As any student of American history knows, December 7, 1941 was a pivotal moment. That was the day when the policy of isolationism adopted by the USA in WWII was blown out of the water by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Full participation in the fighting in Europe became a formality – especially after Adolf Hitler decided that Germany would declare war on the United States as well.
But what if the Japanese hadn’t bombed Pearl Harbor? What if Germany had actually continued to comply with the 1919 Treaty of Versailles signed after the end of WWI and not violated the military restrictions placed upon them by the Allies? If the piece of paper that British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain claimed in 1938 was an agreement from Hitler “symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again” was actually more than a waste of ink, then would Europe have been at war in 1939?
Muzzy Lane, a game-development company based in Newburyport, Mass., develop products that deal in just these kinds of ‘What ifs?’ and were one of the exhibitors at the recent Games Beyond Entertainment conference held here in Boston. Known within the industry as purveyors of Serious Games, they developed Making History: The Calm & The Storm, a strategy game that sold 45,000 units over both the educational and consumer sphere and are releasing Making History 2: The War of the World — a game that will concentrate on WWII — on June 22.
Readers of The Boston Globe will also be aware that Muzzy Lane also developed a community-based digital media project called Participatory Chinatown which allowed the community to take control of an avatar and guide it through a 3D virtual representation of Boston’s Chinatown. The decisions made in this immersive world, created specifically for this community, could then be used by the local council of developers to make choices as to the best way of utilizing the space in the area.
Formed in 2003, the company has been involved in creating Serious Game experiences that rely on decision making to drive the game forward. These decisions affect how the game will progress and ensure that the player learns the consequences of actions that the game proposes. By mixing the elements of strategy with education, the player is actually absorbing information without feeling that they are being taught.
I spoke with David Martz, VP of Sales & Marketing, and he says he believes that this is an important distinction. He says, “ We (Muzzy Lane) gravitate towards self directed learners — someone who is willing to take ownership and responsibility for their own progression,” adding “ they’re the easiest people to motivate.”
Although not originally from a gaming background, Martz has always been interested in marrying computer technology with education and the possibility of making learning fun. Before he joined Muzzy Lane, he ran Cambridge Digital Media, a company that experimented with an educational history game in 1994. But the time wasn’t right for this type of serious game, and in 2005 he joined Muzzy Lane.
In 2007, the company released Making History: The Calm & The Storm, a pre-WWII strategy game aimed at educators but which actually managed to transition to the consumer world.
“We had built the game initially for the educational markets but we found there was a good crossover into the consumer space. The irony of that particular game is that it had more traction in the consumer space,” says Martz. That consumer desire for the game actually ensured that revenues from the educational sector were eclipsed and gave the company an insight into how both worlds could be serviced.
Of course to ensure that the gaming experience is as seamless as possible, the game engine and mechanics have to be capable of coping with the huge amount of information required. Muzzy Lane developed their own proprietary engine called Sandstone, which is “tailor made for these serious educational games,” according to Martz, and is fully web enabled and integrated. Martz says, “other engines don’t solve the problem. If the problem is to teach history or to teach science or to figure out urban development, we want to have total control of the technology.” By creating Sandstone, the company is able to fully use the technologies built to deliver the product required.
In 2010, the aforementioned Participatory Chinatown was released. A collaboration between Emerson College, the MacArthur Foundation and the ACDC, Asian Community Development Corporation. These groups approached Muzzy Lane to develop the game. According to Martz, “They had a problem they wanted to solve and they found the existing technologies lacking, so they brought the problem to us.” The problem was very simple, community meetings were not attracting young people and so the older members of the community were unable to accurately represent the wishes and opinions of the younger generation. Muzzy Lane developed a compelling 3D game that would accurately represent Chinatown and would allow the player to see how best to utilize open, green, residential, retail, industrial and commercial space to create a balanced community by “using the gaming world to do it rather than long, boring council meetings.”
The ability for someone to just be able to dip into the game for a short time is an essential part of the company’s development process. As Martz explains: “We like discreet experiences where you can jump in for 15 or 30 minutes, which coincides with the classroom where you can do some activities for a short time but you still progress because the game remembers your status.” Acknowledging that the Zinga Farmville model has allowed the development of a casual game that caters to peoples’ lifestyles, Muzzy Lane focus on the huge investment of time that traditional strategy games have placed upon the participant and the learning curve that a player has to go through to play the game effectively.
Martz believes that games must be as accessible as possible and says, “If the game has a big learning curve then it’s self defeating as some people may never get to the experience that you want them to have.” He continues; “what’s important to us is the transfer of knowledge. Does playing the game teach you whatever the game was trying to teach you? That’s the ultimate test.”
With the release of Making History 2: The War of the World, Muzzy Lane will be bringing a turbulent period in history to life that could provide an interesting alternative to what actually happened. Martz is confident that the gaming world is up to the task and says “the gamer generation learns by doing, the question is did what they learn in the game world help them to perform better in the real world?”
Perhaps if Hitler had been able to run a simulation first, maybe he would have realized that declaring war on the USA was not such a good idea. But then I suppose we wouldn’t have been able to mine the vaults of history for so many compelling war games, giving millions of kids the chance to learn from his actions.
