Florence Smith Nicholls
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florencesn.bsky.social
Florence Smith Nicholls
@florencesn.bsky.social
8.7K followers 2.2K following 2.1K posts
Video game archaeologist + game dev//
PhD on archaeogaming as play preservation + procgen//
Prev: Story Tech @gutefabrik.bsky.social, Planning Archaeologist at Museum of London Archaeology
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Florence Smith Nicholls @florencesn.bsky.social · Nov 4
~Thread of my past publications~

"Virtual Dark Tourism in The Town of Light"
2018, Routledge

In this book chapter I argue that video games marketing a setting associated with historical suffering can be considered dark tourism experiences.

www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edi...
The Phenomenology of Real and Virtual Places Edited by Erik Champion
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
santaragione.com
Our upcoming game HORSES was preemptively banned from Steam, with no path to appeal. The game will still launch next week on December 2nd and will be available on EGS, GOG, Humble, and Itch for $4.99. Here is a detailed FAQ covering what happened: horses.wtf/BannedFromSt...
HORSES cover with a banned from Steam logo
November 25, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
sallybeaumont.bsky.social
I'm a BAFTA Breakthrough 2025!

I'm honoured to be amongst such an incredible cohort, and for BAFTA to recognise my work on Old Skies!

As a disabled, female, performer-writer in games, I am so proud to show what we can do, and with BAFTA's support the sky's the limit!

www.bafta.org/stories/brea...
November 25, 2025 at 1:26 PM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
mtrc.bsky.social
Alright, a little late for Monday's lunch hour in most parts of the world, but here's the first part of a five-part video series about making a text-generating bluesky bot. It's quick, assumes almost no knowledge, and is (hopefully) fun. #procjam

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvPJ...
Make A Bot In Your Lunch Hour - Part 1/5
YouTube video by Ill Omens
www.youtube.com
November 24, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
stanwixbuster.co.uk
hi everyone. while the industry's still hellbent on calling anyone who makes /weird/ games "not a real dev" @baftagames.bsky.social decided that maybe people making things with three quid and a piece of string know what they're talking about, actually

i'm part of bafta breakthrough 2025
Game developer Stanley loved playing The Sims as a child, not because of what happens in the game but because, in simulating life, it allowed him to concoct his own narratives for the varied characters within its fantasy world. One Games Design & Production BSc later, Stanley has been channelling that love for storytelling into his own authored games. Creating the writing, art, coding and almost everything else himself, often on the micro-est of microbudgets. Stanley’s breakthrough project, LATEX, LEATHER, LIPSTICK, LOVE, LUST (2024), is as provocative and explicit in discourse as it is in title. A beautifully written, transgressive work of interactive fiction, it leans into Stanley’s own experiences of the trans masculine and online space and its multi-layered narrative earned him the 2024 New Media Writing Prize. He’s currently a PhD student at the University of Salford and working on his next solo game, CHILDREN OF HELL. In their own words… “Because I’m trans, I thought I would be overlooked for BAFTA Breakthrough, because we always are, but I decided to do the application anyway. I didn’t think it would go anywhere, and now it’s a reality I want to make the most of it. But I want to stress how I am, in many ways, an exception. I wanted to strike out and do my own thing against what the mainstream is doing, and I was just fortunate enough to be born middle class and have a support network that let me do that. We should be here and we’re often not, especially because we’re making weirder, more experimental games than mainstream gaming, and hopefully I can champion and elevate the people who brought me here. That’s how I want to make the most of it.”
November 25, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
pyrofoux.bsky.social
Do you like weird puzzles? You don't mind playing the first experimental iterations of a game? Like this post and DM me your mail, I'll have a surprise in your inbox everyday of December 🎁✨
SCRIDDLE - the secret rules puzzle
November 24, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
moxiest.art
MissingNo.
An image of the gym on Cinnabar Island from Gen1 Pokemon, the location for many fabled glitches, made using overlapping letters and punctuation marks from a typewriter
February 9, 2024 at 3:18 PM
florencesn.bsky.social
Need to design a larp, finish my thesis, work on several other things...all within the next few months
November 23, 2025 at 11:11 PM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
philsalv.bsky.social
In The Labyrinth of Time, entering the Ziggurat without a lantern is supposed to show a black screen. However, the developers put in the wrong filename for the black screen, so it fails to render, showing a black screen instead
A black screen, captioned "You walk into a dark place."
November 23, 2025 at 9:54 PM
florencesn.bsky.social
Feeling validated at the mention of the power of ambiguity, using the walking sim Dear Esther as an example, in Antony Johnston's talk
Slide showing Dear Esther
November 23, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
b-ok.de
The Edu-Larp Conference will happen again in 2026! On April 15th in Gothenbrg, Sweden! Registration and the call for program is now open. Sent in your program proposal before January 4th.

