The Convict Transport Game

Key question: How and why did convict transportation occur, what was the experience like, and to what extent was it successful?

Task brief: Design a playable game that teaches players about convict transportation to Australia.

Part 1. Choose a format.

Note. You will be marked on historical thinking, not presentation or your coding ability.

• Board / Card Game

• Role-Play / Simulation Game

Part 2. Choose components of the game. Below are some suggestions.

• Colony management game (labour, punishment, productivity)

• Resource management (food, health, labour, discipline)

• Chance cards (disease, storms, punishment, resistance)

• Moral trade-offs (efficiency vs cruelty)

• Players take roles: British officials, ship surgeons, convicts, settlers

• Turns represent stages: sentencing → voyage → settlement

Part 3. Design a convict transport game.

Include the following in your game.

• Causes of transportation including crime and punishment, deterrence and overcrowded prisons

• Conditions on the voyage, the length of voyage, food, disease and mortality.

• Discipline and punishment.

• Outcomes and success of the system for the convicts, the colony and Britain.

• Labour needs in the new colony.

• Success and impact. British government, developing the colony and the convicts.

Your game must give players the opportunity to make decisions and experience consequences based on what we have learned about the history of transport.

Part 4. Design journal (one page)

Explain the following.

• Why did you choose this game format?

• Explain how your game mechanics reflect real historical conditions

• Which historical sources informed your game design?

• One limitation of their game as a representation of the past