Review by Jasmine and Laasya

On Wednesday, we played Hajj Trail, a text-based adventure game where players embody a medieval pilgrim as they go on the Hajj. We decided to play as the Ottoman princess, traveling from Damascus to Mecca. During our playthrough, we encountered difficulties such as robbery, injury, and lack of water; however, we also visited holy sites in cities such as Jerusalem, Nazareth, and Al-Khalil al-Rahman. In each of the locations, the game provided a short description accompanied by a visual, as well as a longer text passage providing historical context, which included historical accounts of the city from pilgrimage stories. Each location also served as an opportunity to rest, gather water from wells and food from imarets, visit marketplaces and stables, heal at baths, and meet traveling companions at coffeehouses. 

Overall, narrative and world-building details in the Hajj Trail were grounded in history, referring to texts from and about the seventeenth century Islamic world. Travel scenarios ranged from encountering Orthodox Christian travelers, to avoiding areas due to the djinn, to being paid to take the hajj in someone else’s name. Accounts of the scarcity of clean water south of Damascus are mirrored through poor water quality, wells with limited water, and Bedouins asking for money to draw water. These details are supported by references to historical passages written by seventeenth-century hajjis, demonstrating a clear respect for historical accuracy in the game. 

As Dr. Tyler Kynn stated during his guest lecture, his main incentive for creating the game was to make an immersive educational tool to teach the findings of his dissertation. He stated that allowing players to choose between different actions helps them better understand and learn about the Hajj. While we agree that the game teaches the player a lot about the experience of the Hajj, we thought that it lacks some historical context about the art and architecture of the time period. We have several suggestions for the aesthetics and mechanics of the game in order to make it a better learning experience and teach more about the cultural aspects of the Hajj.

One thing we noticed was that images repeated across different cities and religious sites. We suggest that to make the game more immersive and informative, the game should include location-specific images of religious sites along with captions for all images. This would allow the player to visually experience the architecture of the locations, and improve their historical understanding of the art in the game. 

Additionally, during the game we frequently visited marketplaces; however, in order to preserve money for the journey, we would often only purchase food and water. We found that we skipped over many of the artistic offerings in the marketplace, such as prayer beads and talismans, which made the market feel utilitarian. We also declined to visit many of the religious sites to save time when we had already maximized our TPP (a point system that rewards engaging with spirituality in the game); in doing so, we felt like we missed much of the art at these locations. We would encourage the game to improve incentives to purchase non-necessities and visit religious sites, so as to not only highlight the practical aspects of the Hajj, but better incorporate social and artistic elements of the culture.