7 Years War
Created by Justin Carranza - Level Design/Programing/Promotional content
Jason Jackson - Artistic Direction/Programing/Story
Jude Pierre - Artwork
Evan Tomsky - Research/Testing/Social Media and Marketing
7 Years’ War is a 2D action and explorer game revolving around the events of The French-Indian War beginning in 1754.
The player gathers resources and information from various encounters with NPCs that reflect historical scenarios and challenge the players' learned information. We present these ideas in a “fun” but progressive way. We were inspired by games that feature geographical progression of the player, multiple view perspectives, explorative maps with discoverable resources, and a friendly artistic style to balance the serious tone of the game.
Our Game Trailer (Visuals vary from the completed version)
This work was created because we wanted to develop a game that is multi-purposeful for adding real-world informational value. We expect that the audience is somewhat familiar with the history of the war and able to breeze through the game, or that they are not familiar but intrigued enough to look up the history and incorporate it into their knowledge base.
Early Version
In the summer of 2020, I was regularly listening to Hamilton: The Musical and playing Mortal Kombat 11. It sparked a realization that history could be structured as a tool for entertainment. I felt the lore of Mortal Kombat is so self contained within the (nether)realm of the Mortal Kombat fantasy that you couldn't have a meaningful discussion with someone who didn't play it. So I decided it would be a good idea to make something that was fun to play, but had shareable information that could be taken out of the game and into our world.
One of our designers, Justin, came up with the idea of picking something out of the 18th century and after doing a little digging I came across the Seven Years War and, the French-Indian War that sparked this global battle. Not only did this tap into America's history but, a history that taps into so many cultures.
With regard to the political climate of social media where so many people argue about who is on what side and criticizing people into groups based on their race, gender, and political affiliations, I felt this was such an important event to cover to encourage open discussion about the causes and effects of conflict but also how our history affects our present.
I wanted to make something that students could play at their leisure and then bring that info into a classroom discussion.
Our final result of this project only portrays the French perspective of the war, and we only got so far as to a critical battle of Washington's defeat at Fort Necessity (which I'm pretty sure is hinted at in a lyric from one of Washington's songs sung by Christopher Jackson in Hamilton) We had hoped to tell this story from not only the British side but, from the perspective of multiple tribes of Native Americans who also fought along both sides of this war.
In terms of the dramatics of the narrative, playing as a French militia in this war progresses the player towards an inevitable downfall. This gives the player a sense of loss that aims to make the player appreciate the sacrifices of fallen veterans who fight in the name of someone else's political conquest. 7 Years War portrays the history as it has happened to the best accuracy based on our research. The narrative is not deep with detail but provides a general idea of what the conflict was about with hope to make the player more interested in learning about it.
I'm proud of the project for what we were able to accomplish. As they say, "Rome wasn't built in a day." I hope this game generates discussion about how even fantasy games can focus on a learning aspect. I want to continue to develop this game and inspire young gamers to learn more about our world.
