Game Project Recreates Jazz & Blues Club Scene

June 29, 2007 -

From the Poynter Online journalism site comes word of Remembering 7th Street, a new video game project designed to recreate the jazz and blues club scene of Oakland, California in the 1940's and 1950's.

As reported by Poynter contributor Anthony Wojtkowiak, the project began with a $60,000 Knight News Challenge grant awarded to UC Berkeley journalism professor Paul Grabowicz. Of the ambitious undertaking, Grabowicz said:

Oakland was a Mecca for jazz and blues musicians from all over the country. Over the course of about a decade, the area essentially got wiped out due to a series of ill-fated urban redevelopment projects. We're using a video game to portray that world as it existed and tell the story of the clubs, the musicians, and the people in the community and what happened to them.

Our game defines an important local community and focuses on a very important aspect of that community. In essence, we have used a video game to recreate this community. It's not a broader game like Civilization, [which] attempts to chart historical events...

What's frustrated me ever since is that you could write about it but you couldn't bring back to life what it was like to be there... I found out that the UC Berkeley Architecture School was using video game technology to recreate ancient cities.... A video game is an immersive world; it doesn't seem like someone else's attempt to describe to you what something was like...

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Comments

Submitted by Terrible Tom (not verified) on Sat, 06/30/2007 - 16:52.

It depends on how accurately it depicts the jazz or club scene.

Submitted by G-Dog (not verified) on Sat, 06/30/2007 - 14:49.

So, will this have digi-Reefer?

Submitted by Terrible Tom (not verified) on Sat, 06/30/2007 - 01:38.

This is not the only direction games should head, sure it should BRANCH OFF in this direction but it shouldn't all head in this direction. It should also go in the direction Ian Bogost was talking about and in the direction I speak of and in the direction everyone else speaks of. Diversity is a good thing.

Submitted by Creamy Goodness (not verified) on Sat, 06/30/2007 - 00:21.

Remember the discussion we all had with ian bogost about the direction games should head. This is it............

Submitted by Matt (not verified) on Fri, 06/29/2007 - 21:35.

nice article, a member at www.CharacterPlanet.com linked me here; the applications for games is exciting...can't wait for all these communities to pop up

Submitted by Archgabe (not verified) on Fri, 06/29/2007 - 14:25.

I will have to check this out when they are done with it. I am interested to see what they can do with this idea.

Submitted by Pirra (not verified) on Fri, 06/29/2007 - 11:34.

I'm not relay a fan of jazz but this is an awesome idea. If only they could do this for SoCal during the 70s and 80s.

Submitted by King James (not verified) on Fri, 06/29/2007 - 09:37.

An interesting application of game technology. It's nice to see that people are willing and able to expand what stories "games" are able to tell.

Submitted by ~the1jeffy (not verified) on Fri, 06/29/2007 - 09:26.

Holodeck pre-cursor?

Submitted by Terrible Tom (not verified) on Fri, 06/29/2007 - 06:19.

Ahh, the times where Henry J Anslinger demonized a plant and blamed it all on a race of people and genre of music.

Shout box

Neo_DrKefka: Anti-Gamergate supporter Robert Caruso attacks female GamerGate supporter by also attacking another cause she support which is the situation happening in Syia “LET SYRIANS SUFFER” https://archive.today/F14zZ https://archive.today/Wpz8S10/20/2014 - 10:18am

Neo_DrKefka: That is correct in an At-Will state you or the employer can part ways at any time. However Florida also has laws on the books about "Wrongful combinations against workers" http://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2012/448.04510/20/2014 - 10:07am

james_fudge: he'd die if he couldn't talk about Wii U :)10/20/2014 - 9:16am

Michael Chandra: By the way, I am not saying Andrew should stop talking about Wii-U. I find it quite nice. :)10/20/2014 - 8:53am

Michael Chandra: 'How dare he ignore my wishes and my advice! I am his boss! I could have ordered him but I should be able to say it's advice rather than ordering him directly!'10/20/2014 - 8:52am

Michael Chandra: If GP goes "EZK, do not talk about X publicly for a week, we're preparing a big article on it" and he still tweets about X, they'd have a legitimate reason to be pissed.10/20/2014 - 8:52am

Michael Chandra: If GP tells Andrew "we'd kinda prefer it if you stopped talking about Wii-U for 1 week" and he'd tweet about it anyway, firing him for it would be idiotic.10/20/2014 - 8:51am

Michael Chandra: Legal right, sure. But that doesn't make it any less pathetic of an excuse.10/20/2014 - 8:50am

ZippyDSMlee: You mean right to fire states.10/20/2014 - 8:50am

james_fudge: some states have "at will" employee laws10/20/2014 - 7:50am

quiknkold: It says in the article that being in florida, you can get fired regardless if its a fireable offence10/20/2014 - 7:19am

Michael Chandra: If your employee respectfully disagrees with your advice, that's not a fireable offense. If they ignore your order, THEN you have the right to be pissed.10/20/2014 - 6:49am

Michael Chandra: I... Don't get one thing. If you do not want your employee to do X, why do you tell them it's advice or a wish? Give them a damn order.10/20/2014 - 6:48am

james_fudge: A leak that had me worried about being swatted by Lizard Squad.10/20/2014 - 6:03am

james_fudge: It should be noted that the author leaked the GJP group names online10/20/2014 - 6:03am

MechaTama31: I mean, of the groups being bullied here, which of the two would you refer to collectively as "nerds"?10/19/2014 - 11:30pm

MechaTama31: But that's the thing, it doesn't sound to me like he is advocating bullying, it sounds like he is accusing the SJWs of bullying the "nerds", who I can only assume refers to the GGers.10/19/2014 - 11:21pm

Andrew Eisen: Interesting read. Unfortunately, too vague to form an opinion on but at least now I know what faefrost was talking about in James' editorial.10/19/2014 - 10:39pm

Neo_DrKefka: Breaking GameJournoPros organized a blacklist of former Destructoid writer Allistar Pinsof for investigating fraud in IndieGoGo campaign http://blogjob.com/oneangrygamer/2014/10/gamergate-destructoid-corruption-and-ruined-careers/10/19/2014 - 8:57pm

Neo_DrKefka: Only good thing I seen come out of the Biddle incident was the fact a professional fighter offered to give 10k to an anti bullying charity for a round in the ring with Biddle.10/19/2014 - 7:49pm

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