Operation Sherlock

Talks about five brilliant but wack kids getting dragged onto a deserted island by their scientist parents, and they decide to beat the adults at their own game. Not much else to talk about here.
The article talks about video games being deployed for education.
The first example given is of Viking Age, a free add-on for Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, that allows you to venture through early Viking Britain and that has now been adapted into the school program of 52 institutions across the UK. Previous games created by Ubisoft that allowed you to venture through Ptolemaic Egypt and Greece during the Peloponnesian War, are all supposedly “curated by historians and experts”. The second example is a very early one, of a game called “The Oregon Trail”, created in 1971. When Paul Dillenberger, the creator, showed The Oregon Trail to his students, the effect gaming could have in a learning environment was apparent. Although since then there have been numerous attempts to integrate gamification into the schooling system, it never seems to work. One thing that does work though, is how much interaction playing these sorts of video games creates between the time periods and historical events they're based on and the audience. It also discusses how video games can be used to explore ideas that are not present in traditional academic curricula, such as the history of minorities and LGBTQ history. It also discusses some of the pitfalls of using video games as teaching tools, such as their tendency to be developed by a predominantly white male population and their tendency to be based on Western interpretations of history. The author also looks at how technology has been beneficial during the COVID-19 pandemic in providing access through digital means and examines ways by which educators have taken advantage of this situation.  Finally, the article argues that video games can be an effective tool for teaching, as they encourage active learning, which leads to higher retention and understanding than traditional passive methods. The short article (and the 9-minute video attached) both talk about how some video games give up on authenticity in favor of inclusivity. They give the example of “Kingdom Come: Deliverance” which suffered from major criticism because they fail to include any non-white characters. The game designers said that it was only a reflection of the time and place of the game (Medieval Bohemia), and the explanation was not accepted by many. They also give the example of Assassin's Creed Origins, which depicts boys and girls attending school together, something that certainly didn’t happen in Ancient Egypt. In the BTS they said that “the team felt it was not necessary to prioritize historical sexism over inclusive gameplay”. This game also covers up nude statues and censors them, and this is another way a game can be less accurate yet feel authentic. The video first of all talks about the difference between authenticity and accuracy (we usually refer to games as accurate when they are authentic). Authenticity is trying to get the feeling of the time period, and making sure that game overall feels accurate. It then gives the example of Call of Duty: WWII when talking about game designers that are willing to be flexible for the historical basis of the game. The game uses WWII to present its story, but they also allow players to play as female soldiers, despite them never serving on the frontlines. Total War presented Russia as unified when they were actually falling apart. They say that it shows it is possible to be authentic to a time and place while also trying to be inclusive.

The Oregon Trail

Originally, this was a wagon route and emigrant trail in the US that connected the Missouri River with the valleys of the state of Oregon (I didn’t know this was actually a state). Then in 1971, more than a hundred years later, Don Rawitch recruited his teacher friends Bill Heinemann and Paul Dillenberger and the three of them developed with the production of the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) the first game based on it, which was an educational text-based strategy game in which the player was a wagon leader guiding a party of settlers from Missouri to Oregon, and there they needed to buy supplies, fix their wagon if broken, and struggle with the historical settler’s struggles. The trail took something like 12-14 days, and so in the game players were given the option to buy, hunt, build camps and other stuff to survive the trail. Every mini event that happened during the real trail also happens in the game, with even dates and stuff. The game was updated to other school softwares but still remained a strategy game, yet now it is not text based anymore. People criticize the game as it has too many random events, and you need more luck than skill to be good at it. Then the game was criticized that it encourages colonialism, but these critiques are from today’s generation and at the time who the fuck cared? On top of that gameloft now has the balls to continue the series of reboots of this game, making it less luck based every time. Top 10 students in the US are in the leaderboard. The original version of the game can’t be played, as it doesn’t exist nowadays.

Seven Cities of Gold

Also known as the Seven Cities of Cibola, was a popular legend that was told by the Pubelos, a native american tribe to the Spanish colonists in the 16th century, and the legend told that there are seven cities in the American Southwest that are filled with gold and other riches. It led to a lot of Spanish leaving the Pubelos’ camp and going to search after these cities, although they were not found (just like end cities in minecraft!).  In 1984 Dan Bunten, aka Danielle Bunten Berry with Ozark Softscape developed with the production of Electronic Arts the video game based on it. The game is strategy based, and in it you are a Spanish explorer setting sail to America to explore the area and please the Spanish court. It is one of the earliest open world games ever. You get to be aggressive or friendly with the natives, making your own path unique. It’s not that inaccurate with the fact that the Spanish explorers weren’t actually friendly with the natives as the game suggests.

