I’m returning to the subject of crime history in this fall’s teaching: a third-year course on Crime & Punishment in England, 1500-1900. I was happy with a lot of material and activities that I used last time. I was even happier that I made some good notes about what not to do when I revisited the course (so students will do three projects using records of London criminal trials and not four).
What’s got me most excited is the prospect of building a game with the class. We’re going to use Twine 2.0 to create several text-based “choose your own story” adventures using material gleaned from the Old Bailey Online.
Each student will be responsible for suggesting some cases we might use in the storylines – a great way to get them to dig around in the archive – and also locating some images to add interest to the game as we develop it (along with documentation of where they found these so we can assemble a proper set of credits in the game).
They’ll also be expected to create some narrative choices for the game stories as we develop this: for instance, letting the player choose to either apprehend a suspect when someone shouts “Stop, thief!” or ask the complainant “What’s this about?”
Right now, I’m still working my way through the screencast tutorials while I prepare a sample game to start the course and spark their interest. When it’s up and running, I’ll link it here. But for now?
jliedl.ca 