Ivanhoe: Games Played

Since its inception in summer 2000, Ivanhoe has been played in a number of media and contexts.

Test Games: Two test games were played in Summer 2000. A partial record of those games, including the first version played in response to the Walter Scott novel from which the project derives its name, was played entirely in email exchanges. The second, played with Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, was played in weblog format. The Ivanhoe design team played a competitive test game (using scoring and challenge modes) with Henry James's The Turn of the Screw in Spring 2002.

Classroom Games: Three classroom versions, one in an undergraduate class at the University of Virginia in Fall 2000 and two in 6th grade classes at Henley Middle School in Crozet in 2001 have tested the viability of various models of the game. Frankenstein was played in weblog format, while the middle school students played with Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and C.S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in a paper-based, non-competitive mode. In the Spring of 2002, students at the University of Maryland will play Ivanhoe in both cooperative and competitive modes using a model testbed interface.