8-Bit Immigrant

A humanities gaming approach to understanding the history

of US immigration

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Contents

1 List of participants 3

2 Abstract 4

3 Narrative 5
3.1 Enhancing the humanities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
3.2 Environmental scan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.3 History of the project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
3.4 Work plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.4.1 Consultation and Selection (February 2020): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.4.2 Planning Meeting at the NEH offices in Washington, D.C. (March
2020): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.4.3 Digitizing (April-May 2020): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.4.4 Developing the Game (June-December 2020): . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
3.4.5 Alpha and Beta testing (September/October): . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.4.6 Dissemination (December): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.4.7 Summary of Work Plan stages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
3.5 Final product and dissemination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

4 Biographies 9

5 Project Budget (see attached pdf for full excel spreadsheet) 10

6 Data management plan 11

6.1 Roles and responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.2 Expected data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.3 Period of data retention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.4 Data formats and dissemination . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
6.5 Data storage and preservation of access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

References 13

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1 List of participants

Maximilian Russel
Project Director

Diego Laudato
Master Student, University of Bologna

Gaia Longobardi
Master Student, University of Bologna

Flaminia Rinaldi
Master Student, University of Bologna

Valentina Vit
Master Student, University of Bologna

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2 Abstract
This project will pilot a new approach to historical narratives by utilizing the potential of
humanities gaming. Students from the humanities field along with digital experts will be
involved in the development of the game, 8-Bit Immigrant, as an interactive way to access
the Tenement Museum’s archive materials. It aims to improve the dissemination of these
materials and provide the user with an immersive experience of a European immigrants’
daily life in the late 19th to early 20th century United States, in order to raise scholarly
awareness about this topic. The final product will guarantee a highly accessible learning
experience thanks to the open-source software used in the developing of the game. The
storage of the project on an online repository will encourage collaboration within the digital
humanities community. At the end of the project the game will be primarily disseminated
through its own dedicated website.

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3 Narrative
3.1 Enhancing the humanities
While new tools and methodologies within digital humanities have expanded in the last
decade, humanities gaming still remains underdeveloped in comparison to other method-
ologies. While the dominant narrative in digital humanities still holds gaming in low
repute, humanities gaming has the potential power to transform the field. Using human-
ities gaming allows for the project to take advantage of the processing power of video
game’s which can help simulate historical scenarios and allow greater user interaction.
Moreover, this project aims to build upon the widespread success of video games that
already have a mainstream appeal. One of the goals of this project is therefore to enhance
the humanities by adding much needed development to the field of humanities gaming. We
would achieve a step forward in the process of codification of this technology, collaborating
in the process of shaping it as an actual tool useful to produce and spread knowledge in an
interactive and enjoyable way. We think that humanities gaming can achieve an important
pedagogical role in the digital humanities field. Through virtual simulations a historical
context can be recreated, within which there can be user interaction. Through humanities
gaming the user is no longer a passive consumer, but rather an active prosumer, with their
own critical engagement in the product shaping the individual experience.
The basis of this project is therefore a videogame which will reconstruct the historical con-
text of European immigration to the United States in the late 19th to early 20th century,
placing the player in the role of immigrant in order to experience their daily life. The
project will be based on distributed knowledge production. Through a collaboration with
the Lower East Side Tenement Museum of New York City, we will interact with scholars
of different disciplines in order to reconstruct an all-around digital environment strongly
based on materials and research conducted by historians, art historians, architects, an-
thropologists. Furthermore, web designers and game testers will help to create a video
game that is not only historically accurate but also engaging and enjoyable. Following
the completion of the video game the possibility to experience and to interact with the
historical simulation will allow the users to improve their awareness towards the project’s
subject matter, perhaps even stimulating new researchable-questions which could in turn
contribute to the enhancement of the humanities.
Another key aim of the project is to improve the awareness and appreciation for the
Tenement Museum’s work and its mission statement, that being “to foster a society that
embraces and values the role of immigration in the evolving American identity”. Using
humanities gaming we aim to expand the Tenement Museum’s audience to all ages, as
well as those who may not be able to visit the physical museum itself. Ultimately raising
a wider awareness about how immigration has and continues to contribute towards the
very makeup of American society.
The project also clearly enhances one of the primary goals of the digital humanities, that
of making knowledge public and widely accessible. Indeed, we are already planning new
ways to further engage an audience, possibly by creating a mobile version of the video
game in the future. Moreover, from the outset the project has been planned in order
to be as inclusive and accessible as possible. The developers are taking in account the
needs of people with disabilities, designing altered versions for the blind and hard of
hearing, emphasising vocal recording and on screen text respectively. Furthermore, the
game is developed on an open-source software, Quest, which is free to download and use.
While Quest has been used mainly for small scale projects, not necessarily related to the
humanities, we see its open-source nature as holding great potential and that through its

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use in our project we hope that it will be considered by future developers within the field.
The simple nature of Quest makes it accessible for most age groups and its various editing
tools allow for it to be modified for particular audiences. The code that will be developed
on Quest will create a video game interface that is then supported by data extrapolated
through archival research at the Tenement Museum. Ultimately the project will allow for
a new mode of access to the museum’s materials as well providing an educational gaming
experience at the same time.

