War Games

In researching the Revolutionary War, a.k.a. the American War for Independence (AWI), I found Rebecca Beatrice Brooks' blog that showcased board game pieces for actual old-fashioned army-man-in-hand tabletop war games. Fascinating! The figures looked a lot like Lego pieces to me, but what do I know about this kind of thing?

Not only are there soldier figures, but there are instruction books for various tabletop strategy games as well. Maybe this appeals to my childhood playing board games or playing with dolls (no offense meant to wargamers!) or maybe it just appeals to those of us who are not digital natives, but if there wasn't so much cost involved, I probably would have ordered some of these miniatures and the books right then and there. But, alas, I am not made of money.

Instead, I launched a free war game that was advertised on one of the blog pages, Call of War. I have not seen what WOW or World of Warcraft is, but I have heard it is a complicated and engaging pastime for those who have ventured to play it. I imagine that Call of War is similar.

The game starts with a tutorial, which is pretty complicated in itself, at least to me. Being of a non-digital generation, the plethora of visuals had me searching for what each step of the tutorial was referring to around the visually crowded screen. I was thinking, "if my son were playing this, it would be no biggie to find what the heck they're talking about...his games seem just as visually overstimulating." It made me think twice about the criteria for designing digital instruction that asks designers and developers to keep stimulation within reason so as not to lose the students in too much over-stimulation. Gosh, if the digital generation can handle it in a game, I'm thinking maybe we have it wrong.

The game may be a bit beyond your secondary school student though. Set in WWII, all aspects of war, from supplies, economics, construction projects, production and national leaders are present. There are also some timed research activities built into the game. There are options to "purchase" more gold, a key to mobilizing and, well, doing anything, really. This pretty much takes it out of the secondary school range right there.

Overall, the complexity, the money factor, and the advanced skills required to play the game means it would not fit the needs of my students so I will not pursue this game further. It is too bad, since I was looking for an authentic role-playing option to use in class (middle school) in lieu of a textbook.