Successful collaboration is<\/em> possible!<\/h3>\nHigh Tea, released on January 31, 2011, was made to accompany an exhibition on the history of drug use and perception at the Wellcome Collection called High Society<\/a><\/em>. Developers at Preloaded worked with Danny Birchall<\/a>, Editor of the Wellcome Collection website<\/a>, and Martha Henson<\/a>, Multimedia Editor at the Wellcome Trust. Birchall and Henson also collaborated with Mike Jay, the co-curator of High Society<\/em>, to make sure that the game would provide content and themes relevant to the exhibition. The game was published on the Wellcome Collection website, seeded to the popular game site Kongregate, and ripped to many other sites without their intervention. It is important to note that allowing their game to be pirated (with Google Analytics still tracking game use, of course) was part of the Wellcome Collection\u2019s distribution plan and accounted for over half of the game\u2019s plays in the first three months.<\/p>\nIn August of 2011, Birchall and Henson created an evaluation report<\/a> for High Tea. The evaluation report and Birchall and Henson\u2019s subsequent publications through Museums and the Web 2011<\/a> and 2012<\/a> are extremely helpful in understanding some of the challenges and best practices in creating games for museums. In these publications, which detail distribution methods, survey results, and interview methods, it is clear that High Tea provides players with an informal educational experience that, in some cases, inspired people to reevaluate their previous knowledge or do further research on the controversial subject independently.<\/p>\nHappy compromises in gameplay and history<\/h3>\n
High Tea is a good example of how gameplay and historical content can be merged to create a fun and (ahem) addictive<\/em> informal learning experience. Play a few minutes<\/a> or watch the video above to get a sense of the simple (but challenging!) strategic gameplay. However, as players mentioned in interviews, focus groups, and surveys (listed in the Wellcome Collection\u2019s evaluation report), additional educational content within the game would have been even more beneficial for players. The following points are suggestions for improvement on the High Tea gameplay and distribution model:<\/p>\n\n- A better introduction<\/strong>: High Tea\u2019s introduction includes the basic historical context for the game, and can be skipped immediately if the player chooses. Those who choose to read the introductory text cannot advance the text as they finish reading it and must wait for the text to cycle automatically, which is frustrating and might have resulted in more players skipping the introduction.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"\"](\"data:image\/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMSIgaGVpZ2h0PSIxIiB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciPjwvc3ZnPg==\" "\\"introduction\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n- Inclusion of artifacts<\/strong>: Most everything in the game is stylized or abstracted to the point that there is no discernible connection to the Wellcome Collection\u2019s actual collection. I found myself wanting to know what was on display in High Society<\/em> and wondering why even one or two artifacts weren\u2019t included. \u00a0I could not find an explanation or discussion of this issue, and I am curious if anyone else thinks it is beneficial or unnecessary to include artifacts in historical games (especially those made by museums).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
<\/a>A busy stacking room in the opium factory in Patna, India, after W S Sherwill, lithograph, c.1850, Wellcome Library<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n- Identification of historical figures<\/strong>: People speak to the player at key moments in the game, but some are left unidentified. Even when identified, their role within the history of the time period is not entirely clear. I could only find two historical figures who were identified, Commissioner Lin Tse-Hsu (Lin Zexu) and Captain Charles Elliot. Queen Victoria, however, was left unnamed.<\/a><\/a><\/li>\n
- Dedicated space for conversation<\/strong>: The game does have a link to a survey inviting players to share their thoughts (the link now leads to page saying the survey is closed), but the Wellcome Collection did not provide a place where people could have conversations with each other and\/or with educators or curators at the Wellcome Collection.<\/li>\n
- Links to the Wellcome Collection<\/strong>: Since the game was made to be seeded and unofficially ripped to other sites, links to the Wellcome Collection website should have been included within the game in its various stages (introduction, main gameplay, and the game over menu).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
High Tea is a fun and informative game as it stands, and its development and evaluation provide a model for other museums and development studios to implement when working together. These suggestions are really meant to highlight some priorities in the compromise between making a fun game and making an educational history game – giving the player choices of how to play and where to play, giving the player a place to continue conversation, giving the player access to primary source materials, and giving the player a chance to connect with a cultural institution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In August of 2011, Birchall and Henson created an evaluation report<\/a> for High Tea. The evaluation report and Birchall and Henson\u2019s subsequent publications through Museums and the Web 2011<\/a> and 2012<\/a> are extremely helpful in understanding some of the challenges and best practices in creating games for museums. In these publications, which detail distribution methods, survey results, and interview methods, it is clear that High Tea provides players with an informal educational experience that, in some cases, inspired people to reevaluate their previous knowledge or do further research on the controversial subject independently.<\/p>\n High Tea is a good example of how gameplay and historical content can be merged to create a fun and (ahem) addictive<\/em> informal learning experience. Play a few minutes<\/a> or watch the video above to get a sense of the simple (but challenging!) strategic gameplay. However, as players mentioned in interviews, focus groups, and surveys (listed in the Wellcome Collection\u2019s evaluation report), additional educational content within the game would have been even more beneficial for players. The following points are suggestions for improvement on the High Tea gameplay and distribution model:<\/p>\n High Tea is a fun and informative game as it stands, and its development and evaluation provide a model for other museums and development studios to implement when working together. These suggestions are really meant to highlight some priorities in the compromise between making a fun game and making an educational history game – giving the player choices of how to play and where to play, giving the player a place to continue conversation, giving the player access to primary source materials, and giving the player a chance to connect with a cultural institution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Happy compromises in gameplay and history<\/h3>\n
\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/introduction.png\" "\\"introduction\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/PatnaIndiaOpium.jpg\" "\\"PatnaIndiaOpium\\"")
<\/a>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Lin-Tsehsu.png\" "\\"Lin")
<\/a>![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/QueenVictoria.png\" "\\"QueenVictoria\\"")
<\/a><\/li>\n