This post documents my thoughts on Viking Quest as part of the Week 1 activities and research into Serious Games for the Games Based Learning (GBL) MOOC.
The game
Viking Quest – http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/interactive/games/viking_quest/
What is it?
Viking Quest is an adventure game produced by BBC history. The player is placed in the role of a viking who has been issued a challenge by their chief. The challenge is to travel to a distant land, loot a monastery and then return to Norway with the treasure.
Audience
General/Primary and Secondary school
Why so Serious (Game)?
To successfully meet the challenge set by the Viking chief, the player needs to:
- determine if they should borrow money to fund their quest
- choose a location to build their longship
- select a longship that is suitable for their journey
- choose crew members
- select a route across the North Sea
- determine if they should burn the monastery.
Game mechanics
Viking Quest features:
Learning outcomes
Viking Quest provides an overview of the type of activities (Sailing, looting, ship building), technology/transport (Longships, weapons), commerce (Loans/Borrowing money, slavery), belief systems (Casting runes – Consulting the Gods, Christianity), settlements (Froya, Strandebarm, Kaupang) established by Viking culture.
Without knowing the scope/audience for Viking Quest, (but knowing that it was produced by BBC History) I think it’s reasonable to assume that the broad overview of Viking Culture presented in the game was the intended learning outcome. I also think it’s reasonable to assume that Viking Quest may be part of a larger and perhaps more detailed learning/educational resource on Viking culture and could be regarded as complementary material.
