Gaming the Past

Here’s the list for February. A lot of games, including the controversial Kingdom Come: Deliverance, the uncommonly focused Nantucket (19th century whaling), and the potentially very classroom-useful Neolithic: First City States. Some excellent essays and podcasts; really all kinds of materials. Enjoy!

Historical Video Games 

• Age of Empires: Definitive Edition — An updated version for Windows 10 of a watershed commercial history game, first released in 1997. Currently only available through the Windows store, but there is some buzz that it will be available on Steam. See T.J. Hafer and Marcello Perricone’s articles below
• Discovery Tour by Assassin’s Creed: Ancient Egypt— Lots of excitement for this, a violence-free tourist mode where players can explore the 3D world of late Ptolemaic Egypt, meet historical figures, and learn about material culture. This is a free update for those who own AC: Origins, but also can be purchased separately.  Be aware this will take a good graphics card to run well. See John Hopley’s essay below.
• Check Your 6! — Turn-based game of aerial battles in World War 2
• Fields of Glory 2: Legions Triumphant expansion— An expansion (must own the main FoG2) focused on the Roman Empire and its foes from Augustus to Romulus Augustulus (476 CE)

• Nantucket— A 19th century whaling simulation game set in the world of Moby Dick a few years after the events of the novel. Be sure to check out the Three Moves Ahead podcast and Rob Zacny’s article on the game, both listed below.
• Neolithic: First City States – I’m excited by this one, given my teaching and research interests. The solo developer terms it a combination of “city-building, military strategy, and deep character development.” Charles Ellis interviewed developer Alexander Jack last August for Strategy Gamer
• Rise of Industry — Build an empire on industry starting in the early 20th century. See the early access review by Fraser Brown below.
• Refuge: Every Journey Ends — “You play as Sayid, a bus driver forced from hi hometown to find somewhere safe. With his unlikely entourage, you will guide them through the trials and tribulations that are par for the course for refugees.” See details at the website Refuge The Game
• Rise of Liberty  A “single-player massive Revolutionary War battle simulator.” It’s not clear to me exactly what you’re getting with this one, The 3D graphics are quite simplistic, almost Minecraft-like,  but perhaps this hides a solid simulations. It has very positibe reviews and Revolutionary War battle is a subject rarely touched by designers.
• Sea Dogs  — “An epic role-playing game for the pirate in all of us. Return to the age of sail as a young captain looking to make a name in the world.”
• Understanding Africville — A game by Jim Pedrech about the Canadian community of Africville historically settled by Black Canadians. Check out Jim Pedrech’s site while you’re at it.
• Total War: Rome 2 Desert Kingdoms DLC — Has bubbled up in games media among other reasons, because players can take the roles of historical women leaders or, as Creative Assembly puts it as a Key Feature, “Higher probability of female characters in politics.” Cleopatra and Teuta, Queen of Illyria are definite. Requires the base game Total War: Rome 2 to play

Twine and Twine Histories

• Jeremiah McCall, Epoiesen, “Path of Honors: Towards a Model for Interactive History Texts with Twine” The response essays will come soon. This is an overview of using Twine and choice-based texts compared to video games and static texts to create interactive histories and the current (though barely started) version of my Path of Honors Twine.
• Jeremiah McCall, Gaming the Past, “Playing with the past in serious ways: Twine interactive history project guide, Part 1” – An overview of the current Twine history research projects my students are undertaking at Cincinnati Country Day School. Theory and practice:  types of Twine histories, the role of counterfactual reasoning, and rubrics for note-taking and the research paper that is the start of the design process.

Games and History – Essays and Journal Articles from History and Games Critics Students and Scholars

