New member of History faculty featured in The Economist

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This article ran in the of The Economist.

For Muslims making the haj pilgrimage, which this year runs from July 7 to July 12, the first leg is easy enough: hop on a plane to the dedicated terminal in Jeddah. After that, they catch a bus or taxi for the last 85 kilometers to Mecca. But for generations of pilgrims the journey was difficult, expensive and fraught with dangers. The trek often took months. Not everyone made it.

Tyler Kynn, a teacher of Islamic history now at 蜜柚视频, was looking for a way to bring the past to life when he remembered a computer game from his youth. 鈥淭he Oregon Trail鈥, first released in 1971, introduced a generation of American schoolchildren to frontier life in the mid-19th century. Revolving around a band of settlers travelling in covered wagons from Missouri to Oregon, it forced players to think about finding supplies and water, conducting trade and simply staying alive. The masses of American millennials who played the game will remember the many, many ways to die on the trip.

Working with a friend, and using travelogues by 17th-century Ottoman pilgrims, Mr. Kynn developed 鈥淭he Haj Trail.鈥 It is a browser-based strategy game crammed with historical detail. Players can choose the role of one of five characters, from an Ottoman princess (the easiest) to an impoverished widow (the hardest). Travelling companions provide assistance, as do soldiers for hire and animals encountered along the way, such as the White Gyrfalcon. As in 鈥淭he Oregon Trail,鈥 the challenges are many. Bandits steal pilgrims鈥 food, money and goods; water purity is unreliable; bad trades can cause bankruptcy.

Despite the sometimes frustrating difficulty of the game, Mr. Kynn鈥檚 undergraduates were soon hooked. Gameplay made 17th-century travel more accessible than giving them a book and saying "read these 100 pages of an account where the guy says 'I get robbed here.'" Teachers from as far afield as Malaysia and Anatolia have stumbled on the game online and used it in their classes. Mr. Kynn鈥檚 goal is to make the role-play widely available for educational use at no cost.

The appeal arises not from fancy graphics but from the game鈥檚 multilayered texture. At each stop, players have the chance to explore local shrines. They can gossip in coffeehouses, picking up valuable tips on the route ahead, or go to the local market to barter goods. They frequently confront trade-offs in time, risks and supplies.

鈥淭he Haj Trail鈥 offers a way to experience some of the magic, and dangers, of one of the world鈥檚 greatest journeys, albeit from the comfort of home.