3.2 Environmental scan

The Lower East Side Tenement Museum has previously experimented in humanities gam-
ing: From Ellis Island to Orchard Street with Victoria Cofino designed in 2008. Its aim
is to teach children of ages 8+ what daily life was like for children who immigrated to
the United States in 1916. The game is clearly directed towards a young audience being
quite basic, easy and short (it lasts around only 30 minutes). Consequently the game
has largely failed to attract the attention of an older audience and has received limited
attention. It is not even possible to find it on the site of the Tenement Museum. Another
humanities game about immigration in the US that currently exists is Mission US, City of
Immigrants, designed in 2008. This educational point-and-click adventure game has been
designed primarily for middle and high school students.
In contrast to these two existing games 8-Bit Immigrant is designed for all ages, it is a
challenging but immersive game that requires the management of money, food and other
elements while also incorporating exploratory elements that help educate the player about
the historical context. In addition the 8-bit retro style makes sure the interface remains
user-friendly. It also serves a second purpose, which is to gain attention from outside the
Humanities from video game and 8-bit enthusiasts, many Americans have fond memories
of the 8-bit educational game The Oregon Trail that was widely distributed within schools
from 1985 to the 1990s. During the game, the users will be able to observe, read and learn
more about immigration in the US directly from the sources of the Tenement Museum.
8-Bit Immigrant is also designed to be easy to find and play, users will have access points
to the game on multiple platforms such as computers, tablets and in the future mobile
phones.
Furthermore the development of From Ellis Island to Orchard Street with Victoria Cofino
shows us that the Tenement Museum has been interested in using educational gaming
since 2008. For this reason, we think that 8-Bit Immigrant would be a great opportunity
to revitalize and expand the humanities gaming approach of the Museum.

3.3 History of the project

The idea behind 8-Bit Immigrant was developed by Maximilian Russel, contemporary his-
torian and video game enthusiast. Initial inspiration came from personal experience with
educational games such as The Oregon Trail and Spent as well as the recent revitalization
of the 80s aesthetic that has been seen in Video Game, Movies and TV shows. Preliminary
research was focused upon finding an open source software that allowed for the creation
of a humanities video game. After the discovery of the open-source software Quest the
project began to be more precisely planned and organized. Through the Digital Humani-
ties module, part of a Master’s Degree in Global Cultures at the University of Bologna, the
project proposal gained traction and led to the formation of a project group. The group
is now composed of Master’s student enrolled in the module (mainly with backgrounds
in history and anthropology). At this current stage, the project is now focused upon re-
ceiving funding in order to realise its goals and create an early alpha-level prototype. In

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addition, we are planning to also apply for external funding and raise awareness of the
project through competitions and festivals (e.g. Game for Change 2020).

3.4 Work plan

The goal of the project is to revitalize the data collected in the Tenement Museum archive
by creating a humanities game that serves as an interactive way to access a historical
narrative. The main working group will be formed by five students coming from the
humanities field, who will all be involved in each phase of the project; in addition they
will have the assistance of expert freelancers and of the museum personnel.

3.4.1 Consultation and Selection (February 2020):

The first phase will focus on conducting an accurate survey of the archival documentation
of the museum in order to draw up a strategy to select data that will be later digitized and
used for the development of the game. Particular attention will be paid to the criteria to
select among the different biographies, collections of objects, places in the neighborhood
the museum offers; we will prioritise those materials that give the user the most accurate
information about the typical day life of a European immigrant in the late 19th to early
20th century. We will use a variety of textual biographies, photographs of the houses,
clothing and objects, sound recordings and film footage.

3.4.2 Planning Meeting at the NEH offices in Washington, D.C. (March

2020):
The project director will attend the compulsory planning meeting at the NEH offices to
inform them about the development of the project and hopefully receive feedback from
other project directors and the NEH.

