Reloading the System

Join the game collective Reality Reload for a chance to try your luck as you experience H1B.Life. In this narrative simulation, the chaotic unpredictability of the U.S. H-1B visa system — where chance, timing, and bureaucracy determine who stays and who is deported — is ‘reloaded’ as a darkly humorous game.

“This is not a passive demo,” writes Reality Reload; “It’s an active invitation to question the rules, bring your own lived glitches into the room, and see how individual stories can be reconstructed as systems we navigate together.

During a week dedicated to celebrating the industry, we’re posing the question: what realities do games reproduce — and which ones can we hack?”

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  Allison Yang is the founder and producer of Reality Reload, a studio developing narrative-driven games about power, technology, and social systems. An award-winning game designer and veteran journalist, her work has appeared in international media and reached academic, policy, museum, and public audiences. A Ford Global Fellow and Maynard Fellow, she explores how games help imagine new futures.

   

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  Yi Xie is a game designer and digital artist specializing in interactive media and games. Yi holds degrees in Computer Science and Cinema and Digital Media from UC Davis and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in Computational Media at UC Santa Cruz. Utilizing games as a medium to explore emotions and intimacy on multiple levels, Yi aspires to challenge the boundaries of gaming and explore new avenues of artistic expression.

   

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  Ava Hu is a bilingual reporter specializing in data-driven and international stories. She has reported on immigration, higher education, and public records, with her work published in The Guardian, Houston Chronicle, AsAmNews, Initium Media, and Capital & Main. Hu is currently pursuing a master’s degree in data reporting at the University of California, Berkeley.

   

• Reality Reload is a game studio and civic media lab that creates narrative-driven games exploring power, technology, and social systems. Working at the intersection of games, contemporary art, and journalism, Reality Reload uses play as a way to question how real-world systems operate — and how they might be reimagined.