Computer Writing and Research Lab

This April, the CWRL's video game workgroup was awarded a ~FAST Tex grant to fund the continued development of Rhetorical Peaks, a video game designed for rhetoric classrooms, in 2008–2009. With this grant, Rhetorical Peaks will move beyond the conceptual level and will soon be appearing in classrooms near you.

Rhetorical Peaks is the result of a two year video-gaming project in the CWRL. The game is loosely based on David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, and it follows the player / detective / rhetor into the fictional town of Rhetorical Peaks in order to get to the bottom of a murder most vile—that of Kendall Burke, the town’s best speaker. Why would anyone do this to someone who could argue so well? It’s up to Agent Rederick to get to the bottom of things. Of course, in a town like Rhetorical Peaks, there is no bottom to things and thus no right answer to the question of who killed Kendall. The best hope we have is that a sound argument can be made as to the killer’s identity. It will take all of the player’s rhetorical skills to be able to make this argument after questioning the locals, viewing the crime scene, and perhaps being witness to a few unexpected twists and turns.

Related: Annotated bibliography of video game resources

image credit: knitgrrl