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Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City     (0 comments)

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Age Range Ages 11 and up

Brief Description

Global Kids Youth Leaders selected the topic of Hurricane Katrina and worked with game developers Gamepill to create Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City. The web-based game recognizes local heroes that emerged during the disaster while educating its players about the essentials of disaster readiness and of reporters.

Release Date August 29th, 2008 - on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina

Developer Global Kids and Gamepill

Project Lead Jay Bachhuber

Press Coverage

http://www.holymeatballs.org/2008/09/p4k_our_latest_game_wins_award.html http://www.holymeatballs.org/2008/09/p4k_blog_coverage_of_release_o.html

Press Release URL
http://www.holymeatballs.org/2008/08/global_kids_to_launch_online_c.html

Full Description

Global Kids Youth Leaders selected the topic of Hurricane Katrina and worked with game developers Gamepill to create Hurricane Katrina: Tempest in Crescent City. The web-based game recognizes local heroes that emerged during the disaster while educating its players about the essentials of disaster readiness and of reporters.

Tempest is a side-scrolling platform game set in New Orleans during the Hurricane Katrina Disaster of 2005. The game’s main character is 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.

Vivica can not move to the next level unless she collects local new from residents and passing that information on to the reporter. Between levels the viewer reads headlines based on the collected news.

Tempest is meant to be a fun adventure game that also addresses meaningful, accurate and difficult historical situations.



Purpose

Educational goals:

  * Teach players about how everyday residents of New Orleans acted heroically to help each other. This is a celebration of New Orleans residents and their culture.
  * Emphasize what are perhaps the two most important priorities in any disaster: communication and use of local resources, needs, and knowledge. The relief effort in Hurricane Katrina was severely hampered by the poor communication between government agencies and through most media outlets. Top down disaster management also led responders to ignore local resources and knowledge that could have saved many lives.
  * Draw attention to the continuing struggle in New Orleans as residents fight for housing in 2008.

Metrics
 How are you measuring results?
 Number of games plays. Number of educators as members of the social network.

Non-Profit involved: yes


Funding Sources: Microsoft Partners in Learning and AED

Budget
Overall: 25,000 - just for the game developers - not to run the after school program

Social Issues/Channels Economics, Environment, Human Rights, News, Politics, Poverty, Youth-Produced Game Tags

hurricane katrina disaster poverty racism



Where you can play this game tempestincrescentcity.org

Contacts
General Barry Joseph, bjinfo2@globalkids.org
Press Sofia, sofia@globalkids.org

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