The Thought Verification Zone: The Community (2024)

How in the world do we get along with others? "Mafia/Werewolf" game meets politics & moral beliefs

The whole premise of the show is based upon an unique personality test, where players are assigned a point system based on their inclination and beliefs of four different categories. These include degrees of: the liberal-conservative spectrum, feminism-patriarchy, socio-economic statuses, and their degree of openness towards challenging societal norms. When read together, they determine a player's score (like a MBTI result) which is undisclosed to others. As players try to figure out who the ‘Mafia/Werewolf’ is amongst them, they attempt to deduce each other’s scores and eliminate each other as they live together in the "Community".

While its daily challenges are not set up to be intentionally difficult, the show provides an interesting dimension to the common Mafia/Werewolf game through its integration of social issues and morality into decision making. In turn, this forces participants to either adhere, react, or rebel to it. Without going into spoilers, one example of the players’ daily tasks includes administering an income tax on personal incomes (gained individually by participating in missions) to fund collective needs (necessities such as food). As they nominate a leader to handle this issue, how should the leader convince the collective of their choices? What should fairness look like?

As a result, we see a nuanced approach to alliances as players are (most often than not) challenged to think based on their own beliefs and moral compasses - when voting for a leader, or having a teammate, where should their interests lie, will it ever align with theirs, even if they do not stand to materially benefit from the outcome? Would it be essential to protect the collective, the individual, or arguably both?

Bonus points for having real-life politicians featured on the show!
(I deducted 0.5 from the Acting/Cast component as I felt that the Reporter role was not well utilised.)

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