Event details
| Date | 4th December 2024 |
| Time | 16:00 (UK) |
| Location | Virtual (Zoom) | |
| Speakers | Amy Honsdmerk, Hannah Price, Jonathan Ferguson [Chair: Dimitrios Darzentas] |
You can read all of the contributions to the theme, and find a recording of the panel discussion event, via the HGN blog.
Speaker Bios
Dr Amy Hondsmerk is a heritage professional based in the East Midlands. Since discovering the field of game studies she has completed a PhD exploring the potential of video games as museum interpretation at Nottingham Trent University and has published and spoken on topics including interactions between museums and video games during the Covid-19 pandemic. As part of this journey she dabbled in game development, undertaking a collaborative placement with the National Justice Museum designing a Twine game in response to the ‘Ingenuity’ exhibition. Alongside her research, Amy taught at NTU on museum engagement contemporary issues such as social justice, digital technologies, and diversity and accessibility. She currently works for Historic England, building on her experience working with a variety of different museums and heritage sites from roles with Culture Syndicates CIC and Mansfield Museum.
Hannah Price is a director working across immersive, theatre, games, video content and VR. She was Creative Director on The Gunpowder Plot Immersive Experience receiving rave 5 star reviews. It is now one of the longest running experiences in the world, coming up to its 3rd year. She was also Creative Director on the new Museum of Shakespeare, due to open in 2026. Hannah trained at RADA, the NT Young Directors Course and the Donmar Warehouse. She has directed for theatres across the world. Hannah established international new writing theatre company Theatre Uncut in 2011. Theatre Uncut now works in 25 countries with more than 6000 participants. As a performance director on games Hannah has directed BAFTA winning performances for some of the world’s biggest titles including Alan Wake 2, Final Fantasy 16, CONTROL, Forza Horizon 4 and 5, Fable, Gwent, The Division, Lego Ninjago Movie Video Game, and many many more. She directs per-cap, mo-cap, face-cap and voice. In the last few years Hannah has moved into VR/ crossover projects and immersive productions, adapting Orwell’s famous novels ‘1984’ and ‘Down and Out in Paris and London’ for immersive environments in London and Paris. She has directed two 360 experiences for the Barbican, before moving onto the Gunpowder Plot, the Museum of Shakespeare and multiple other projects upcoming. She is Co-Director of immersive storytelling company Buried Giants.
Jonathan Ferguson is Keeper of Firearms & Artillery, based at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds. His publications include the book ‘Mauser “Broomhandle” Pistol’ (2017), a contribution to ‘The Right to Bear Arms: Historical Perspectives and the Debate on the Second Amendment’ (2018), and ‘Thorneycroft to SA80: British Bullpup Firearms 1901 – 2020’ (2020). He has published several articles including ‘Trusty Bess’: the Definitive Origins and History of the term “Brown Bess” (2017) and (with Terence Smith) “One in the breech, five in the magazine”: British Aircrew Armament of the First World War, ARMAX Vol. VIII No.I (2022). Jonathan has curated several exhibitions including ‘Firefight: Second World War’ (2020) and ‘Re:Loaded’ (2023). He has also made several media appearances, including the History Channel’s ‘Sean Bean on Waterloo’ (2015), ‘Cunk on Earth’ (2022) and ‘Killing Sherlock: Lucy Worsley on the Case of Conan Doyle’ (2023). Since 2020 he has also appeared regularly on YouTube, notably the Royal Armouries’ own channel and Gamespot’s ‘Expert Reacts’ and ‘Loadout’ series.
Chair: Dr Dimitrios Darzentas is a lecturer and Games Development programme leader in the School of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment (SCEBE) at Edinburgh Napier University. Prior to this role he was a transdisciplinary Research Fellow in the Mixed Reality Lab of the University of Nottingham. His research work is situated at an intersection between Human-Computer Interaction and Design with a wide scope including Mixed Reality Technologies, Experience Design, MXR Storytelling and Cultural Heritage, Physical/Digital Service Design, Playful Interactions, Wellbeing, Sustainability. Digital Literacy, and Political Engagement, among others. His current research interests include Hybrid Physical/Digital Experiences, Multimodal Mixed Reality Experience Design, Meaningful Design & Interactions, the Social, Economic, Political and Cultural Heritage impacts of Gaming, and rationalising Data(AI)-Supported Creativity.
