Virtual Excursion to the Middle East

​​A line of Palestinians has been waiting at a checkpoint for what seems to be an eternity. Hannah Weismann, a journalist just back from the USA, attempts to find out from an Israeli soldier why the control point is closed. Just then, a woman in the line collapses.

Weismann is told that the woman had been waiting for hours to see her doctor on the Israeli side, but prevented by the soldiers from crossing. The soldiers explain that she is related to someone involved in a terrorist attack in Israel.

Grappling with an experience in a different way

This is just one of the scenarios in which the players of the recently released computer game "Global Conflicts: Palestine" could find themselves.

Players have the choice of taking on the role of a young female journalist of Jewish Israeli origin or that of a male Palestinian journalist. In either case, the journalist has just returned to the Middle East from the USA and attempts to report on the complicated conflict.

"You have to imagine it as a virtual excursion. The game's 3-D environment helps one to grapple with an experience in an essentially different way than that of a book," explains Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen. The psychologist heads the young Danish software house Serious Games Interactive and has for some time been interested in the use of games for educational purposes.

A cornucopia of information sources

A year-and-a-half ago, he began to develop "Global Conflicts: Palestine" together with a staff of ten. A cornucopia of information sources flowed into the game – books, newspaper articles, documentary films, websites, close collaboration with the university in Copenhagen, and advice from numerous experts on the conflict.

This becomes immediately apparent when playing the game, which is available in English, Danish, and German. Individual missions deal with topics such as the settler movement, the status of the "martyr," and the role of the media. The player moves his character through a city landscape full of traffic and bystanders.

​​On the way between the Israeli and Palestinian parts of the city, the player might meet a peace activist or be asked by a soldier to pass on some information to his military commander. Such encounters provide the opportunity to conduct an interview, which can turn out to be fawning, critical, or even aggressive.

Players can decide to write for a Palestinian, Israeli, or European newspaper, and then collect suitable quotations in a virtual notebook. Only a certain number, however, can be saved and some must be discarded.

At the end of each level, the player uses these quotes to write an article. The software determines the quality of the article on the basis of its resonance with the newspaper's readers.

The makers have set up an extra website with background information and teaching material in order to make the game more attractive for use in schools. This isn't easy to do, while the status of computer games will only begin to change with the coming of a new generation of teachers, who themselves grew up playing games on consoles or computers, says Egenfeldt-Nielsen.

The tastes of the "Egoshooter" generation

Until now, he and his team have tested the game in around 30 classrooms. According to the Dane, the feedback was mostly positive. A large portion of the 15 to 18-year-old students felt that they gained more knowledge through the game than from classical teaching materials.

"We managed to reach perhaps 80 to 90 percent of the students with the game. Those that we didn't reach were the hardcore gamers. They found the graphics too poor and the game too simple," reported the game developer.

Nonetheless, "Global Conflicts: Palestine" is one of the first "serious games" that at least from a technical standpoint can reasonably stand up to commercial entertainment games. While many teaching games only employ 2-D graphics and offer simple game scenarios, this new game about Israel and Palestine is oriented towards the tastes of the "Egoshooter" generation.

The game has cost about 400,000 euros to develop. And initial funding has already been found for the next game – "Global Conflicts: Latin America".

Lorenz Matzai

© TAZ/Qantara.de 2007

Translated from the German by John Bergeron

Qantara.de

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