My Child Lebensborn

In My Child Lebensborn, the player plays as an adoptive parent of a Lebensborn child in Norway after World War II. The player must make choices based on off-screen events (e.g. responding to the child being bullied at school) and help to take care of them at home (e.g. making food for them). Each day, there are a limited units of time that the player can use to care for the child, doing activities like washing, feeding, cooking or reading bedside stories. At the end of each chapter of the game, the player sees how their decisions all throughout the gameplay affect the mental status of their child at the end. ==Development==

While creative producer Elin Festøy, CEO of Teknopilot AS, was working on a documentary about the Norwegian Lebensborn children born in Norway during World War II (being the children of occupied women and German soldiers), she concluded that a documentary film would not reach the intended audience of teenagers. This led to the idea of creating a mobile game that could tell the story of the Lebensborn children and elicit empathy for the children born of enemy soldiers today amongst a broader audience. "We want to make people know what it felt like for those kids," Festøy said. The game was funded partially by a Norwegian government arts grant, and partially through a successful Kickstarter campaign. ==Reception==

Reviewers commented that the game was not fun because of its dark story, but felt the game taught important lessons for players and was still an experience worth playing. Polygons Colin Campbell described Lebensborn as a "sort of bullying-management simulation" and praised the game for being an uncomfortable experience. The Google Play store later blocked access to the game in Germany, Austria, Russia, and France because of the sensitive nature of its content, with a Google spokesperson saying "This game does not violate our sensitive content policies in most countries, but it does so in a few markets." Festøy said "We're working to get more information from Google and have only been told we’ve been removed due to controversial content." The game has since been unblocked. ==References==