Viking Quest is an educational browser game, wherein the player conducts a raid against Lindisfarne. The narrative is strictly linear, based on a series of constrained, multiple-choice selections, drawing on the ancient Oregon Trail design. Graphics are elegant and useful; sound is minimal and unobtrusive. The game presents historical content either as explanations and content for choices (i.e., pick some crew members, and here's why each one is useful) or as cut-scenes between choices (a nice sequence of Viking ship-building, once you've picked a model).
The tone is internal to the quest, rather than summative from outside. It's quietly positive, not condemning your raid, but neither rollicking in the destruction.
It's very easy to play, after the initial load. Everything's in the one Flash file. Then the launch page has prominently-displayed links to other BBC pages on the topic.
Not very Web 2.0: no user contribution of content. No way to export anything, besides screenshots like the below.
Not very social-gaming-ish: there's no way for players to interact.
My raids have gone well so far, but the king is never happy.
Posted by: jak | October 17, 2007 at 18:11