In our culture, the prevalence of video games has changed from spending time in arcade games with friends to a subculture blue whale with a professional e-sports team, breakthrough technology development and world-class storytelling. It is better than Hollywood in terms of creativity and finance.
We are increasingly beginning to see its potential in education. Although video games have been teaching children to read and write, solve mathematical equations, etc. since the 1990s, with the advancement of technology today, game companies have been able to go further.
The popular battle royal game “Fortnite” and its branch Fortnite Creative have collaborated with Time Studios to create a way to experience history, an experience that cannot be obtained from textbooks or watching videos. Their first project? Martin Luther King Jr. gave a “I Have a Dream” speech by a famous civil rights activist in 1963.
Except for the cover of Time Magazine in the distance, the player starts from a void of black void, but when you run to the cover, it is more like a portal than a floating piece of paper. When you run towards it, you will hear MLK’s voice starting his legendary speech, and you will soon find yourself in the reflecting pool of Washington, DC. On the big screen there, you can see that the person is giving a speech.
Players can sit down and watch the speech, but the Fortnite developers include much more than that. If the player chooses, he or she can take some civil rights tours around DC, including interactive games with historical facts. All along, you can hear MLK’s speech in the background.
This is a very creative way for children and adults to learn about important moments in history, especially civil rights activists like MLK. In today’s public schools, King’s information about civil rights is largely distorted by political interest groups that try to criticize racial theories for each child, which is completely contrary to King’s teachings.
But while I like the creative aspect of it and I am happy to see the game moving in this direction, some parts of this interactive historical mini-game can be daunting, and some can even be insulting.
Some interactive games are stupid, while others just ask the troll to destroy the moment. For example, a mini-game allows you to jump on the “Pillar of Justice” to reach the top of the largest pillar. The other one lets you fly into the air with an anti-gravity grenade to collect “energy balls”. The other one lets you roll a giant ball on the stairs with others, which just asks the troll to try to hit the ball out of the line, making you feel more like Sisyphus than a civil rights advocate. These mini-games eliminate the importance of courses more than strengthen them.
More importantly, you will get specific emoticons that can be used for activities, most of which are ridiculous. For example, there is an expression called “harmony” that allows your character to adopt a “tree pose” yoga pose. The other allows your character to do “lift the roof” action. It may cause embarrassment in the game, or even funny stupid moments.
Although these are complaints, they are relatively small compared to the opportunities and potential that this interactive game brings. This mini game will be the first time many children have heard of MLK’s speech or what Rosa Parks mentioned. Important moments like this deserve attention, and listening to King’s speech in full will put racial equality in the perspective it should be viewed, rather than the way ideological extremists want to teach it.
It’s nice to see other important moments like this in history (except for the weird little games in mini games), such as signing the Declaration of Independence, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and even the moon landing. At the same time, understanding the civil rights movement and those fighting for true freedom and justice is a good start.
