UC Irvine professors create a video game that explores the culture of 18th-century Ghana

Magda El Zarki recalls repeatedly telling her children to stop playing video games and enjoy the outdoors. She laughs at the memory now. A visit to Ghana in 2010 inspired the UC Irvine computer science professor to try her hand at creating virtual reality spaces and later computer games. She and Patricia Seed, a UC Irvine history professor, and Jessica Kernan, an industry professional and a staff member at the college's Institute for Virtual Environments and Computer Games, developed the computer game "Sankofa." Set in 18th-century Ghana, then known as Asante, the storyline begins when a mother sends her daughter to gather yams from the market.