'Trafalgar Origins' takes teens to sea
Channel 4 Education's latest interactive project is a compelling sea battle sim, with a few tales to tell of the Napoleonic era...
Channel 4 Education's latest interactive project is a compelling sea battle sim, with a few tales to tell of the Napoleonic era...
How do you get teenagers interested in the Napoleonic wars? Short of casting Robert Pattinson in an adaptation of War and Peace, or running a seafaring reality TV series entitled Celebrities with Scurvy, most commissioning editors would probably be stumped.
But earlier this month Channel 4 Education launched a free browser-based game entitled Trafalgar Origins, a beautifully designed Napoleonic sea battle sim, with crisp overhead visuals, thudding sound effects and plenty of palatable historical detail. It's been created by Preloaded, a developer that specialises in interactive educational projects for TV series' as well as galleries and museums. Another of their Channel 4 projects, 1066, has been played 16 million times online since its debut last year.
Trafalgar Origins, then, provides a series of missions in which you guide your nineteenth century frigate against aggressive enemy vessels. Plundering sinking craft earns loot which can be invested in better crew members who will improve your ship's attacking and defensive stats. There's also a range of weapons to call on including round shot, chain shot and powder barrels, which can be dropped into the sea and employed as rudimentary mines.
I only meant to play for a few minutes last night, but ended up spending two hours sailing through the tutorial missions, then tackling the historical encounters, each based on genuine face-offs between the English, French and Spanish navies. There's also a multiplayer mode, in which groups of up to five users can indulge in oceanic deathmatches. And naturally, Preloaded has implemented Facebook Connect, so players can post their achievements, compare stats with friends and set-up multiplayer sessions via the social networking site. (Preloaded creative director Phil Stuart, has written an interesting blog post entitled 'socialising Trafalgar Origins', which looks into the process of providing Face Book connect support.)
The game is designed to tie in with Channel 4's 'Bloody Foreigners' season, which kicks off in June and features a series of documentaries about the role of non-British nationals in the advancement of Britain as a world power (for example, a significant number of ex-slaves and foreign convicts were press-ganged into the British navy). And with 3.2 million missions already played, there are plenty of gamers already picking up interesting trivia about life in the Victorian navy; possibly more than you'd get from Celebrities with Scurvy...
Anyway, give it a go and see what you think. The boat handling takes a while to get used to, but it's fun to work out the best angles of attack, and to start using the anchor for aquatic 'handbrake turns'. A guided missile would come in handy, though. They had those in 1806, didn't they?
But earlier this month Channel 4 Education launched a free browser-based game entitled Trafalgar Origins, a beautifully designed Napoleonic sea battle sim, with crisp overhead visuals, thudding sound effects and plenty of palatable historical detail. It's been created by Preloaded, a developer that specialises in interactive educational projects for TV series' as well as galleries and museums. Another of their Channel 4 projects, 1066, has been played 16 million times online since its debut last year.
Trafalgar Origins, then, provides a series of missions in which you guide your nineteenth century frigate against aggressive enemy vessels. Plundering sinking craft earns loot which can be invested in better crew members who will improve your ship's attacking and defensive stats. There's also a range of weapons to call on including round shot, chain shot and powder barrels, which can be dropped into the sea and employed as rudimentary mines.
I only meant to play for a few minutes last night, but ended up spending two hours sailing through the tutorial missions, then tackling the historical encounters, each based on genuine face-offs between the English, French and Spanish navies. There's also a multiplayer mode, in which groups of up to five users can indulge in oceanic deathmatches. And naturally, Preloaded has implemented Facebook Connect, so players can post their achievements, compare stats with friends and set-up multiplayer sessions via the social networking site. (Preloaded creative director Phil Stuart, has written an interesting blog post entitled 'socialising Trafalgar Origins', which looks into the process of providing Face Book connect support.)
The game is designed to tie in with Channel 4's 'Bloody Foreigners' season, which kicks off in June and features a series of documentaries about the role of non-British nationals in the advancement of Britain as a world power (for example, a significant number of ex-slaves and foreign convicts were press-ganged into the British navy). And with 3.2 million missions already played, there are plenty of gamers already picking up interesting trivia about life in the Victorian navy; possibly more than you'd get from Celebrities with Scurvy...
Anyway, give it a go and see what you think. The boat handling takes a while to get used to, but it's fun to work out the best angles of attack, and to start using the anchor for aquatic 'handbrake turns'. A guided missile would come in handy, though. They had those in 1806, didn't they?
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