Designing Civil War Games

The public history class has entered into the final push to create an educational game based.  Today students pitched their ideas for a game, which led to the drawing below as we tried to work out how a game might reflect the experience of the 154th NY in Georgia.  Stay tuned...

Story Telling

Thursday Chris Mackowski of SBU's School of Journalism and Mass Communication discussed his book Fight Like the Devil:   The First Day at Gettysburg, July 1, 1863 and his work with the Emerging Civil War and the National Park Service.  The NY 154 saw action at Gettysburg and appears in his book. The discussion ranged far and wide but we kept returning to the importance of place, narrative and audience.

I failed to take pictures, so in place of a picture (not a good transition but I like the story) I'll include a piece from the Harvard Business Review.  The Best Data Storytellers Aren't Always Numbers People is about the continued importance of story telling and narrative in the age of big data.  This is something we discuss in the Digital History class (offered in the spring!) as we use tools like Google maps to tell stories. 

Freedom: The Underground Railroad

Last class an unplanned game session broke out.  We've been talking about how to match theme, content, and game design.  In particular how does one deal with potentially sensitive topics, such as slavery, in a public history project.  Also, we want to think about the richness of the Civil War and not limit ourselves to war games (not that we have anything against war games).  Dennis brought in Freedom:  The Underground Railroad (click here for an interview with the designer) to show the class how one educational game designer had dealt with it in a cooperative game.  Once the game was explained, the next logical step was .... well, to play it.

Digital History

Next semester we're offering the History 419:  Digital History and Archival Practices.  We'll continue our work creating a digital map of the Bonaventure cemetery.

History Club Events

The History Club has some cool events on the horizon.

November 12th- Trivia Night in La Verna- 7 p.m. Come with a team of three to test your knowledge on trivia (not just history). Top three teams win gift card prizes. 

November 13th- Friedsam Library, 2-?. Board Game Day. Join the History Club in the basement of the library in a Board Game jam. Enjoy playing familiar and obscure board games with friends and professors while enjoying pizza. 

November 14th- 8-4 pm. Field trip to Strong National Museum of Play and Nick Tahou's.  Enjoy a day in Rochester visiting Rochester's National Museum of Play (It's Sci-Fi Day!) and later getting lunch at Nick Tahou's- birthplace of the Garbage Plate. Transportation will be provided, first come, first served. Free of charge.

Shannon Conheady's Blog

Shannon Conheady, history alum, is blogger about her experience on a Fullbright scholarship.  You can read her blog here.

Meeples Visit Public History - More Games Designed

The Public History class continues to explore the intersection of game design, historical content, and education.  Our second round of game design included not just game mechanics, but the games had to illustrate or incorporate a real-world theme.   

The students came up with two games.  Black Gold is a resource management and territory occupation game with an eurogame feel that used the theme of competing oil companies.

The other team built a game to explain the college experience.  Players had to advance through four years of college.  Here is a classic example of taking a theme and then finding the mechanics.  Both games worked in play testing today.

Plus, we now have meeples in the class!

Our next challenge is incorporating the Civil War themes from the 154th into a game and we're looking taking the first steps toward seeing how this plays out in the digital world with Gameblox and Minecraft.