We Become What We Behold

What is We Become What We Behold?

We Become What We Behold is a short browser game that serves as a pointed commentary on media, narrative, and the way news coverage shapes society. You play as a news photographer observing small circles of people in a miniature society, choosing which moments to photograph and broadcast. The game demonstrates, through direct interactivity, how the selection of what to photograph and broadcast does not merely reflect society but actively changes it - how media shapes the reality it claims to document.

How to Play We Become What We Behold

Use your camera to observe and photograph moments happening in a small society of characters. The moments you choose to capture and broadcast influence how the population behaves - they become more like what they see in the news coverage you create. Your choices of what to photograph directly change the next set of moments available to photograph, creating a feedback loop that demonstrates the game's central thesis. The experience is short - completable in a single sitting - but the design is precise and the message is clear.

The Media Criticism at Its Core

We Become What We Behold is explicitly about the media's role in creating the reality it claims to report. By making the player the photographer rather than a passive consumer of news, it demonstrates the selectivity involved in news production - not all moments happen, only a sample is observed, and of that sample only a further selection is broadcast. The game argues that these selection choices are not neutral and that they have real consequences for what people believe, fear, and do. The title - 'we become what we behold' - summarises this argument directly.

The Interactive Art Format

We Become What We Behold belongs to the tradition of games-as-essays - interactive experiences where the mechanics directly embody the argument being made. This is what games and interactive art can do that passive media cannot: they make you complicit in the thing being criticised. Reading an essay about media distortion is one thing; actively choosing which moments to amplify and watching the consequences of those choices creates a different quality of understanding. The game's mechanics are its argument.

Impact and Brevity

We Become What We Behold is short by design - the experience takes around ten to fifteen minutes and has a definite conclusion. This brevity is intentional: the game makes its point precisely and then ends rather than repeating itself or adding content to justify a longer runtime. Short games that say something specific and clear are rare and valuable, and We Become What We Behold is an excellent example of the format. It earns its place in any thoughtful person's gaming experience regardless of how much time they have.

A Game Worth Discussing

We Become What We Behold generates discussion because it takes a clear position on something that affects everyone who consumes any news or media - which is everyone. The game provides a shared experience and vocabulary for conversations about media responsibility, narrative framing, and the feedback loop between what people see and what they become. For students studying media, politics, sociology, or ethics, it is a particularly relevant piece that presents its argument in a format those subjects rarely use.

Play We Become What We Behold free on Classroom Connect with no download or login required. Pick up the camera, document the society, and watch what happens when you choose what the world sees.