When Allison Yang moved to the US from China two years ago, she noticed that immigrants often talked about their visa status like they were playing cards. The former Chinese journalist and founder of the game studio Reality Reload was at an event in New York when she heard fellow Chinese immigrants talking in confusing terminologies, like playing a Queen, Knight, or Ace. Everyone introduced themselves by words like H-1B, OPT, L-1, O-1, NIW—names of legal immigration categories in the US. With their cards on the table, they could start talking in greater depth about each person’s immigration journey.
This kind of jargon, in my experience, gets passed around a lot in conversations among people born overseas. But to many native-born Americans, even those who strongly support immigration, it can sound like a foreign language, because they’ve never had to navigate the system themselves. That knowledge gap is what inspired Yang (no relation) to make a video game called H1B.Life, which simulates the experience of applying for a US work visa—capturing what it’s like to be an immigrant living under a government that is becoming increasingly hostile to their presence.
The mobile game, which is slated to be released this summer, is essentially a visual novel that centers around a character who studied in the US and now wants to transition from a student visa to a work visa. Players can choose between a variety of life decisions for their character that will determine her financial situation, social support network, and level of resourcefulness, leading to different immigration outcomes down the line. But it’s not a simple choose-your-own-adventure game. There’s also a slot machine mechanism that generates random world events, such as a terrorist attack or financial crisis—that will significantly change the character’s trajectory.
S 001