One Ball State history professor had a problem with how Indiana textbooks explained certain Civil War events -- so he decided to do something about it.
Ronald Morris said fourth grade Indiana textbooks didn't delve into details about Morgan's Raid, Indiana's main involvement with the Civil War.
About 18 months ago, Paul Gestwicki, associate professor of computer science, wanted to create a game, so the two teamed up.
The name of the project is Morgan's Raid, a game that puts the user in the shoes of Confederate Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan, who led a raid through Indiana in 1863.
Morris said the concept behind Morgan's Raid involves educating teachers and students about Indiana's involvement in the Civil War.
"We were building this so teachers and students could find out more about Indiana's participation in the past," Morris said. "Also, we wanted to help students make historical, geographic and economic choices through the game format."
Through mutual colleagues, Morris and Gestwicki began work on the issue by leading a class of about 25 to 30 computer science students into a project for their class, Game Programming.
Senior computer science major Caitlyn Rickey said she remembers one task she and her colleagues had problems with during the development of the game.
"Balancing fun with historical accuracy was one setback," she said. "We wanted this video game to be used in a classroom, so we couldn't just make up our own version of the events that took place in order to make the game interesting. Luckily, the topic of Morgan's Raid is pretty interesting on its own."
After its completion earlier this summer, Morgan's Raid was publicly released at Conner Prairie's educator event.
"We had a lot of elementary school teachers walk by and try the game, and they loved it," Gestwicki said. "They loved the fact we invested so much energy in making something to help make their jobs a little better."
Gestwicki said teachers weren't the only ones who praised the game.
"Conner Prairie also loved it," he said. "They thought it was a great interpretation of the story."
Gestwicki said the Morgan's Raid exhibit that opened earlier this month at Conner Prairie's Interactive History Park showed a different side of the event.
"We have a slightly different spin on Morgan's Raid than they do," Gestwicki said. "So ours is not just a copy, it's really complementary."
Computer science major Josh Hurst, worked on the video game from the beginning, said working on the video game has taught him things that will help him in his future career.
"It opened my eyes to a completely different style of team organization and software development," Hurst said. "Working on this project has given me a great deal of confidence, and it helped cement a few concepts that only show their necessity when one works on a long-term project."
Anyone can download the Morgan's Raid game for free here.
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