the deadly Ottoman slap. ‘Nuff Said!

Do you have an idea for a game that would reflect Turkey or the turkish life style? Please share it here.