MUVErs and Shakers

MUVErs and Shakers

Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) have been around for a while now, so I’m a bit ashamed to say that, but for the educational variety (Blackboard, Moodle, and Canvas), I have fairly little experience with them. The subset of MUVEs that involves gameplay is of increasing interest to me, however. The Sims were big during my grade school years, but when I played, I played solo on my computer, not in a setting like The Sims Online, where players can interact with other players. Since my Sims and Age of Empires days (the latter being installed on a school computer), I have only dabbled in multiplayer gaming. What games I have dabbled in have been less thoughtful and interactive and more about crushing the opposite team (not that there’s anything wrong with that, mind).

The options for The River City Project 

Given the continued growth of MUVEs and related gaming, I thought it might be worth doing some exploring to see what different applications of the concept look like. As expected, many of the most-used and most visually pleasing games are those that are entertainment-driven and designed by gaming studios (Wikipedia has a handy list here). However, the world of education is jumping on the bandwagon and coming up with many inventive games that combine schooling with interactive gaming. The key feature of these games as far as I can tell is the interactive part - other educational games have been around for some time. I am following the development of a historical game about the development of a smallpox vaccine in 1800s Edinburgh called Pox in the City (funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities grant). The beta game seems fun (the final game looks even more so), but lacked many of the features used in a similar game developed by Harvard called the River City Project. Although the subject of smallpox in Scotland seems more interesting to me than general disease spread in a generic town, Harvard’s game allows a richer experience with its interactive options. Students can talk with each other as they play, take notes, draw maps, and accordingly process and learn together in a way that they could not in Pox and the City.

Both games focus on teaching students scientific principles in a historical setting, and I think it’s safe to say that they both achieve their aim - but I also think that interaction, much like class discussion, is a more effective way to learn. Regardless, it is clear that this is a style of game we will be seeing a lot more of in the future.

Mock-up of the finished Pox and the City game, aiming for historical accuracy (from Pox and the City by Sam Kean, Humanities v.34, issue 1, 2013).