Digital Gaming

Gaming may have been heavily stigmatized, in recent years it has become widely accepted past time throughout the nation, and the world. Due to this rise in gaming has been noticed by many, and as a result many companies, educators, and groups have utilized gaming as a way to spread and encourage knowledge and consumption. Gaming can be a great way to get varying audiences involved and interested in history and other areas of the humanities, and this may be attractive to institutions as a way to better connect to them. Although gaming may seem temping to institutions, I think that they would be better suited as collaborators with gaming companies rather than to develop their own gaming platforms. For instance the game Assassins Creed has become vastly popular, with more than three sequels over the last few years, and has sparked historical interest among its audiences. As popular as it is, this video game can lead younger audiences (and even older audiences) to belief in a skewed and inaccurate historical narrative. To remedy this situation, I think it would be fantastic if institutions and gaming companies, like the one that created Assassins Creed, could create a united force to produce fun and historically accurate games.

For this assignment I chose to review the game Oregon Trail, which was a hit in the 1990s and has recently become free to play on the internet. The premise of the game reflects its title, you the player must successfully follow the Oregon Trail of the 19th century. As you and your family travel to the west, there are periodical stops at important and historical and natural landmarks, military forts, and towns. At each stop you can speak to fellow travelers and traders who give you survival tips, and information about the surroundings. Although this game provides some context to the Oregon Trail of the past, I found myself more concerned with hunting for game to make sure that everyone survived, and that my oxen weren't being worked too hard than actually absorbing facts from other areas of the game. Facts, and place names just blurred together. One thing that does stick with you from this game is the hardships faced by those who traveled the trail. Members of your caravan may come under attack from bandits, fall ill from dysentery, become injured, or starve. All of these factors could be difficult to come back from in the game, and in the reality of the 19th century travelers.

Although this was a older game (originally created over twenty years ago), it does reflect well on how gaming could be used to teach. There may not have been many long winded facts, and sometimes the facts that were presented were ignored because of the players need to win, the experience of what it was like to be on the real Oregon Trail did last with the player. 

Digital Storytelling and New Media

The platform of digital storytelling can provide a interesting interactive experience between creators and audiences. As the project Welcome to Pine Point (http://pinepoint.nfb.ca/#/pinepoint), the history of a particular place can be told through the stories of a close knit group of residents. This project wove personal accounts of living in Pine Point with facts and personal affects like home videos and photos. Despite the fact that this project had a great deal of personal and emotional elements to it, audiences could connect with the story of Pine Point through both the nostalgia of the creators and by tapping into their own memories of growing up. By utilizing multiple levels of digitization and media to create a story telling experience, as the Welcome to Pine Point project did, audiences would be able to experience this story as if they themselves were a part of it.

Although projects like Welcome to Pine Point can provide an enjoyable experience for audiences, the use of various forms of media and fancy visualization can distract the audience. For example, in The National Archives program (http://digitalvaults.org/), the digitized archives are displayed with a rotating display that continues to shift and change as one clicks on the images and documents. While this was a very interesting and interactive experience to the National Archives digitized repositories, the constantly shifting display confused me as to which document was next, and if there was a specific theme that I should have been following. Not only can the visualizations be distracting to audiences, lack of instruction or a clear correlation between the digital platform and the story that should be told can leave an audience confused. While it may seem new and inventive to add high tech or flashy formats to a storytelling or new media projects, these could largely impact negatively on how audiences interact and receive the project.

Overall, digital storytelling and new media provides a new level of interaction that creators can provide for their audiences. As we discussed in class projects like Welcome to Pine Point can blur the lines between art and the humanities. By blurring this line, digital and new media creators can provide amazing interdisciplinary and educational experiences for a wide range of audiences.