Call for Contributions
This 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 are 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 use of gaming tech to augment historical exhibitions in GLAMs (Galleries, Libraries, Archive and Museums), Tourism, Entertainment or other industry sectors. If there are specific elements in a game world that make the ‘history’ more or less believable, then please consider this theme open for you to point these out!
Technology in games can be explored through different lenses, from the use of technology to help deliver the historical narrative in Assassin’s Creed (such as the idea of ancestral or genetic memory delivered through the Animus virtual reality machine and Helix software), to explorations of the game design benefits and drawbacks of technology trees in RTS games like Civilization or Europa Universalis, through to the ways that the technology-inspired aesthetics of the 1920s drive the atmosphere in Bioshock, or those of the 1950s are melded with the present day via personal assistants, wearables, and military technology in the Fallout universe. If you want to write about the steampunk visions of Dishonored, Sunless Sea or 80 Days, then this is your theme! Technology provides an interesting space for different types of design to integrate and propagate with both established and alternate history concepts.
Technology around historical games is naturally broad, and we welcome contributions that consider how new technology has been integrated into the gaming experience. This might include Ubisoft’s approach to the development, inclusion and abandonment of companion apps (for example, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag and Unity) or the post-apocalyptic version of Paris portrayed in Eagle Flight. We would also welcome reflections on experiences developed for and with GLAMs, such as Modigliani VR: The Ochre Atelier, developed for the Tate Modern Exhibition in 2017. Perspectives on and from cultural heritage organisations are warmly encouraged.
We hope that your insights can help answer questions around what impact technology within or around a game has on a player. Do technology-inspired inclusions or interventions in games distort the historical world for players? And how do new technologies help or hinder our understanding of history in virtual worlds? We take a broad view of both “historical game” and what “technology” can be and welcome contributions that consider these from an artistic, creative, design, education, entertainment, development or technology viewpoint.
Contributions to the Technology theme
Technology is an open theme, and we intend it to build on the posts and discussions raised in the Development theme. As with that theme, we hope that the call will encourage broader discussion on the ongoing intricacies and challenges of how historical games engage with technology, to consider whether game-making or interactive media creation more broadly (for example, this could include Interactive Documentary, Docu-games, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, or Mixed Reality applications) are affected by Platforms, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Large Language Models, Blockchain or User-Generated Content Tools. We would love the network to explore how different projects such as Transkribus or Synthetic Pasts will potentially contribute to the historical games space.
HGN provides a space to explore the conjunction of history and games, and we are seeking contributions to the theme from anyone interested in discussing ‘Technology’ in this area. We are open to a range of formats and approaches: blog posts, book reviews, literature reviews and state-of-the-field posts, game criticism and reviews, event reviews, game analyses or post-mortems, podcast recordings, video essays, or any other type of creative contribution you might be interested in sharing. As a guide, we might expect written pieces to be in the region of 1,000-1,500 words, and video essays or audio recordings of around 5-10 minutes. However, if you have more to say, get in touch!
The Technology theme is initially open for contributions until Friday 15 November 2024, and we will post content received during the period September to November. All material will be treated in line with our copyright statement (you can find this on our About page: TL;DR – it’s free, open access, and you can repost your work wherever you like).
Submission and editorial process
Please submit contributions via the email linked at the bottom of the page, and any queries or questions through the same route. Contributions will be assigned for editorial review to at least one member of the HGN editorial team, and we will supply feedback and suggestions for amendment, as appropriate, for any submissions received. Please note that we reserve the right to reject contributions which are unsuitable for the site, and to request and/or require specific editorial changes before publication to meet any legal, funding or support requirements or obligations.
We commit to respond to all submissions within two weeks, and to fix a publication date for accepted content at the earliest possible point. HGN is an open access, public-facing project intended to connect people, and we neither charge nor pay a fee for editorial support and publication on our site.
Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash