So far, studying history seems boring and feels less useful for students. History learning is still conventional and rarely associated with contemporary problems. History subjects are the subjects that students are least interested in, especially for high school students or the equivalent. For this reason, the UNY student team consisting of Fitri Astuti and Raras Dhina Pangesti (historical education) and Muhammad Faizud Daroin (informatics engineering education) developed a learning media entitled Maze of History. This learning media is in the form of a maze-based educational game application that can be used on Android smartphones. Through Maze of History, the team hopes to increase students' interest and enthusiasm for learning history.
Fitri Astuti explained that Maze of History is a game with a royal background. "The material about the kingdom is presented in the form of a game application because so far there are so many historical materials, especially the kingdom, that it is boring for students to learn," he explained. In fact, from this material, students can learn about nationalism, self-sacrifice, hard work, and much more. Hopefully, the interest in learning history that contains character values will increase through the Maze of History.
"This educational game is in the form of a platformer which is one of the many types of video games," said Raras Dhina Pangesti. Platformers have been widely used in developing modern games, especially on smartphones. Users can generally move the character to jump, swing, or bounce between platforms in the form of obstacles.
Muhammad Faizud Daroin explained that Maze of History was created using an application called "Unity Game Engine" which was designed using a computer device. The background display in this educational game follows the historical material that will be displayed like the kingdoms of the Hindu-Buddhist period. "The characters in this game will adapt to the characters in the same material," said Faizud. This educational game has a technical or way of playing. The technique that can be used to play this game is jumping over obstacles, answering questions in the form of quizzes or hints, and finding keys to open the door out of the maze. In addition, the player may use a swing rope or jump from a platform in a maze.
Maze of History can be used as an alternative learning media from the conventional lecture method. Teachers can also use this game for evaluation media for students through various historical hints and at the same time testing creativity in passing multiple obstacles. However, to use this game, students need an internet connection to download the game, requires a sufficient smartphone storage space, and for now, it is only suitable for individual study.