3.4.3 Digitizing (April-May 2020):

Once the data has been selected, we will proceed with the creation of a digital archive
which serves as the data source behind the games functioning. We have decided to use
Windows or Mac based scanning applications for digitization. Initially we will store the
data on physical hard drives as well as on an online drive that will be only accessible to
those involved in the project, these will constitute our primary digital repositories. In the
following phases we will also use the open-source software itself, Quest, and the online
repository GitHub as storage systems. They will enable us to address basic considerations
to improve the digitising: Quest represents a reliable source for the preservation of our
data, since it is directly connected to the internet, while GitHub allows us to share the
data elaborated with other developers (see Final Product and Dissemination and Data
Management Plan). We are aware of the challenges linked to development of a proper
methodology behind creating digital repositories, that is why we will employ an expert in
archive creation.

3.4.4 Developing the Game (June-December 2020):

In this phase we will use the open-source software Quest to develop the game. The process
of coding will be led by the director of the project with the support of the other colleagues.
Once the coding is concluded, a dedicated website for the game will be created, with the
help of a web designer, to help maximise the dissemination of the project.

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3.4.5 Alpha and Beta testing (September/October):
Following the creation of an alpha version of the game, we will organize alpha testing with
game tester experts and later on beta testing with the public, in which a general audience
will use the game, to evaluate and promote it at the same time. These two testing phases
will be useful in order to register direct and indirect feedback about the game: we will ask
specific questions and listen to people’s opinions on how to improve it, as well as evaluate
its appeal to various audiences through the use of focus groups.

3.4.6 Dissemination (December):

We plan to have the game completed by November, in order to spend the last months
of the year activities disseminating the final product. This will be done in a variety of
ways through marketing campaigns, online distribution and through presentations by the
project group at Digital Humanities and Educational Gaming conferences .

3.4.7 Summary of Work Plan stages

In order to avoid to lengthening of the first phase of consultation and selection, working
drafts about the most important topic areas for the quality of the game will be prepared
in advance. The Digitization will focus on documenting only relevant materials for the
project as to avoid wasting time. We will also have regular weekly meetings and the
creation of reports on the state and proceedings of the project, so that we will make sure
not to transform the digitizing phase in the goal itself. A final white paper will be formed
by all the information gathered during the process to highlight what has been learned
through the stage of the the work plan.

3.5 Final product and dissemination

Regarding the media chosen for dissemination of the project we will first use the open-
source software, Quest, as a platform to share it worldwide, since it is a top destination
for text adventure games. Moreover, it is free and it doesn’t imply downloading any
software so that users can play the game directly online. It also includes the possibility to
translate the game (whose official language will be English) in other languages. Secondly,
we will arrange marketing campaigns through social media and during the beta testing.
Also presentations of the game will take place at the University of Bologna and at Digital
Humanities and Video Game conferences. The Tenement Museum will also inform visitors
about the game and have a dedicated space for playing the game within the museum. We
will follow the WebAim guidelines in order to provide a wide accessibility for the final
product so that it will be suitable to individuals with disabilities. We will use GitHub
as our online repository, in order to make publicly available the data we have elaborated
with Quest; this will allow us first to save them and, if necessary, to go back to modify or
update them and secondly to share them with other developers (so also to have feedbacks
from them about the game coding).
In this way we will demonstrate how computer gaming can improve the learning experience,
by making a historical narrative more attractive for a non-specialist audience, creating an
easy accessible way to live the daily life of an immigrant in New York during the late 19th
and early 20th century and its relation to current day society.
The outcomes of the dissemination phase will be incorporated in the White paper together
with the documentation relative to the discussions, meetings, problems and solutions of
the whole grant period, in order to supply the NEH with a deep and reflexive description
of the project during the grant period.

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4 Biographies

Maximilian Russel is currently studying a Laurea Magistrale in Global Cultures at the

University of Bologna. He previously studied a BA in History at Newcastle University
graduating in 2017.

Diego Laudato is an Historian who achieved his bachelor in History at the University of
Naples “Federico II” in July, 2018. Currently, he is a Global Cultures Master’s student at
the University of Bologna.

Gaia Longobardi is currently studying Global Cultures at University of Bologna, a two

years master in History and Oriental Studies. She graduated in “History and Cultural
Heritage” at the University of Siena in December 2018.

Flaminia Rinaldi is a student of the master degree Global Cultures at the University of
Bologna. She previously studied and graduated at the Sapienza University of Rome, in
the bachelor degree Storia, Antropologia e Religioni.

Valentina Vit received her Bachelor Degree in “Historical and philosophical disciplines”
at the University of Trieste in February 2018. She is currently enrolled in the Master
degree “Global Cultures” at University of Bologna.

