Introducing Empires and Interconnections, the newest edition in the award-winning History Adventures digital learning series, now available for iPad, fully reimagined using the powerful Unity3D game engine. This fully interactive, animated digital learning product represents a fresh approach to history education, designed for today’s digital generation. Empires and Interconnections features many hours of multimodal content, combining mobile entertainment with the power of story—bringing the pages of history to life!

An Age of Exploration, Gunpowder, and International Trade
Empires and Interconnections explores the dynamic period from 1450-1750, when the world got smaller. Epic empires expanded, and followed trade routes, as European nations battled to control as much of the world’s wealth as possible. The dark side of this explosion of wealth and consolidated power and influence, meant enslavement and ruin for some, as Europeans unknowingly brought diseases that killed millions and meanwhile initiated the gruesome, inhumane Atlantic Slave Trade. Some nations remained autonomous and isolated, such as the Tokugawa of Japan, but it took huge effort to throw off this tidal wave of global interconnectedness.

A World of Characters
We begin our journey in 1453, as Ioannina, a woman of Byzantine and Turkish ancestry, experiences the Ottoman Siege of Constantinople, led by Sultan Mehmed II. The battle hangs by a thread, but ultimately the ancient capital falls, heralding the final death knell of the Roman Empire, and the rise of the Islamic empires of the Middle East, whose control of this critical crossroads will push the emerging mercantile empires of Western Europe to search for a Western route to Asia. Our next character, Luis Felipe Gutierrez, is a Spanish adventurer, who dreams of achieving wealth and glory in the New World–while spreading the word of God–as Columbus, Cortez, and Pizarro had done before him. In the disease-stricken, war-torn mountains and jungles of Peru, he finds instead madness, confusion, and death.

In Tokugawa Japan, a young woman, Ishi, is a key advisor to the powerful warlord, Tokugawa, who strives to achieve the first Shogunate. She will advise Tokugawa on how to deal with these strange, fanatical European missionaries: should she grant clemency, or should she deal with them harshly, and with violence, to stamp out their looming threat. In 1619, we introduce William, a man forcibly brought to the new settlement of Jamestown in Virginia, by Portuguese Slave traders. Captured by English pirates in the Caribbean, William was sold along with 16 other Africans to the struggling Jamestown colony–and there he would be the first to confront an international slave trade that would last for centuries, and grip the lives of millions.

A century later we find one man, Jonas, was still struggling to find his place in the Atlantic World. As trading companies and governments tightened their grip, a few men like Jonas rebelled and turned pirate. Based in the notorious pirate haven of Nassau, in the Caribbean, Jonas plundered merchant ships. The question was for how long he could escape the hangman’s noose? On the other side of the world, in the Indian subcontinent, a Bengali tax collector must decide whether to remain loyal to the Mughal Emperor or side with the rapidly expanding British East India Company. As the company seized control of Bengal on the battlefield, Arun had to decide where his loyalties lay?

Empires and Interconnections challenges you to think: What Would I Have Done? And this is Best Question About the Past You Can Ever Ask.

Innovative product features include:
Immersive 360 Panorama Environments
Interactive Infographics
Enhanced Original Historical Documents
Choose Your Own Adventure Experience
Animated Illustrations & Dynamic Text
AP World History Curriculum
Media-Rich Interactive Assessments

Created by Spencer Striker, PhD | Digital Media Design Professor at Northwestern University in Qatar