edularpconference.com
Edu-Larp Conference — Gothenburg
Edu-Larp Conference — Lindholmen Science Park, Gothenburg, Sweden. Wednesday 15th April 2026.
edularpconference.com
November 22, 2025 at 1:35 AM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
hollynielsen.bsky.social
Made my day to read this great post and see this!
Similarly, a new wave of game developers, usually from much more diverse backgrounds, give voice to many scholars from archaeology, anthropology and history to express their concerns, artistic visions and experiences through game development. Such is the case of Holly Nielsen, historian and narrative designer, whose blog posts (like this one) regarding the development of Amberspire (a fantasy city builder) discuss implementing perspectives of macro and micro history and their entangled relationship as a tool for both narrative in terms of overall experience and a subtle way of introducing these concepts to a non-scholar audience.
November 23, 2025 at 2:24 PM
florencesn.bsky.social
I am blessed this day
Photograph of a cat on a leash on the tube
November 23, 2025 at 2:20 PM
florencesn.bsky.social
Annoyed with myself for missing this one!
robinjohnson.bsky.social Robin Johnson @robinjohnson.bsky.social · 2d
Now it's Stark Holborn's "Murder She Modularized: Authored Narrative in a Procgen World"
Stark Holborn introducing the talk with a slide showing the title of the talk and cybery noir (?) style artwork from her game "Shadows of Doubt"
November 23, 2025 at 11:37 AM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
vghistory.bsky.social
skull, screenshot, commodore 64 (1984) www.mobygames.com/game/19288/s...
first person rpg style view of a passageway. a large floating skull is peaking around the corner. top of screen is score, level, lives and direction. on the right is the amounts of keys and treasure/gems that you have.
November 23, 2025 at 11:11 AM
florencesn.bsky.social
On episode 2 of Pluribus and I'm sold. Love that Carol has sort of become the haughty antihero from her own books
November 22, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
shrekromancer.gay
I've always dreamed of becoming a skeleton that serves environmental storytelling purposes one day
November 22, 2025 at 7:32 PM
florencesn.bsky.social
Wait should I be studying the player artefacts of Kirby Air Riders
whilhorst.bsky.social Willem Hilhorst @whilhorst.bsky.social · 3d
I'm in serious awe of some of the amazing machines that folks have designed within Kirby Air Riders. Love it when a game makes people show off their creativity with restrictive tools.
A wheel machine in Kirby Air Riders designed after the Pokémon Groudon A Winged Star in Kirby Air Riders designed after a zonai glider from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom A sleek looking Jet Star from Kirby Air Riders with an H emblem, pink paint, almost resembling an F-Zero machine. A Bulk Star in Kirby Air Riders designed to look like Lisa Simpson.
November 22, 2025 at 7:19 PM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
megannicolett.bsky.social
I spoke with people role-playing ICE raids in video games to help educate people on their rights and what to do in real-life situations. Tonight, they're holding an event in Fortnite www.wired.com/story/activi...
New Save Collective plans to continue holding future events and organizing gamers. The fight for these communities online is far from over. “Gaming wasn't kind of a random genre that we chose,” says Siggelkow. “We've been tracking anti-immigrant myths and disinformation digitally for years. We really grounded this campaign in a lot of data and research. This really is a space that is critical for immigration narrative.”
November 21, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
siobhanmcelduff.bsky.social
In 20 years or less, if things continue as they are, universities will be sending people to dig in Gaza for what's left without a single twitch that they're digging in a mass graveyard.
patrickwyman.bsky.social Patrick Wyman @patrickwyman.bsky.social · Jul 29
Gaza is one of the richest archaeological landscapes on the planet, with thousands of years of continuous occupation and layer after layer of history going back to the Neolithic. The destruction of that is nothing next to the human cost, but it's still a cruel, thoughtless act of destruction.
July 29, 2025 at 8:05 PM
florencesn.bsky.social
Really enjoying @mairispaceship.com 's talk on diegesis and mimesis in game puzzle design, strikes me these concepts are especially useful for typologising information games or "metroidbrainias"
Screenshot from The Roottrees are Dead Letterboxd review of Stargate Screenshot from Uncharted 4 A Thief's End
November 22, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
pyrofoux.bsky.social
If you don't live in France, it's hard to really grasp how deeply islamophobic and racist its institutions still are, to this day. They're happy to let you work for them or to consume your cultural goods, but they don't like it when you're *too* arab.
rasheedabueideh.bsky.social Rasheed Abueideh - Now crowdfunding Dreams on a Pillow 🍉 @rasheedabueideh.bsky.social · 6d
We were invited to screen Still Playing at Amiens Jail in France as part of the cultural activity

They asked me to take off my Kufiya claming its religious symbol

I explained it’s part of my culture worn by people regardless of their religion

I refused to take it off & the screening was cancelled
November 22, 2025 at 12:42 PM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
mtrc.bsky.social
The theme for #PROCJAM 2025 is:

❄️ ☃️ COLD PLACES ☃️ ❄️

Brr! We selected this theme using a new method: I asked community members to send in theme suggestions, then we turned them into word vectors, found the average, and looked at the words nearest to that! A little bit of unpredictability. 🔮
November 22, 2025 at 12:14 AM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
vullen.bsky.social
future archaeologists will know you were (not) a boy
1/3
February 6, 2025 at 9:28 PM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
todepond.com
tomorrow i'm taking part in the live coding MEGASTREAM for Palestine

i'll be performing at 9:30am (London time) with mags and @reckter.bsky.social

and then i'll hopefully join in with the #pastagang slot at 9pm (London time)

full details and how to help here: eulerroom.com
November 21, 2025 at 7:20 PM
Reposted by Florence Smith Nicholls
featherfangart.bsky.social
If It Doesn't Exist, MAKE IT.

Aka. The motivational bnuy.
#originalart
an illustration featuring a jackalope levitating in the void with a red ribbon flowing around it that says 'if it doesn't exist, make it.'
November 20, 2025 at 9:52 PM