Fundamentally, video games are for playing, but gaming can also be a beautiful vehicle for learning. How did some kids between the ages of 10 and 13 become experts in Goya’s Black Paintings? Thanks to a groundbreaking project in Minecraft that unites them in a great common investigation: to recreate the Quinta del Sordo with the Mojang game.
It all begins near the Association of Journalists of Aragon in February: I meet with M. Carmen Gascón, one of the bosses of the Peace Research Seminar Foundation and researcher on Creative Applications of Technology in Social Transformation, to talk about a presentation to which she invites me in her conference Video games, a pluriverse where everyone fits. Before our conversation he excuses himself by telling me that he has no idea about video games, so I try to be didactic and clear in the explanation of what will be my talk about fighting games. Suddenly, the communicator who didn’t know about games outshines me with a project that she is developing in a school in Zaragoza with kids of all ages: the recreation of Goya’s Quinta del Sordo with Minecraft. Pique my interest, but I I still did not know that I was facing a pioneering, unique and valuable project.
Gascón explains to me (unable to hide the pride he feels for his children) that they argue among themselves about the flora that surrounded the villa where Goya lived and the opportune placement of each of the walls of the room, which was for a long time the great attraction of the place: the frescoes of the Black Paintingstoday exhibited as one of the great treasures of the Prado National Museum. Automatically, I stop thinking about Ryu and Ken and I just want to meet the girl from Colegio La Salle Montemolín, in Zaragoza. It didn’t take long for them to accept my proposal to spend an hour with them in the classrooms so they could show me the project. There I am received by a collection of about 20 children of all ages with the illusion, the innocence and the absolute certainty of doing something unique. They are right.
I sit down at one of the small desks and they begin their presentation. They leave me engrossed with what they show me: an interactive minecraft experience in which Francisco de Goya himself invites players to visit the Quinta del Sordo and enjoy its different nooks and crannies and mini-games that hide each of the frescoes in the town. “A minigame of Saturn devouring his child? Really?” The question is obvious: How did they get here? With an exhaustive research work unusual in boys of his age. The exemplary behavior of the boys is only discussed by the illusion and the desire they have to show me their creations and everything they have done.
Goya’s youngest fans thanks to Minecraft
Before playing, I want to confirm my hypothesis. I ask Martina, a ten-year-old girl, if she knew anything about the Black Paintings and the painter Fuendetodos before her foray into Minecraft. She confirms my theory: the boys learn about art and one of our most famous representatives in painting thanks to a vehicle called a video game. Ángel, sitting to my right as if he were another classmate, tells me about Goya’s Aragonese origin and his first plunge into the last frescoes he painted. I ask myself the question, When was I interested in knowing if Goya was Aragonese? Could I have learned it with a video game in 1996 at the age of ten as they have in 2022? Do it yourself, dear reader.
A meteorologist even got in on the act to suggest what the clouds would be like back then and make them cube-shaped!Carlos Tristán, from 2nd year of high school, was in charge of creating the house with the supervision of the children. He relied on an architect from Zaragoza, Javier Corzán, who has guided the veracity of what was created with Carlos with what could have been the Quinta del Sordo. How? Thanks to a model from the end of the 19th century that faithfully recreated what was then the capital of Spain. Corzán’s suggestions are not trivial: they speak of the orography of the land, the slope of the roofs or the textures and structures that could have composed the place. The model was used to locate the structure of the house that would serve the students of La Salle to create his impressive project. Carlos is not the only member of the family involved in La Quinta; His little brothers, Ángel and David, have also had a special participation in the project. Ángel, the middle one, tells me about his father, a gardener, who provides him with information about the presumed trees and their characteristics to make them a reality in his Quinta del Sordo. Ángel directs two other companions with his father’s documents to create trees suitable for the typical vegetation of the Manzanares then.
A landscaper has also intervened with a notarial deed of the time certifies what kind of orchards Goya could have, something that the children have recreated with a corral, a playground and a humble plantation with some typical Madrid vegetables. Even a meteorologist entered the equation to suggest what the clouds would be like back then and make them cube-shaped! But do not think that the research work of Cristal and Corzán eclipses that of the kids: the groundbreaking imagination of the kids when it came to turning the frescoes into a video game could not help surprising me more and more with each demonstration they showed me. Irene enters the action, 12 years old, who confirms to me that she is a Minecraft player with her brothers on Nintendo Switch. She gets up and puts her Power Point to begin her exposition: the 5th and 6th grade boys are in charge of decorating, with surgical precision, the Quinta del Sordo; the 6th and 1st ESO boys are in charge of the minigames.
The mini-games of don Francisco de Goya
Ángel explains to me how the process will work to enter the mini-games: the user will stand in front of the work they like and enter directly to the test. What will they consist of? Ángel gives me the example of Two old men eating soup: It will be a game in which a gigantic bowl full of water made with wooden blocks is crowned with a giant spoon. The idea is that the player immerses himself in the concoction of broth and stumbles in the shape of chests and an overpopulation of sheep that turn into noodles that will help the user to dive deeper and deeper without drowning in order to find the exit secret that is hidden somewhere in the bowl. Clubbing Duel, for example, becomes a survival game in which we must survive hordes of zombies.
I admit that I was infected by the illusion of all the boys for doing something so wonderfulThe Sabbath of 1823 gives its name to an experience of terror: its creator explains to me that he was inspired by the gloomy story on which Goya himself based himself when painting the fresco in his last years of life. Miguel, the youngest of the group, works with his sister in the game of parkour, the floor is lava. What cool for? Naturally, Half-sunken Dog. So until reaching the 14 works of the collection. Irene also talks to me (without her being aware of the term) about the game’s difficulty curve, thinking of simpler productions for all audiences and many more difficult ones in which even a Goya trivial comes together. Something that keeps them up at night is not being able to take what they are doing on PC to the versions of the game that they enjoy on consoles such as the aforementioned Switch, PlayStation or Xbox.
At the end of the presentation I must admit that I was infected by the enthusiasm of all the boys for doing something as wonderful as their recreation of the Quinta del Sordo. I also thought that they were very lucky to have entered the wonderful world of Francisco de Goya and I felt healthy envy of that they did it with such youth and with something like video games. It made me think that we have the most beautiful hobby in the world and that as long as there are players as committed and enthusiastic as the boys from Gascón, the kids from Colegio La Salle Montemarín, video games will continue to give us a lot of joy in the coming years.
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