{"id":3094,"date":"2012-08-21T11:00:50","date_gmt":"2012-08-21T15:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=3094"},"modified":"2012-08-21T12:15:30","modified_gmt":"2012-08-21T16:15:30","slug":"stranger-in-these-parts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/?p=3094","title":{"rendered":"Stranger in These Parts"},"content":{"rendered":"

…cross-posted at ElectricArchaeology.ca <\/a> to see what the archaeology crowd thinks…<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the things I want my students to engage with in my \u2018cities and countryside in antiquity\u2019 class is the idea that in antiquity, one navigates space not with a two dimensional top-down mental map, but rather as a series of what-comes-next. That navigating required socializing, asking directions, paying attention to landmarks.\u00a0 I\u2019m in part inspired by R. Ling\u2019s 1990 article, Stranger in Town<\/a>, and in part by Elijah Meek\u2019s and Walter Scheidel\u2019s ORBIS project<\/a>. Elijah and I have in fact been talking about marrying a text-based interface for Orbis for this very reason.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m also interested in gaming, simulation and storytelling for their own merits, so I\u2019m trying my hand at an interactive fiction written using Inform 7 \u00a0<\/a>along the same lines. Instead of interfacing directly with the model represented in Orbis, I\u2019ve queried Orbis for travel data, and have begun to write a bit of a narrative around it. (One could\u2019ve composed this in Latin, in which case you\u2019d get not just the spatial ideas, but also the language learning too!).<\/p>\n

Anyway, I present to you version 0.1, an alpha for \u2018Stranger in These Parts<\/a>\u2018, by Shawn Graham. I\u2019m using Playfic <\/a>to host it. I\u2019d be happy to hear your thoughts. (And a hint to get going: check to see what you\u2019ve got on you, and \u2018ask Eros\u2019 about things\u2026)<\/p>\n

Obviously, some things are lacking at the moment. I\u2019ll want the player to be able to select different modes of transport sometimes (and thus to skip settings). There\u2019s a point system, but it\u2019s meant more to signal to the students that there is more to find. Depending on which NPCs a student talks with, different kinds of routes should become available. Time passes within the IF, and so night time matters \u2013 no travel then.\u00a0 As far as I know, there\u2019s no such thing as multi-player IF or head-to-head IF, but that\u2019d be fun if it were possible: can you get to Pompeii before your classmates?<\/p>\n

In terms of the learning exercise, the students will play through this, and then explore the same territory in Orbis. In the light of their readings and experiences, I\u2019ll be asking them to reflect on the Roman experience of space. Once we\u2019ve done that, now being suitably disabused of 21st century views of how to navigate space, we\u2019ll start looking at the landscape archaeology of other ancient cultures.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the plan, at any rate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…cross-posted at ElectricArchaeology.ca to see what the archaeology crowd thinks… One of the things I want my students to engage with in my \u2018cities and countryside in antiquity\u2019 class is the idea that in antiquity, one navigates space not with a two dimensional top-down mental map, but rather as aContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"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":[260,261,65],"coauthors":[209],"class_list":["entry","author-graham","post-3094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-articles","tag-interactive-fiction","tag-roman-history","tag-space"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3094"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3102,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3094\/revisions\/3102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3094"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playthepast.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=3094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}