MICROGAMES

Set within the Long Walls of Athens during the winter of 405-404 BCE. In the Fall of 405 Sparta destroyed the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami (near the straits leading to the Black Sea). The Athenian Assembly must determine whether to surrender and relinquish its democracy. The Spartan kings, being advised by various generals in their war council, and by the Delphic Oracle, determine the outcome of the game—and the fate of Athens.

Legacy Microgame 10-69 Students 5th Century BCE Europe

Jesuits, Royal Ambassadors, Archbishops, and members of the Crowd have gathered in Rome to decide the fate of the Jesuits. If they are banned, further decisions must be made about what happens to individual Jesuits and the Jesuit schools and property.

Microgame 8-30 Students 18th Century Europe 

Politicians, lawyers, academics, union members, farmers, ranchers, and journalists  gather to debate the constitutional amendment placed on the state ballot in 1934 by a citizen initiative led by the progressive Senator George W. Norris. The amendment would replace the Nebraska House and Senate with a non-partisan, one house legislature. This microgame recreates a debate in Omaha in which students will play Progressives, Conservatives, and Indeterminates  debating the value of tradition and the necessity of political parties for the organization of the legislature. Could American democracy evolve or was it locked into traditions formed 150 years earlier?

Microgame Under Review 8-24+ Students 20th Century USA

Despite being recognized as one of the most influential composers of his day, Wagner left behind him a fraught legacy that was open to interpretation. This game centers on the ideological and culture clashes that have surrounded Wagner during and after his lifetime. Some of these conflicts are overt and political: revolutionary versus reactionary, cosmopolitan versus nationalist, left-wing versus right-wing. But his legacy also splintered into other unexpected directions: American westerns, early LGBTQ+ advocacy, feminism, and mysticism. As an attendee of the reinauguration of the Bayreuth Festival in 1924, you have a chance to stake a claim for the Meister's influence in the new century by getting your chosen musical drama on the agenda and writing a review. To win is to define how Wagner will be remembered; to lose is to watch an alternative revisionist interpretation take hold.

Microgame 9-40 Students 20th Century Europe

This game simulates the fierce debates within the Roosevelt administration, in the immediate aftermath of Pearl Harbor, whether to order the evacuation and internment of all people of Japanese heritage, including U.S. citizens. Will the game's Roosevelt follow history or change it?

Microgame 5-27+ Students 20th Century North America 

The game is set in August 1945. Japan has seen its cities fire-bombed for a year, and Hiroshima has just been incinerated by an atomic bomb. Players take the roles of top army, navy and civilian leaders to decide on a reply to the Allies' "Potsdam Declaration." Should they accept, even if it results in the end of their institutions and fundamental change in Japan? Or should they demand compromise, or even fight on?

Microgame 9-36 Students 20th Century East Asia

Which should prevail: the constitutional rights of American citizens or the responsibility of the government to protect the nation? After the Pearl Harbor attack, Fred Korematsu decided to defy President Franklin Roosevelt's Executive Order 9066 requiring all Japanese-Americans to report to "internment" camps. He appealed his arrest as a violation of his constitutional rights. His case reached the United States Supreme Court in 1944. This game recreates that case.

Microgame 5-30+ Students 20th Century North America

Two contemporary college students break up. Sources differ regarding the cause. Players discover new ways to sort them, which provides insights and deepens confusion. This microgame is intended to introduce undergraduates to some of the issues involved in the use of primary sources to construct historical narratives.

Legacy Microgame 12-30 Students Anytime Anywhere

This game immerses students in the challenges of balancing digital free speech with public safety and human rights. Players take on roles as members of Meta’s Oversight Board or one of five factions advocating different values around platforms’ role in society. Using real-world cases of banned social media posts, students debate how political and cultural contexts complicate a single understanding of content moderation online.

Microgame Under Review 7-46 Students 20th Century Global

Microgame Under Review  10-20 Students 21st Century Latin America

Students play one of nine astronomers arguing the definition of a planet at a 1999 debate in New York City and a 2006 meeting of the International Astronomical Union. Using scientific precedent and discoveries, students will compare Pluto with other celestial bodies and put scientific ideals into action.

Legacy Microgame 9-27 Students 21st Century North America

This microgame explores the tensions between moral solidarity and economic self-interest in the 1556 Mediterranean world. Following Pope Paul IV's execution of 24 Jewish conversos in Ancona, Jewish merchants from across the Ottoman Empire gather at Sultan Suleiman's court to debate a proposed boycott of the Italian port. Students play either Jewish delegates weighing the costs and benefits of collective action, or Ottoman court officials managing the empire's complex relationship with European powers. The game asks students to grapple with fundamental questions about communal responsibility: When are we obligated to sacrifice our own interests for distant members of our community? How do communities make decisions when members face vastly different consequences from collective action? Can economic pressure serve as a legitimate tool for justice, and at what cost? 

Microgame Under Review 13-30 Students 16th Century Asia/Europe

Early medieval nuns rebel violently against their abbess and demand attention for grievances about social status, fiscal mismanagement, and the abbess's lifestyle. The game examines powerful and active roles for early medieval women as they wrestled with questions about who should lead a prominent monastery.

Microgame 8-40+ Students 6th Century Europe

It is 42 BCE in Rome. You are one of the 1,400 wealthiest women in Rome, most members of prominent families, influential but still legally unable to vote or fully control your own property. You have spent your entire life enduring multiple civil wars and urban violence in which the men of your family fought for power. Now the current leaders of Rome are demanding that women pay taxes to fund their civil war, which for many of you directly targets your husbands and sons and brothers. Nearly all these women do not want to pay taxes. However, the conflict comes in debating the method of resolution: whether this problem can only be solved by pleading with the wives and daughters of the new rulers of Rome to influence their loved ones, whether women should instead vote to unify together as a group and publicly advocate for policy changes, or whether they should simply resort to violence and assassination of those who oppose them.

Microgame Under Review 9-35 Students BCE Europe

This microgame may serve as a companion to the Constantine and the Council of Nicaea game. It is designed to set up the situation leading to two major issues at the Council of Nicaea, the Arian heresy and the Meletian Schism.

Microgame 12-28 Students 4th Century Africa

Angry citizens have besieged members of Augsburg’s city council to demand the return of Johann Schilling, a radical preacher exiled by the council for sedition. The protesters have produced a set of demands that include religious matters along with social and economic issues such as merchant monopolies and excise taxes on beer. Members of the council must find a way to either placate or intimidate the mob or they will not be able to safely leave the council house. This urban uprising from 1524 closely parallels the issues in the larger Peasant’s Revolt of 1524-25. This activity can be used as a stand-alone game in one to two class periods, or as a precursor to the longer game on the Reformation in Augsburg.

Microgame Under Review 10-28+ Students 16th Century Europe