{"id":403,"date":"2010-12-15T11:00:32","date_gmt":"2010-12-15T16:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=403"},"modified":"2010-12-15T10:07:41","modified_gmt":"2010-12-15T15:07:41","slug":"project-diary-red-landblack-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=403","title":{"rendered":"Project Diary: Red Land\/Black Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

For years, researchers have discussed the educational potential of digital games within learning environments (either formal or informal).\u00a0 It’s only relatively recently that those discussions have started to bear fruit in the form of robust serious game development and (more importantly) published research.\u00a0\u00a0 The problem (at least from the perspective of this discussion) is that while serious games have been used in a wide variety of contexts such as healthcare, the military, and language training, there are comparatively fewer instances of games being used to teach history, archaeology, cultural heritage, or complex culture change over time (especially within the context of a formal learning environment).\u00a0 Many of the games that do exist, such as\u00a0HistoriCanada<\/a><\/em> or MIT\u2019s\u00a0Revolution<\/a><\/em> project, are typically targeted at a K-12 audience. Not that this is a bad thing. It isn’t. However, one might easily argue that the intended audience results in simpler treatment of the subject matter. \u00a0This doesn’t mean that there aren’t attempts to use games to teach these topics within the context of higher education (or in informal learning environments), quite the contrary. \u00a0A great example is Play the Past’s own Shawn Graham<\/a>, who discussed such a project in his recent\u00a0My Glorious Failure<\/a> article. \u00a0Ultimately, however, there seems to be a missed opportunity here. \u00a0Serious games (or any kind of meaningful play, for that matter) provide an excellent opportunity to explore more sophisticated topics of archaeology, history, and cultural heritage in either a formal or informal learning environment.<\/p>\n

It is within this context that I’m kicking off a series of posts to (very practically) discuss and document the development of Red Land\/Black Land<\/em>, a serious game project that I’m directing (currently in development at Michigan State University’s MATRIX: The Center for the Humane Arts, Letters, and Social Sciences Online<\/a>) intended to explore ancient Egyptian history, archaeology, and culture change over time. In this first post, I’m going to take some time to lay the foundations for future posts in the series by (rather casually) exploring the rationale behind the project, as well as its goals and intended outcomes.<\/p>\n

Funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Startup Grant, Red Land\/Black Land<\/em> (the full project name is Red Land\/Black Land: Teaching Ancient Egyptian History Through Game-Based Learning <\/em>if folks are interested) is intended to create a robust Civilization V<\/em> mod (a mod is a “modification” of an existing game) that will allow players to explore the socio-cultural and historic character of Ancient Egypt from the Early Predynastic Period (ca. 4000 B.B.) to the end of the Third Intermediate Period (ca. 525 B.C.). As a side note, the grant originally proposed a Civilization IV<\/em> mod. However, just as things got started (the project, unfortunately, suffered some unexpected setbacks and started later than expected), Civilization V<\/em> was released. It seemed like a missed opportunity not to shift gears slightly and develop for Civ V<\/em> instead. \u00a0The name of the project actually comes from the ancient Egyptian’s name for the Nile Valley, Delta, and surrounding desert. \u00a0The ancient Egyptians referred to the Nile Valley and the Delta as km.t<\/em> (pronounced\u00a0kemet<\/em>) – the black land (in reference to the dark, rich soil of the Nile Valley and Delta). \u00a0On the other hand, they referred to the wild and chaotic deserts outside of the Nile Valley and Delta (both to the east and west) as dsrt<\/em> (pronounced\u00a0desret<\/em>) – the red land. \u00a0The two terms, Red Land\/Black Land, are often used to refer to the totally of the (local) ancient Egyptian world.<\/p>\n

The project itself has two primary goals. The first (and most basic) is to create a game-based experience in which players can explore ancient Egyptian history and archaeology (with a special focus on socio-cultural change). It is extremeley important to note that the intent of the game is not to force players to restrictively “replay” historical events as archaeologists and Egyptologists believe they happened.\u00a0 Instead, the game allows players to explore the\u00a0process<\/em> of socio-historical change within the framework of ancient Egyptian.\u00a0 Players are able to explore why<\/em> things happened (and why archaeologists and Egyptologists believe they happened that way) as opposed to what<\/em> happened (as they are currently understood by Egyptologists and archaeologists) \u2013 something that could easily looked up in a book or read on Wikipedia. By way of example \u2013 an early portion of the game is dedicated to the rise of the Egyptian state during the Predynastic and Protodynastic periods (ca. 4000-3000 B.C.). In this context, players will immerse themselves in a scenerio where the possible factors leading to the unification of the Egyptian state come into play.\u00a0 If, for instance, players reach a point in the game where they control Upper Egypt, would it be in their best interest to conquer Lower Egypt through direct military action, or would they rather attempt the cultural assimilation of Lower Egypt through trade, peaceful colonization, and cultural exchange?\u00a0 What would be the results (both long term and short term) of either strategy?<\/p>\n

The second goal of the project is to create a game-based experience in which players can explore the the construction of historical and archaeological knowledge. In short, adress the question of how Egyptologists and archaeologists know what they do about ancient Egypt (and how that knowledge developed and has evolved over time). Particular emphasis is placed on the complex nature of ancient Egyptian archaeological and historical evidence. In order to acomplish this, Red Land\/Black Land<\/em> extends Civilization’s “advisor” mechanic (which, in normal gameplay, provides summary data and advice about a course of action based on their focus – e.g. there is a military advisor, an economic one, etc.) to create an Egytpology Advisor. This Egyptology Advisor serves two purposes.\u00a0 First, it provides contextual historic and archaeological information during gameplay.\u00a0 For instance, if the player is playing the portion of the mod involving the Hyksos invasion and occupation of Lower Egypt during the Second Intermediate Period (ca. 17th<\/sup> Century B.C.), they would be able to refer to the Egyptology Advisor to obtain information about known events (and the associated archaeological materials) of the actual invasion.\u00a0 Secondly, and most importantly, the Egyptology Advisor provides contextual information about how archaeological knowledge is constructed and evolved. For instance, extending upon the Hyksos example, players will be provided rich content on the ecavations at Avaris (the Hyksos capital in the Eastern Delta) and how those excavations fit into the historic record. In the process of developping the Egyptology Advisor, we have also explored the possibility of linking to external online sources of primary excavation and epigraphic data and information (both contemporary and historic). Ultimately, the goal is not just to provide historic and archaeological information about ancient Egypt, but to provide the vital intellectual context of that information, exploring how and why archaeologists and Egyptologists reached the conclusions they did about a given site, individual, historic event, cultural practice, etc.<\/p>\n

At this point, I’m going to break and leave further discussion of the project for another day. \u00a0In the next installment of my look at Red Land\/Black Land<\/em>, I’ll spend time exploring some of the technical and design considerations (and challenges) we encountered at the beginning of the project. \u00a0In the meantime, I would absolutely love to hear thoughts, suggestions, feedback, or general musings on the project from Play the Past readers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For years, researchers have discussed the educational potential of digital games within learning environments (either formal or informal).\u00a0 It’s only relatively recently that those discussions have started to bear fruit in the form of robust serious game development and (more importantly) published research.\u00a0\u00a0 The problem (at least from the perspectiveContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[46,45,44,49,48,47],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["entry","author-admin","post-403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-articles","tag-ancient-egypt","tag-archaeology","tag-civilization","tag-mod","tag-neh","tag-project"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=403"}],"version-history":[{"count":38,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":517,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions\/517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=403"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}