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Can an iPad Game Teach You About Slavery?
A lone woman flees into the woods, clinging tightly to a crying baby. She needs to put the child down in order to clear a path, but when she does a shadowy creature slowly make its way toward the baby &mdash; if she&rsquo;s too slow she&rsquo;ll lose the child to the shadows. That woman is Isaura, a fictional African slave in Brazil during the 1700s, and the protagonist of Thralled, an in-development game for iPad. &ldquo;Slavery, as a legacy and an institution, is a topic that needs discussing,&rdquo; says lead designer Miguel Oliveira. &ldquo;And we want to bring it up to discussion.&rdquo;
&quot;We have the potential to involve people in the subject and create a sense of empathy that can only be achieved with direct involvement,&quot; he says. &quot;With Thralled, we want to try to encourage empathy for victimized people and thus heighten sensibility for others&rsquo; suffering &hellip; interactive media has the potential to change people, and yet this potential is mostly left unexplored. We want to make an effort in the way of exploring it.&quot; So far during testing, which has included a few students, these efforts have proved largely successful. &quot;People have had strong emotional reactions, which makes me think that Thralled has the potential of teaching and getting people interested about this and related topics.&quot;
(via Can an iPad game teach you about slavery? | The Verge)
