Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City
After school Program Design @ Global Kids
Developed curriculum and co-facilitated after school program Playing for Keeps (P4K) at Canarsie High School in Brooklyn. Led game design for Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City - a game based on a social issue, in collaboration with P4K students and a game production company. Customized social network to support the community spurred by the game
Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City is a side scrolling platform game in which the player steps into the role of Vivica Water, a young woman from New Orleans who moved to New York after surviving the storm. The game takes place in a dream Vivica has where she searches for her mother and helps her neighbors as the hero she wishes she could have been. The game teaches players about how everyday residents of New Orleans acted heroically to help each other and emphasizes on the two most important priorities in any disaster: communication and use of local resources, needs, and knowledge. Tempest is a fun adventure game that also addresses meaningful, accurate and difficult historical situations.
In the Playing for Keeps program, students learn about social issues along with basic game design skills in order to express their ideas through game creation. The students of Canarsie actively participated in the process by picking an issue that was closest to their heart, generating game ideas, researching events related to Hurricane Katrina, creating storyboards that tell the story of this young hero, playtesting the game at various stages of development and giving feedback to the game developers.
The social network is a place for people to play the game, share their experiences, learn more about the disaster and find opportunities to take action. It also contains a curriculum that educators can use in the classroom to teach about Hurricane Katrina. The end of year launch party was held at the Global Kids office attended by P4K students, family members of students, Global Kids staff and members of the AMD Changing the Game initiative.
The social network is a place for people to play the game, share their experiences, learn more about the disaster and find opportunities to take action. It also contains a curriculum that educators can use in the classroom to teach about Hurricane Katrina. The end of year launch party was held at the Global Kids office attended by P4K students, family members of students, Global Kids staff and members of the AMD Changing the Game initiative.
