PeaceMaker


 * Educational Game Review **
 * Peacemaker **



This game deals with the conflict between Israel and Palestine. This conflict has been going on for many years and it is in a constant state of change. One minute it is peaceful and the next there is bombings and war. It is notoriously difficult to get any real resolution and this game tries to simulate that situation by allowing you to play the as leaders of the different sides while you try to reach peace and keep all parties happy. The game gives you a series of scenarios and you have to decide what the best course of action would be to deal with each situation. It is basically a role playing game that incorporates real life events with reports and videos to show the players what has happened.

The game does a good job of illustrating how difficult it is to manage the situation. It has two meters one that shows the satisfaction of your people and the other show the feelings of the global community. In order to be successful you need to keep both sides happy. This allows the players to feel like they are part of the situation and shows them why this is such a difficult situation for the leaders. By incorporating the real life videos the game teaches the players a little about real life events. The players learn who is involved and some of the history. There is a short tutorial that helps players learn how to use the game menus. This is more informational and it does not have the feel of being a subset of the game. Players will learn terminology and the geography of the area but it does not work well enough to make the players feel like they are really participating. Most of all I feel that learned that it is impossible to keep all sides happy and I see no way to peace. I am not sure if that is what the game was trying to teach but I feel that that is what happened.



I played for at least an hour and I was never able to accomplish much. The game was better at using the interaction with real life video to pass on information than it was at at allowing the player to feel some success. I felt like the game could have been better if it allowed the player to get away from reality a little and be able to find some ways to have success. The game did not work on the practice principle it had little time for learning and did not make the player feel that they could get better. This game seemed more centered on passing on information and not on teaching the students any skills.



When I first played the demo of this game I thought it might be a game that I would use. I feel like the principle of the game is good but the designers do not do a good job of keeping the interest of the player. I felt like there could have been some more help with the decisions that have to be made and a much better tutorial that followed the subset idea that Gee talked about would have made the game more entertaining and more useful for learning. Overall I was disappointed with the game play and felt bored so I do not think this would work well to engage students. I may still use it at some point just to have some novel way to pass on this information but I do not think that it would be something I would expect the students to get excited about. In many ways it reminds me of the old Oregon Trail game and I think that’s how the students would see it