Briana spends the game adventuring among, and often aiding, other relatively powerless people in colonial America: shoemakers, sailors, horse thieves and peddlers, smugglers, Native Americans, traders, poor frontier settlers, and maroons living in the Great Dismal Swamp. Along with her, players learn how the colonists assembled their various complaints into a shared list of formal grievances, and about the basic concepts that gave the Founders a blueprint for a democratic republic. The game’s heroine, Briana Little, is an adolescent person of color, living in an insecure state of freedom, who adheres to a persecuted religious faith. We hope that the immersive and inclusive nature of this game will help inspire students to engage with the philosophical aspects of the Declaration thoughtfully. The Declaration is a text which at points makes far-reaching, open-ended philosophical claims, using words and phrases (“all men are created equal,” “inalienable rights,” “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” “consent of the governed,” “a free people,” “justice”) that inherently require interpretation. It is designed to be embedded in a six-week curriculum unit on political institutions and the philosophical foundations of democracy. Portrait of a Tyrant is a six-episode adventure game for students to learn about the Declaration of Independence, its historical context and contemporary relevance.
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