Codename Purple

Abstract:As the appropriation of religious legal systems by violent fundamentalists grows around the world, improving understandings of religious legal traditions and their history is a critical goal for the promotion of religious literacy, the broadening of discourse, the shaping of international public policy, and the promotion of peace.

Games are essentially rule-based systems, and so ancient legal structures are particularly suited to study through games[1]. These structures include those that promote prosocial behavior such as cooperation and collaboration.

The first project of this new MAGIC initiative is a project Gottlieb brings to RIT from his organization ConverJent (www.converjent.org) in New York: Codename Purple. Currently in development, Purple is a tabletop strategy card game, designed to be pushed to mobile phones and tablets.

The “Purple” project seeks to improve literacy regarding the prosocial aspects religious legal systems.[2] In the game, players take on the role of villagers, navigating life under ancient religious sacred law systems. These legal systems were crystalized and handed down over hundreds and sometimes thousands of years of legal tradition. They are laws often focused on solving problems of the commons such as: how can neighbors live together and care for one another.

Game play in “Purple” models the social behavior within religious legal systems, including strategy, choice, and opportunities for transgressive behavior. Beginning with a medieval Jewish law code and built modularly to incorporate Muslim and potentially other neighboring sacred law systems as well, the game will provide live cases modeling religious systems for communal cooperation and collaboration.

This project functions as both a design intervention for learning in religious studies and the locus of design-based research to test and develop learning theory in the context of games, simulations, religion, and culture.

Codename Purple is graciously supported by seed funding from the B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences

[1] See Strauss, 2012 (interview with Gottlieb); Dawson, 2014 (interview with Gottlieb); Gottlieb 2015

[2] On religious literacy see Moore, 2007; Prothero, 2009. On evolutionary biology and the prosociality of religion see Wilson, 2002.

About the Initiative

The Religion, Culture & Policy Initiative was established in 2015 and is managed by Owen Gottlieb, affiliate of the MAGIC Center and Assistant Professor of Interactive Games & Media. Gottlieb’s scholarship in digital media and games for learning crosses the fields of the learning sciences, religious studies, educational technology, Jewish studies and education, cultural anthropology, communication studies, and social studies education.

He is the founder and director of ConverJent: Jewish Games for Learning (www.converjent.org). His mobile augmented reality game Jewish Time Jump: NY was nominated for Most Innovative Game at the 2013 Games for Change Festival and has been featured in The Atlantic, The Village Voice, and Kill Screen.

Gottlieb is an ordained Reform rabbi (HUC-JIR) with industry experience in software project management for large corporate and non-profit clients. He has written screen and teleplays for Paramount and Universal, and worked for over twelve years as a director’s liaison for the Telluride Film Festival. He is a member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis; the Writers Guild of America, West; and the International Game Developers Association.