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5 Project Budget (see attached pdf for full excel spread-
sheet)
As we are applying for a Level I Grant, we have a maximum of $50,000 to request from the
NEH for this project. After budgetary calculations, we approximate that we will require
$46,649 in funding, all the costs are detailed and accounted for in the attached Excel
spreadsheet. $25,000 is accounted to the 5 project members who will each receive $5,000
for roughly 6 months part time work over the course of the project year. Certain periods
within the work plan will require higher intensity work such as initial consultation and
selection, development of the game and dissemination. On the other hand, the digitizing
phase and alpha beta testing will require less work from the project members with the
majority of these phases being carried out by specialists and consultants. These specialists
and consultants are also accounted for in the budget. A digital archive specialist will be
employed for a month at a total of $3,334 in order to carry out the digitization of the
Tenement Museum’s archive. A web designer will be employed for a total of 40 days over
the course of the project at a cost of $3,200 in order to build, update and fine tune the
website on which the game will be primarily accessed through. In addition, the budget
has made account for 3 professional game testers at a total of $1,200 who will be employed
during the alpha testing of the game in order to make sure the final product is perfect.
Travel expenses have also been documented such as the compulsory trip of the Project
Director to the Washington D.C. office of the NEH to inform them on the progress of the
project. Furthermore, the vital month long archive research at the Tenement Museum
in New York has also been budgeted for. Other necessary supplies and materials such
as Github membership, hard drives for data backup and cameras have also been factored
into the budget. Finally, venue hire for Public Beta Testing and an important marketing
campaign for final dissemination of the project have also been accounted for.

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6 Data management plan
6.1 Roles and responsibilities
All the members of the project will take part in research and data management. However,
the data management plan will be implemented and managed by Valentina Vit, under the
supervision of the project director Maximilian Russel.

6.2 Expected data

We are developing a Humanities game in which the user can access data to increase their
knowledge surrounding the project’s topic. Therefore, the data produced by this proposed
project is at two levels: the software code for the game, and the data available in the game.
The data available in the game will be collected through a research session in the Tenement
Museum’s archive. The data will include all sources and information we will select and
digitise from the Museum’s archive. They will consist of:

• photographs

• (photos of) physical artefacts

• biographical material about former residents

• text description of materials

• audio and visual materials, including voice/ video recordings

In order to collect, digitise and share data from the Tenement Museum’s archive we will
need the permission of the Museum. The data will be stored on a password-protected
server only accessible to those involved in the project, indefinitely.
During the project’s lifetime, software code will be stored on Quest, the software we will
use to develop the game. In addition, the data and software code will be also stored on
the Repository Service of GitHub that is backed up nightly. Physical backups on hard
drives will also exist.
A website which will include the software developed and materials used will be generated
by the project team to enable users to play the game and access the data of the project.

6.3 Period of data retention

All relevant data will be stored on GitHub during and after the project’s lifetime. Once
the project is completed, all data will be transferred to the public website that will host
the game thus allowing full public access.

6.4 Data formats and dissemination

Following the project’s completion, the data will be shared with users via the game inter-
face with digital archive materials forming a key element of the player’s experience.
Since our project is in collaboration with the Tenement Museum, the game will clearly
reference the Museum’s involvement in providing the materials needed for the project to
function. Digital Archive materials used in the game will include citations to the objects
catalogue reference. Links to the Tenement Museum’s website and its other projects will
also be prominently displayed. The projects form as a free digital humanities video game
allows for great dissemination to all those that have access to the internet.

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6.5 Data storage and preservation of access
The website that hosts the game will preserve the data as long as the domain is renewed.
Moreover, all data generated from this project will also be present in the software Quest
and the repository service GitHub for long-term storage upon completion of the project
study. The latter allows access to the public via persistent URLs, provides tools for long-
term data management, and permits permanent storage options. GitHub has built-in
contingencies for disaster recovery including redundancy and recovery plans.
Furthermore, the project team will ensure to transfer all data in a hard drive to allow for
offline preservation.

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References
[1] Lower East Side Tenement Museum Website: https://www.tenement.org/

[2] The Mission of the Tenement Museum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm6qkb50wdY

&feature=youtu.be

[3] From Ellis Island to Orchard Street with Victoria Cofino:

https://tenementonline.org/immigrate/

[4] Mission US: City of Immigrants: https://www.mission-us.org/pages/landing-mission-4

[5] Github: https://github.com/

[6] WebAIM: https://webaim.org/articles/userperspective/

[7] Quest: http://textadventures.co.uk/quest

[8] Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld: Todd Presner, Jeffrey Schnapp,
Digital Humanities, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2012

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