Interviews | Gaming the Past

GTP Designer Talk #6 – Henrik Fåhraeus, Crusader Kings II and III

May 2, 2020 Jeremiah McCall 3 comments

Episode 6 (5/2/2020) Henrik Fåhraeus, Paradox Development Studio, Designer of many Paradox Games, talking about Crusader Kings II and the upcoming CK III

On Spotify, Apple, and Google

Resources

GTP Designer Talk #5 – Owen Gottlieb

March 4, 2020 Jeremiah McCall 1 comment

Episode 5 (2/2/2020) Owen Gottlieb, RIT MAGIC Spell Studios, (Lost and Found; Lost and Found Order in the Court: The Party Game)

Also on Spotify, Apple, and Google

Lost and Found Main Site

Resources mentioned during the podcast

Lost and Found at Gamecrafter
Lost and Found Order in the Court: The Party Game at Gamecrafter
The Middle Ages in the Modern World (Themamo.org)
Gottlieb, O. (2017). Introduction: Jewish Gamevironments – Exploring Understanding with Playful Systems. Gamevironments 7, 1-4.
Gottlieb, O. (2017) Finding Lost & Found: Designer’s Notes from the Process of Creating a Jewish Game for Learning.RIT Scholar Works.
Gottlieb O and I Schreiber. (2018). Prosocial Religion and Games: Lost & Found. Well Played: A Journal on Video Games, Value, and Meaning 7(2), 17-41
Gottlieb, O (2018). Re-playing Maimonides’ Codes: Designing Games to Teach Religious Legal Systems. Teaching Theology & Religion
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/teth.12453

GTP Designer Talk Podcast #2: Jon Shafer of Civilization V and At the Gates

July 3, 2019 Jeremiah McCall Leave a comment

Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with Jon Shafer designer of Civilization V and through his Conifer Games, At the Gates , about a variety of topics related to history and historical game design. If opportunities continue for more of these GTP Designer Talks, I will get a Google Play, Apple Play, Spotify setup. For now you can follow the link to my Google Drive and download the mp3 on your player or listen to it here on the site.

Follow this link to my Google Drive for the mp3 file, to download it for listening on your phone/player

or listen right here here:

Categories: Interviews Tags: At the Gates, Civilization V, Historical Game Design, Jon Shafer

Interview: Matthieu Brevet, Steel Division II

May 18, 2019 Jeremiah McCall 2 comments

Recently, I had the opportunity to pose a list of questions about history and games to Matthieu Brevet, historian and game designer at Eugen Systems, makers of both historical and counterfactual strategy games such as R.U.S.E., the Wargame series, and Steel Division: Normandy 44. Eugen is finishing up production as lead designer of the WW2 real-time strategy game, Steel Division II. The game releases on Steam June 20, 2019, and is available for pre-purchase now.

Jeremiah McCall: Hi Matthieu. Thank you so much for your willingness to talk about your work as a designer of historical video games. There are a number of us who study and talk about historical games as kinds of history, and your insights as a professional designer are invaluable.

Can you, for readers’ sakes, tell us a little about yourself, the work you’ve done in game design, and your current project?

Matthieu: I’m 40 and I’ve been (very) briefly a high school History teacher while studying & obtaining a PhD in Napoleonic History. Since then, I’ve been combining my passion for History with my other one for strategy videogames by working at Eugen Systems. First as a game designer (RUSE, Wargame: European Escalation & AirLand Battle), associate producer (Wargame: Red Dragon, Act of Aggression & Steel Division: Normandy 44) and now lead game designer (Steel Division 2).

Gaming the Past Designer Talk #1 Civilization Game Designer Soren Johnson

April 11, 2019 Jeremiah McCall 1 comment

Those studying historical games need to have more conversations with the designers and developers that actually make these games. I am exploring the possibility of doing some interviews to host on Gaming the Past for anyone interested in learning more about how historical game designers see their games and the role of history in the design process. Since I have used Civilization III and IV in my high school classrooms for the past decade or so, Soren Johnson, designer of those games and now CEO of Mohawk Games working on the historical game 10 Crowns, seemed a perfect first designer to interview. Soren kindly agreed to talk with me about his perspective on history and games as a designer. It was fascinating for me, and should be worthwhile to anyone interested in the development of historical video games.

Click this link to my Google Drive mp3 file, to download it for listening on your phone/player

or listen here: