As both a game developer and a medieval historian, each of my interests informs the other. In this post, I’m going to talk you through some ways I approach putting medieval elements in games and think about why they’re there. The process I use is based on thinking about medieval ideas as a sort of […]
Created as a collaboration between the Council of Europe’s HISTOLAB project and the Historical Games Network, we’ve created a tutorial explores how teachers can begin to use historical videogames in their classes. It uses two games developed by Charles Games (Attentat 1942 and Svoboda 1945) as examples. HGN co-convenors Esther Wright, Iain Donald and Nick […]
Via the HGN YouTube channel, watch the recording of the 10th discussion panel event on the theme of “Technology”, featuring guest speakers Amy Hondsmerk, Hannah Price, and Jonathan Ferguson (chaired by Dimitrios Darzentas). You can read more about the theme, and our speakers, via the call page, and read all of the blog posts for […]
Technology trees are everywhere.[1] They’re a really useful game design tool. But they come with a lot of baggage and often don’t align with scholarly or popular views of the past. In particular, this often leads to unusual representations of the ‘Dark Ages’. The medieval world is typically presented as backwards and superstitious[2] (not to mention violent […]
Here’s a provocation for you: AI has been used in the creation of this blog post… When I say I use AI in my work I meet a variety of reactions. Some people shrug – of course I do. Some people are worried, or horrified even, visualising the forthcoming robot army of the AI apocalypse. […]
From the classic ‘super shotgun’ of DOOM 2 (1994) to the non-lethal ‘Portal gun’ from the game series (2007-2022) of the same name, the gun is an important piece of technology represented in countless games and one of the primary means by which the video game player interacts with their world. Famously, it has spawned […]
“The potential of videogames for museums is limitless.” Museum Lab, 2022. In 2014 I was playing Galactic Café’s The Stanley Parable (2013) – a story-based game with a branching narrative providing commentary on player choice, decision making and game design – when I encountered the game’s ‘Museum Ending’. In this ending, the player is invited to explore […]
La Desbandá 1937,[1] a historical role-playing game, transports players to one of the most harrowing episodes of the Spanish Civil War: the mass exodus of civilians from Málaga to Almería in February 1937, known as la desbandá. In 1936, a failed coup d’état had ignited a civil war in Spain. By early 1937, Málaga was […]
Our next theme is focused in and around ‘technology’ and historical games. We define historical games broadly, and we encourage contributions that consider technology in all its guises. We’re interested in a wide-range of technology-inspired contributions, whether these are reflections on technology represented in games, narrative techniques, game progression, aesthetic choices, user-generated content tools or […]
The landscape and implications of sandboxes, modding and user-generated content in historical games The evolution of game modding As video games grew in popularity, their developing player communities quickly took advantage of their mutable nature, particularly on PC platforms. Especially early on, games were often installed with non-obfuscated code and assets which could be easily […]