Reverse Engineering: The Hajj Trail Simulation

The Hajj Trail

The Hajj Trail is a text-based educational game that places students in the early modern Ottoman world, with the narrative centered on a historical pilgrimage to Mecca. Much like the popular game The Oregon Trail (created by Carleton alumni), this game presents players with choices that replicate the world and culture of that era. The goal of the game is to provide students with a more interactive and enjoyable historical experience than traditional texts and documents. The target audience is primarily undergraduate and high school world history, Middle Eastern history, and Ottoman history students. The Hajj Trail was created by Tyler Kynn and Russ Gasdia.

Sources

As written about in the Project Review, the main path in the game follows the route of an early 18th-century Bosnian pilgrimage manuscript. The hours travelled in the game align with this historical document. The project was also created using a variety of other pilgrimage and travel narratives from the Islamic world. The developers also consulted secondary literature on the cultural and social history of the early Ottoman Empire.

Processes

The code for the game was developed using the open-source platform Twine. Using Twine, authors write interactive, non-linear stories in hyperlinked passages. The information from various document sources had to be organized and edited to fit into a cohesive storyline with realistic attributes. Tyler Kynn coded the locations, events, historical content, and narrative for the project.

Presentation

The project is presented in the form of an interactive game. After a text-based pop-up sets the context of a particular situation, the player is prompted to make a decision by clicking on one of the options presented. The game features visual images that further enhance the cultural experience. It is web-accessible and available to play online for free.

Question

After breaking the project down, I am still particularly interested in the processes portion. In my understanding, sources (usually cited) and the presentation (what we are actually seeing) are generally easier to break down. However, I feel like specific processes might happen more behind the scenes and go unnoticed. In the Hajj Trail, the developers had to process historical documents, organizing and editing the information to incorporate it into the game. However, I wonder what other processes are occurring that I am glossing over. What else is going on behind the scenes?