Gaming the Past

When I began the cycle I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough in a month. Amazing what pops up as we all work on history and games. Don’t forget to send links my way for the mid-January links page.

Historical Video Games

• Ambition: A Minuet in Power  is currently on Kickstarter.  According to its designers: “Court, snub and seduce your way to the top of society. Extend your influence, uncover the intrigue of the coming revolution, and ensure that you end up on the winning side of history.”
• Arté: Mecenas – Made for art history and world history classes, Arte: Mecenas places the player as a Medici banker developing business and patronizing Renaissance Art.
• Games by Colestia on itch.io – A set of small games about historical and real world topics. Post/Capitalism I found powerfully provocative and simple in its argument.
• Command: Shifting Sands –  “Traces the history of many Arab-Israeli conflicts: from the sidelines of the Suez crisis, through the lightning Six-Day War… all the way to the historic Osirak raid and the epic air battle over the Bekaa Valley.”
• Curious Expedition – A game about 19th century European exploration and Imperialism. The designers have offered their game for free to interested educators (info@curious-expedition.com)
• Field of Glory II: Immortal Fire – The expansion to Field of Glory II focused on the Greco-Persian wars
• Oriental Empires – Turn-based strategy focused on ancient Chineses civilizations. As I noted in my tweet, I’m not fully comfortable with the title, but this seems to be a legitimate (and well-received) strategy game.
• Venti Mesi – “A collection of playable stories about Italian Resistance and Liberation from Nazi-Fascism.”
• Way of the Defector – Assume the role of a defector trying to escape North Korea and reach safety

Historical Pen and Paper/Board/Card Games

• Lost & Found: A Game Series of Medieval Religious Laws – ” A strategy card-to-mobile game system that teaches medieval religious legal systems with attention to period accuracy and cultural and historical context.  The Lost & Found games project seeks to expand the discourse around religious legal systems, to enrich public conversations in a variety of communities, and to promote greater understanding of the religious traditions that build the fabric of the United States.”

Historical Twines, Twine Talk, Interactive Text Talk

• Banneker Boulevard by Noor Ashour – A short IF about exploring Banneker Boulevard in 1920
• Sam Kabo Ashwell, Standard Patterns in Choice-Based Games – A couple years old, but an excellent analysis of core types of organization for choice-based games. Relevant to historical text design.

Games and History – Online Reviews, Commentary, and News Items

• Amr Al-Aaser, Waypoint, What Games Get So Wrong about Egypt, “Assassin’s Creed Origins” Gets Right – an insightful and important article about Orientalism, in the sense coined by Edward Said, in video games.
• Jeremy Antley, Real Life, Period Piece: Board games can manipulate players by manipulating history
• Rex Brynen, Gamasutra,  Game Design Challenges in Building a Megagame Simulation of the Iran-Iraq War
• Brendan Caldwell, Rock, Paper, Shotgun,  Crusader Kings 2 player records 700-year NPC game to find who gets “most kills” and “most children”
• Joel Couture, Gamasutra, Portraying Migrants’ Struggles Via Cellphones in Bury Me, My Love
• Jeremiah McCall, Gamingthepast.net, Arte: Mecenas Review
• Davide Pessach, Burden of Command, Dev Blog #5: Building Empathy: Turning Code into Complex Characters
• Chad Sapieha, Financial Post,  Can war video games ever be truly respectful of the conflicts they depict? – Discussing Call of Duty: World War II, and the upcoming Burden of Command.
• Tim Stone, Rock, Paper, Shotgun,  The Flare Path: Defects – reviewing the game Way of the Defector
• Tim Stone, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, The Flare Path: Ultimate Realism – reviewing the game Venti Mesi
• Tim Stone, Rock, Paper, Shotgun, The Flare Path: Greek Ire – reviewing the expansion Field of Glory II: Immortal Fire
• Bob Whitaker, Washington Post,  The hottest video games of the year can be great teaching tools … If historians realize the opportunity – An excellent article by one of the masterminds behind History Respawned.
• Rob Zacny, Waypoint, Watching history fade away in ‘Call of Duty: WWII’ – A powerful critique of the mythic heroizing of Call of Duty’s topic that deprives the soldiers of their humanity.

Podcasts

• History Respawned episodes on Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, Papers Please, and DIablo III

Games and History – Journal Articles and Books

• Dominic Arsenault, Documentation, periodization, regionalization, and marginalization: Four challenges for video game historiography. First Person Scholar

Games and Education – Journal Articles and Books

• Helen Crompton, Yi-Ching Lin, Diane Burke, Alana Block,  Mobile Digital Games as an Educational Tool in K-12 Schools
• OneShot – “OneShot is a platform for games-focused, academic discussion using games not only as subjects of inquiry, but as the means of communication. “
• Vít Šisler, Kerstin Radde-Antweiler, Xenia Zeiler, eds. Methods for Studying Video Games and Religion (Routledge 2018)

Cool Game Studies Related Events 

• Canadian Game Studies Association – Call for Papers 2018

Other Stuff

• Bitsy v4.4 – “a little editor for little games or worlds”