Progetto Ustica

Progetto Ustica acts as a serious game intended to sustain the memory of one of the most tragic occurrences in recent Italian history. It is a concise exploratory experience developed for PC and Mac, with plans to support Oculus Rift VR and HTC Vive soon. Progetto Ustica simulates the main events of the 50-minute flight of the ITAVIA DC9, which was shot down over the Tyrrhenian Sea at 8:58 PM on June 27, 1980. The project aims to keep the memory of this event alive, appealing to even those who know nothing about it. The project benefits from the help of Daria Bonfietti and Andrea Benetti of the Associazione parenti delle vittime della strage di Ustica and the support of Carlo Lucarelli and Bottega finzioni, where students are working on the research and educational materials. Progetto Ustica places the player inside the DC9 just after takeoff from a first-person perspective. The player explores the cabin, interacts with objects and people, and finds several objects that unlock additional features: new points of view freely selectable by the player that show what is happening from the perspective of military aircraft, a radar vision encompassing the whole scenario, a lone nocturnal fisherman watching the sky, and more; audio transcripts of that night's radio communications between the DC9 and control towers, and between military aircraft and their control centers; and contextual information on military activity in the Tyrrhenian Sea, new hints on events of that night and what followed, including investigations, cover-ups, and suspicious deaths. The player retraces the events of that night through multiple points of view, each contributing to building a different path among several cameras. Progetto Ustica is not intended as a scientifically accurate recreation of facts or an investigative game aiming to discover the truth. Progetto Ustica is a game for memory; some details of the scenario are true, others are plausible, leaving the player the task to further research and not to forget.