"Every age has its storytelling form...
...and video gaming is a huge part of our culture." Andy Serkis
Oh gosh now's my time! I LOVE historical gaming. Not that I really participate or anything, it's just a wild thought that you can sneak historical learning into a game just like how you sneak vegetables into a little kids penne pasta.
The first time I can recall any sort of relationship being made between history and gaming was when I was a senior sitting in my high-school military history class. My teacher was awesome, in fact, it's probably his fault I majored in history at all. Anyway, we were talking about a certain British officer and to make a connection to my class (who were mostly guys, cause, military) he mentioned how in Assassins creed III, a mission was to assassinate said officer.
Wait, characters in games can be real?
Now, I should add, I have no background in gaming. I have two consoles, which are the original X-Box (RIP) and the Nintendo Wii, neither of which support any sort of crazy complex gaming. It was only recently after we upgraded our desktop to a behemoth of a gaming computer, I was allowed to explore some more "interesting" games.
After the fire at Notre-Dame, Ubisoft released AC: Unity for free. You know, why the heck not? It's free, it's got history, not the best reviews, but whatever. I want to see what makes it interesting. Well, all I can say is if all the AC games have the sort of information in it as Unity does, that's great. If you don't know, in the menu, you can read about people, events, and places that, as far as I can tell with what I know about the French Revolution, is pretty accurate.
See, vegetables in penne; it works! But does it work in the classroom?
One of our readings for this week questions whether AC: Origins, the newest game, could be used as a teaching tool. The developers even went as far as to create a "violent-less" version of the game called "Discovery Tour" to be used in classrooms. However, was it successful? The short answer is, well, not entirely. Students who were taught the traditional way scored higher in knowledge retention than those who just used the game. The promise of using this type of gaming as a supplementary tool is promising though. It can explain more complex topics like mummification because you can actually see it happening.
Of course, I've been digging into history and gaming and if it can be successful or not, and I have to say, there are some interesting examples. None of the one's I have found are horrible. There are some improvements that could be made, but otherwise, there are some unique applications.
For one, Red Dead Redemption 2 confronts the ugly history of US racism according to Jonathan S. Jones for slate.com. While you can do anything in RDR2, it plays on the American fanfare of "rewarding the good and punishing the wicked".
One of the main towns you can visit is Lemoyne. While not a real state, (of course) it reveals the harshness of the American South during the Jim Crow era. There's a lot of twists the game takes. One involves helping a black doctor retrieve his medical wagon from whites who robbed and nearly lynched him for being successful and black. Another is a nod to the violent insurrections against reconstruction-ere reforms in the form of the Lemoyne raiders, and of course, the KKK:
It's a harsh history to display in a video-game, but one that is done well enough to get people discussing the morals of killing an ex-slave catcher who laments that he is victimized for his past occupation, another in game mission. Again, you are not punished for doing so, much like the KKK, but actually rewarded if you kill him.
The second article that comes to mind is this little ditty from Robert Whitaker. In summation, Whitaker wanted to combine his love for playing games with his love of history, so he combined the two in a YouTube series called History Respawned (clever name). Each episode, he runs the game and talks with a historian that either worked on the game or is an expert in the topic of the game.
What Whitaker found from the comment sections were people liked historical settings and they wanted to find out how true these settings were. He is still making the videos, which come out once per month, so definitely check it out!
Finally, to draw your attention to the mobile world, (since just about all of us have smartphones) is the Italian developer, TuoMuseo. Basically, TuoMuseo works with Italian museums, opera houses, and more recently, tourism promotion companies, to create lovely games that are actually meant to be played in the museums. For example, one of their games, "Father and Son" has levels that unlock once you are at the Museum of Archeology in Naples.
The downfall of these games is they take forever. You actually walk the character around by holding a finger on the screen. And I know, it's part of the experience, but if I have to stand in a museum in Italy and wait for Marco to make his way down the street in a game for 5-minutes, I'm not going to be thrilled. Not only that, the dependency that the player will have a chance to visit Naples to conclude the game is a bit high on expectations. The games also do not delve into critical thinking. They're just pretty and maybe give you an idea of relating an artifact with the past.
Video games have a lot of potential. Getting tidbits of history hidden throughout and promoting discussion is the main goal. Moving into classrooms takes a little more work. Things might have to be simplified and you may not be able to do the same thing you did with your original game. And now with museums getting involved in creating their own games to complement their goals, historical gaming is quickly becoming it's own beast. It's all kind of like space, the final frontier, vastly unexplored but with many opportunities for future development.
If you enjoyed this post, hit that subscribe button at the top!
As always,
Festina Lente my friends,
--Jess--
Oh gosh now's my time! I LOVE historical gaming. Not that I really participate or anything, it's just a wild thought that you can sneak historical learning into a game just like how you sneak vegetables into a little kids penne pasta.
 |
| Blog Meister Jessica presenting a poster on gaming and interactive exhibits as undergrad research *Fun fact, I didn't know that was the dean of the college of Arts and Sciences* |
Wait, characters in games can be real?
