Using AI to Create Games: European 'New World' Colonial Policy Simulation Game

The Experiment

This was one of my initial experiments in using Google Gemini to create an engaging activity based on a complex lecture. The comparative colonial policy lecture is one of the most important from the first unit of my class, but in the past, I have had trouble getting students to engage with the material. Without this foundation, literally nothing else we discuss in this course makes sense. With that in mind, I decided to experiment with what I call “Directed Lectures,” which replace passive delivery with a structured activity covering the same content.

I uploaded the lecture PowerPoint to Google Gemini and prompted: “I want to replace the material in this PowerPoint with a more interactive and engaging activity, but I still need to cover the material here. Options?” It provided two options: the “Colonial Governor” Crisis Sim, with a macro focus on economics and politics, or the “Social Engineering” Lab, with a micro focus on race, gender, and religion.

I asked Gemini to fully flesh out the economic and political options in greater detail, which provided a great framework for my fifty-minute class. One problem I encountered with Gemini is that once it learned I taught at VMI, it tried to turn me into a military general, so I had to add instructions that I am a civilian teaching at a military college. Too much military lingo simply comes across as odd and inauthentic.

This activity took quite a bit of prompting to get into a format that worked. I asked it to make the scenarios more challenging to get my students thinking critically, rather than giving them predefined options. Once I was happy with everything, I created a PowerPoint to use during the simulation.

What Happened

I entered the classroom and separated my students into three groups: New Spain, New France, and English Colonists in Virginia. I had them gather in different corners of the room and presented them with the following rules:

1. You must follow your mandate (see below)
2. You will have four minutes to debate the crisis and craft a 2-3 sentence response.
3. You will forfeit points for this round if you fail to follow your mandate.

I presented three crises derived from my lecture PowerPoint:

1. The “Frontier” Question. The Crisis: “Young male settlers had moved beyond the established perimeter and settled on indigenous lands. The local indigenous leader sent a message demanding they leave immediately or face war.” The Command: “What are your orders regarding these settlers and the Indigenous leader?”
2. The “Revenue” Demand (1650s). The Crisis: “The Treasury back home is empty. Your investors/King demand a 20% increase in export value this year. There is no new technology available. You can only get this by changing how you use your labor force.” The Command: “Who does the extra work, and how do you legally justify forcing them to do it?”
3. The “Bloodline” Scandal. The Crisis: “A prominent colonial official has died without a will. It is revealed he has a ‘shadow family,’ a local Indigenous woman, and two mixed-race sons. These sons are now claiming his property and status.” The Command: “How does your legal system adjudicate this claim? What is the status of the woman and her sons?”

I asked Google Gemini to create the mandates based on my lecture PowerPoint. The mandates were the key points from the traditional lecture covering the cultural, economic, political, and social history of each country’s New World colonial policies. This is a key part of the “Directed Lecture”: students received all the information I planned to provide in a traditional passive lecture, but because it was on a single sheet of paper and they were using it to compete in a game, they actually absorbed it.

They quickly understood that the English were demanding “jerks” who believed they had the right to the land, labor from the indigenous people, and, especially after the 1676 Bacon’s Rebellion, African slaves. This transition to a slave society corresponded with hardening racial attitudes. The French, because of the limited size of the colonial population, were forced to be the most accommodating and, in almost every way, to take the exact opposite position to the English. Whereas the Spanish, with their emphasis on conversion, developed a more accommodating system and a fluid racial categorization.

My role was to moderate and clarify. This meant that if they were going down an unproductive path, I could redirect them and ensure they got the information they needed.

The Limits

• It was a challenge to avoid reductive reasoning in responding to each crisis. This was where I had to intervene most frequently.
• Some students were less likely to participate even in their small groups (maximum of five students).

Where I’m Taking This Next

• I want to continue revising the crises and mandates.
• I will have them complete a short reading before arriving in class to better prepare them for some of the larger arguments within this field.