• Shout out to Archaeogames, a site on archeology and history in video games for German-reading colleagues.
• John Hopley, History Gamer, “Assassin’s Creed: ‘Discovery Tour’ – Groundbreaking Innovation?”
• Greg Koebel, “Simulating the Ages of Man: Periodization in Civilization V and Europa Universalis IV“,The Journal of the Canadian Games Association, 10(17): 60-76
• Jeremiah McCall, Gaming the Past “Civilization VI, Problem Spaces, and the Representation of the Cree — A Few Thoughts” — The concern about the representation of the historical Cree in the Civ VI expansion struck me as a perfect example of how the historical problem space of a game as the designers craft it shapes the portrayal of agents in the past.
• Eugen Pfister, Spiel-Kultur-Wissenschaften, “Keep Your Politics out of My Games!” – An excellent essay on the connection between games and politics, the ways that games represent political points of view.
  • Tobias Winnerling, Spiel-Kultur-Wissenschaften, “Panem et Circenses: Bejeweled, Fun, & Politics” — A response to Eugen’s essay.
• Shout out to Play the Past, under new editors Gilles Roy and Peter Christiansen after the awesome leadership of Trevor Owens and Shawn Graham. Here’s to a PtP revival! See “Player Two Press Start: New PtP Editors and Directions.”
• Gilles Roy, Play the Past, “History’s Creed: Arte Web Series on History in Video Games.” –An introduction and discussion of the French-German ARTE channel and its web series on history in video games.
• Gilles Roy, Play the Past, “History’s Creed: Episodes 1 to 5.”
• Cory Wright-Maley, John K. Lee, Adam Friedman, “Digital Simulations and Games in History Education.” Chapter in the new Wiley Handbook of History Teaching and Learning— Hoping to get a copy of this. Until then, you know what I know.

Games and History – Online Reviews, Commentary, and News Items from Games Media and Other Media

• Fraser Brown, Rock Paper Shotgun, “Wot I Think: Railway Empire.”
• Fraser Brown, Rock Paper Shotgun, “Premature Evaluation: Rise of Industry”
• Joe Donnelly, PC Gamer, “Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia leads King Anaraut into battle, details ‘Fame’ victory condition” — Total War Saga: Thrones of Britannia is slated for April 19th on Steam.
• Jessica Famularo, Pocket Gamer, “Get your first look at Heaven’s Vault gameplay”
• T.J. Hafer, Strategy Gamer, “Europa Universalis IV: DLC Buying Guide.”
• T.J. Hafer, PC Gamer, “Age of Empires Stands the test of time: Hands-on with Age of Empires: Definitive Edition.”
• Rowan Kaiser, PC Gamer, “Rise and Fall asks the question: Can Civilization VI become something it’s not?”
• Jody Macgregor, PC Gamer, “Battalion 1944’s lead on its troubled launch, plans for the future, and the color gray.”
• Garrett Martin, Paste, “Dandara: A Videogame’s Responsibility to History.” – A thoughtful essay on the video game Dandara and its connections to the historical and legendary Brazilian woman who fought to end slavery in the 1600s. In the process, Martin discusses the merits and meaning of historical accuracy in a video game.
• Reid McCarter, Unwinnable, “Kingdom Come: Deliverance — Myth-making and Historical Accuracy” — If you’ve missed the buzz, Kingdom Come: Deliverance with its ostensible focus on a historically accurate medieval Bohemia, has generated a lot of discussion about, potentially problematic views on race in the past and present.
• Blythe Moore, ABC News Australia, “Using Minecraft to help teach history a hit with Rockhampton students.”
• Marcello Perricone, Strategy Gamer, “Age of Empires: Definitive Edition and the Dangers of Nostalgia”
• Ben Reeves, Game Informer, “Civilization VI: Rise and Fall: Shining a Polished Gem.”
• Kimberly Winston, Religion News Service, “If you build it, will they pray? Constructing religious worlds with Minecraft”
• Rob Zacny, Waypoint, “‘Rise and Fall’ Takes a Cautious Step Toward a More Nuanced ‘Civilization'”
• Rob Zacny, Waypoint, “‘Moby Dick’ Makes for an Improbably Good, Very Strange Strategy RPG: Reviewing Picaresques ‘Nantucket'”

Podcasts and Youtubes

• Game Design Roundtable #189: “Gaming the Past with Jeremiah McCall”  I had the pleasure of talking about my work with hosts Dirk Knemeyer and Cole Wehrle. Games in the history class, games as historical interpretations, my amateur work as a classroom history game designer, etc.
• History Respawned, (Hosted by Bob Whitaker and John Harney) “Episode 43: Harvard Egyptologyst on Assassin’s Creed Origins.”  Podcast and Youtube video 
• Three Moves Ahead, Episode 421: Nantucket
• Waypoint Radio, “We Haven’t Covered ‘Kingdom Come: Deliverance.’ Let’s Talk about Why.”  Says Waypoint Radio host, Patrick Klepek, “On the podcast, we delve into the deeply complicated history of this week’s surprise hit.”

Events

• VALUE, Leiden University, The Interactive Past 2 (TIPC) COnference is scheduled for 8-10 October 2018 in Beeld em Geluid, Hilversum, Netherlands