Now, I should add, I have no background in gaming. I have two consoles, which are the original X-Box (RIP) and the Nintendo Wii, neither of which support any sort of crazy complex gaming. It was only recently after we upgraded our desktop to a behemoth of a gaming computer, I was allowed to explore some more "interesting" games.
After the fire at Notre-Dame, Ubisoft released AC: Unity for free. You know, why the heck not? It's free, it's got history, not the best reviews, but whatever. I want to see what makes it interesting. Well, all I can say is if all the AC games have the sort of information in it as Unity does, that's great. If you don't know, in the menu, you can read about people, events, and places that, as far as I can tell with what I know about the French Revolution, is pretty accurate.
See, vegetables in penne; it works! But does it work in the classroom?
 |
Of course, I've been digging into history and gaming and if it can be successful or not, and I have to say, there are some interesting examples. None of the one's I have found are horrible. There are some improvements that could be made, but otherwise, there are some unique applications.
For one, Red Dead Redemption 2 confronts the ugly history of US racism according to Jonathan S. Jones for slate.com. While you can do anything in RDR2, it plays on the American fanfare of "rewarding the good and punishing the wicked".
One of the main towns you can visit is Lemoyne. While not a real state, (of course) it reveals the harshness of the American South during the Jim Crow era. There's a lot of twists the game takes. One involves helping a black doctor retrieve his medical wagon from whites who robbed and nearly lynched him for being successful and black. Another is a nod to the violent insurrections against reconstruction-ere reforms in the form of the Lemoyne raiders, and of course, the KKK:If players mosey around the backcountry at night long enough, they will eventually spot orange flames illuminating the distant trees. Investigate, and Arthur winds up toe-to-toe with a dozen white-hooded Klansmen. Honor system notwithstanding, there’s not a thing in the world stopping Arthur from going full-on Django Unchained on those racist ba*****s. As players gleefully reported on Reddit, the game actually incentivizes killing the Klan members. Usually when Arthur commits unprovoked assault, murder, and even animal cruelty, his standing plummets, but not if players opt to eradicate the local klavern.*Rumor has it that if you just stand still and watch, the klansmen will still end up dying, mostly from incompetence during a cross burning... you know...they, well, incinerate themselves...*
It's a harsh history to display in a video-game, but one that is done well enough to get people discussing the morals of killing an ex-slave catcher who laments that he is victimized for his past occupation, another in game mission. Again, you are not punished for doing so, much like the KKK, but actually rewarded if you kill him.
The second article that comes to mind is this little ditty from Robert Whitaker. In summation, Whitaker wanted to combine his love for playing games with his love of history, so he combined the two in a YouTube series called History Respawned (clever name). Each episode, he runs the game and talks with a historian that either worked on the game or is an expert in the topic of the game.
What Whitaker found from the comment sections were people liked historical settings and they wanted to find out how true these settings were. He is still making the videos, which come out once per month, so definitely check it out!
Finally, to draw your attention to the mobile world, (since just about all of us have smartphones) is the Italian developer, TuoMuseo. Basically, TuoMuseo works with Italian museums, opera houses, and more recently, tourism promotion companies, to create lovely games that are actually meant to be played in the museums. For example, one of their games, "Father and Son" has levels that unlock once you are at the Museum of Archeology in Naples.
The downfall of these games is they take forever. You actually walk the character around by holding a finger on the screen. And I know, it's part of the experience, but if I have to stand in a museum in Italy and wait for Marco to make his way down the street in a game for 5-minutes, I'm not going to be thrilled. Not only that, the dependency that the player will have a chance to visit Naples to conclude the game is a bit high on expectations. The games also do not delve into critical thinking. They're just pretty and maybe give you an idea of relating an artifact with the past.
Video games have a lot of potential. Getting tidbits of history hidden throughout and promoting discussion is the main goal. Moving into classrooms takes a little more work. Things might have to be simplified and you may not be able to do the same thing you did with your original game. And now with museums getting involved in creating their own games to complement their goals, historical gaming is quickly becoming it's own beast. It's all kind of like space, the final frontier, vastly unexplored but with many opportunities for future development.
If you enjoyed this post, hit that subscribe button at the top!
As always,
Festina Lente my friends,
--Jess--
I really enjoyed reading this post, Jess! I'm glad you were able to delve a little bit deeper into a topic that you're passionate about. I've heard about Red Dead Redemption before, however I never knew what it was about, or that it was based in the past. I might have to try it out some time. If you're looking to play more history games that you can easily play on any PC or Mac, I would try Sid Meier's Civilization V or VI. It was mentioned in our readings for this week as well. It might not be entirely historically accurate, but it's a great strategy game that has lots of historic themes!
ReplyDelete