Jamestown Online Adventure Game Review Game Information: Jamestown Online Adventure is a free web-based game. The game takes place in the year 1606 and you are the captain of the Jamestown Colony. Your job is to set up the first permanent English colony in the New World. Jamestown Online Adventure is ideal for a U.S. History lesson, taught in fourth, or eighth grades. Bob Dunn is both the creator and flash programmer of Jamestown Online Adventure. Historyglobe.com brings you the game free of charge. Jamestown Online Adventure does require a Flash 7 or higher. Game Play: Jamestown Online Adventure makes you the captain of a new English colony. You are given a copy of the London Company?s instructions to help guide you. Your job is to maintain a successful colony based on four things: food, health, morale and wealth. Fellow colonists as well as Native Americans are there to help you. The format is question-based. You are asked a series of questions about where you want the ship to land, how to interact with the Native Americans, what type of town to build, who will work, what crops to plant, and what activities should gentlemen participate in. At the end of the game, you are given a report on the state of your colony based on how well you are producing food, how healthy your colonists are (ie. Are disease and starvation present), how much money you are making for the London Company, and how good of a leader you are to your colony. You even get to compare your colony to the actual Jamestown colony at the end. Only one person can play this game at a time. The game ends when you have answered all the questions. There are a total of six questions. In a recent game, I chose my colony to be set up in a marshy area. I built a village, instead of a wooden fort or castle. I had my men fishing and hunting, instead of searching for gold. All men worked. I planted tobacco, wheat, and corn. In the end, my score report stated that I had good food sources, poor health, good wealth, and a fair morale. My colonists were not too happy with my decision to trade with the Indians, and to make all men work. Game Structure and Teaching: Jamestown Online Adventure is an educational U.S. history game. This game would be ideal for a fourth or eighth grade social studies classroom. While it does not deal directly to North Carolina, it does describe the settlement of an English colony. The game is very short, perfect for an introductory lesson into the colonies. Specifically, the eighth grade NCSCoS refers to the roles and contributions of Native Americans on colonies. Jamestown Online Adventure directly refers to Native Americans in some questions. You also have the opportunity to ask for a Native American?s advice with what type of structures to build and what crops to plant. Indirectly, this game gives students the opportunity to see what it was like to live back then when there was little settlement. The game illustrates the notion that the luxuries we have today were not available. The colonists truly had to live off the land. Jamestown Online Adventure does incorporate some of the 21st learning skills. However, the critical thinking one must utilize in this game is far less than in other games I have reviewed. The player must answer questions about his colony. However, the possible answers are already given. You do not get to see the direct impact your answer has on the colony until the very end of the game. Thus, the player is not forced to react to a positive or negative decision. Critique: Jamestown Online Adventure is truly an educational game. It takes only five to ten minutes to complete. It would serve as a perfect introduction to the English colonies. I think the game would really engage students and get them to thinking about what life was like when the English were settling in the U.S. This game could only be used efficiently in a North Carolina or U.S. History course when students are studying Native Americans and the New World. Honestly, I was a little disappointed with this game. I thought there would be more action, and I would actually get to see the impact my decisions had on my colony. There is no room for creativity as you are already given a choice of answers to the questions. On the upside, Jamestown Online Adventure does an excellent job of imitating life in the early 1600s. The sound effects and graphics are well done. The game also illustrates that life in the early 1600s was extremely hard. A colonist had to work very hard just to stay alive. Posted by slcarte2 ( Sep 30 2007, 08:07:33 PM EDT ) Permalink Comments [11]