Sid Meier’s Pirates!

So we all know pirates used to rule the Caribbean with all of their might and power, right? If not, please watch Pirates of the Caribbean or play Sea of Thieves…
Now, Sidney Meier made in 1987 an open world video game where you play as a pirate in that time period, and in it you can roam real spots in the Caribbean sea and live a true life of shanties and rum. Again, if you don’t know what pirates do, watch PotC, or play SoT. It is known that there were also bosses of the top 10 most powerful pirates to ever roam the seven seas. The problem with its accuracy is that the bosses didn’t live during the same time.

Call of Duty

In CoD, you get to play as a special missions soldier and do some special missions for the American Army. There is not too much to talk about in the franchise, as most of them are made up, except for CoD: WW2, where Activision decided to make the weapon designs historically accurate.

Ghost of Tsushima

A game made by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony, based on a story from 1274, where the samurai Jin Sakai who was on a mission to protect the isle of Tsushima from the first Mongol invasion of Japan. In both history and game the Mongols were defeated by Jin’s skills with a sharp katana. The player has the option to choose between doing stuff stealthy or dramatic by killing everyone in a big bloodshed. The style of the game is influenced by Shadow of the Colossus. On top of that, historically, who led the Mongols in the invasion was the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan, the guy who Kubla Khan is based on in the poem Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It is important to note that Jin Sakai follows the Bushido code throughout the game.

Age of Empires

The game is based on human evolution between ages. Humans were once hunters, then used copper, Iron, and kept expanding. That’s what the 1999 game by Ensemble Studios owned by Microsoft wanted to have. The gameplay is “world of warcraft meeting civilization”. What I mean by that is that as a player you develop a civilization from hunters to an iron age empire. You need to do whatever you can with the given resources to advance your civilization. You advance from the Stone Age to the Tool Age to the Bronze Age and then the Iron Age. Players may choose a civilization out of 12 different ones, such as the Greek, Roman, Ancient Egyptians, East Asians etc.

Assassin’s Creed

Partially based on the long conflict between the order of assassins, an order of arabic assassins that lived in the mounts of Persia and Syria and strived for free will and like human rights, and the Knights of Templar, Chirstian crusaders that came to the holy land and have allegiance to the pope, believing that the only way for peace is order. Some developers at Ubisoft, Patrice Desiltes, Jade Raymond, and Corey May created a mish mash of historical fiction and science fiction and the historical story and so made the assassin’s creed game. Just like god of war, it's an action adventure game. The game is not accurate to the story, but is pretty accurate for the time frame of history. Each and every new installment takes place in a different era.

Railroad Tycoon

In the industrial revolution during the 18th and 19th century, the steam train became extremely popular, and so Sidney Meier decided to create a business strategy game where you play as a businessman that builds railroads, and it uses accurate stock market prices to have the player think about what he spends his money on, and on top of that the player competes with other AI businesses that try to out-business him. You can start your railroad company in four geographic locations which are Western USA, Northeastern USA, Great Britain or Continental Europe. You can take loans and do whatever you want business-wise.

Gameloft’s the Oregon Trail

Gameloft recently created a more recent version of the Oregon trail. Here, Gameloft wanted to change three main aspects of the game that will make it much better for the new generation. First, and the most important one, is the fact that now the game is much more skill based. In the original Oregon Trail, the biggest factor of the game was luck, as you could’ve been rammed by a bull or bit by a snake at almost every given moment. However, now, in Gameloft’s more recent version, they added a mechanic of advancing the travelers who are in your wagon. These can be priests, farmers or other people just like the other games, but now each one has special statistics that makes them helpful at different situations. A priest will regenerate your health with bandages, a butcher will make food for the rest of the travelers, and a carpenter will rebuild your wagon if it is broken. You get to interact with them more and make them more loyal, and so you get to be more rewarded if you are more strategic and friendly to your buddies. The second aspect they changed, is the graphics of course. It’s still in the same angle as the original game, but now with much better graphics, instead of pixelated pixels, it’s more 3d models and such - stuff that will fit more the young generation. Lastly, Gameloft stated that the original game encouraged colonialism, and to fix it they now hired three Native studies scholars to integrate Indigenous perspective and presence into popular narratives of the game.

Catan changing its name

Basically Catan is a board game by Klaus Teuber, in which four players play as settlers on an island with different biomes, and so you can trade resources to build cities and empires expand and then there’s an economic war between the players and friendships are made and broken. The game was originally named “the settlers of Catan”. Catan refers to the name of the Island. Now, people criticized the game for encouraging colonialism, as the players get to settle in an Island that is not theirs (anything to say, Australia?). As a result, they decided to change the name to “Catan”.