In these restricted times, I have played around with Scratch, a programming tool for children developed by MIT. After some tinkering I came up with a simple maze game. I decided to make the game cooperative: the players have to share their ammo to defeat the sharks and reach the next level. They have to work together to get a high score.
It felt odd to program the game this way: I have incorporated the expectation of competitiveness. Perhaps now is a good time to experiment with other incentives. The challenge is to keep the players interested because achieving a common goal doesn’t look very glamourous. After all, there is no direct opponent to compare.
Of course, groups could play against each other. But can’t we apply the same logic there? Can we imagine a game in which the opponent remains forever imaginary? Is that what we mean by overcoming tribalism?
Be that as it may, the game might not work 100%, but I invite you to try it out. If you have kids, do introduce them to scratch. It is a great tool to learn programming.
You can play the game here.