...are there any video games that do a non-terrible job of portraying the Haudenosaunee? #vastearlyamerica
December 31, 2025 at 3:06 AM
1753. WRITING GAME HISTORIES
👉 www.thevideogamelibrary.org/book/writing...
"An accessible guide to Historical Game Studies, exploring how games represent, shape, and create history across digital and analogue forms"
#Books #Booksky #Gaming #VideoGames #GameStudies #GamingThePast
👉 www.thevideogamelibrary.org/book/writing...
"An accessible guide to Historical Game Studies, exploring how games represent, shape, and create history across digital and analogue forms"
#Books #Booksky #Gaming #VideoGames #GameStudies #GamingThePast
December 30, 2025 at 2:44 PM
1753. WRITING GAME HISTORIES
👉 www.thevideogamelibrary.org/book/writing...
"An accessible guide to Historical Game Studies, exploring how games represent, shape, and create history across digital and analogue forms"
#Books #Booksky #Gaming #VideoGames #GameStudies #GamingThePast
👉 www.thevideogamelibrary.org/book/writing...
"An accessible guide to Historical Game Studies, exploring how games represent, shape, and create history across digital and analogue forms"
#Books #Booksky #Gaming #VideoGames #GameStudies #GamingThePast
#gamingthepast Yeah it's terrific! Props! Been so busy with the book I have had little time to explore a historical rpg for class, but Carta would be perfect for anything that had a set of steps toward a goal with progress and setback. Just brainstorming in the appendix I thought: 1/
Carta SRD by Peach Garden Games
A Toolkit For Creating Single-player Exploration Games
peachgardengames.itch.io
December 27, 2025 at 3:32 PM
#gamingthepast Yeah it's terrific! Props! Been so busy with the book I have had little time to explore a historical rpg for class, but Carta would be perfect for anything that had a set of steps toward a goal with progress and setback. Just brainstorming in the appendix I thought: 1/
Thanks so much @yardcg.bsky.social ! Definitely a fun question! So many ways of approaching this! Walking my dog last evening I decided the most exciting way to me at the moment was games I either want to design or wish someone had so I could use for my history classes. 🧵1/
#gamingthepast
#gamingthepast
December 21, 2025 at 12:17 PM
Thanks so much @yardcg.bsky.social ! Definitely a fun question! So many ways of approaching this! Walking my dog last evening I decided the most exciting way to me at the moment was games I either want to design or wish someone had so I could use for my history classes. 🧵1/
#gamingthepast
#gamingthepast
I'd be VERY interested, historical designers (you self define that pls.) what you think of this as guide for analyzing existing practice &, possibly, for translating historical content to your games. Does it track for you & your practices?
(and of course additions are welcome; suggest away!)
(and of course additions are welcome; suggest away!)
Sending this out again for more #gamingthepast interested folk to see. A new iteration of Historical Problem Space framework diagram that includes an enumeration of the most common action-choices (archetypes of action choices) that player agents have in historical board AND video games. 1/
December 20, 2025 at 12:02 PM
A thread on how it might be useful to notice all games at worlds can likely be analyzed as Agential Problem Spaces, building off of Historical Problem Spaces Would be delighted to hear from those interested in ga,especially about academic topics (lit, myth, psych, social science, science, etc. 🧵
Almost forgot I meant to respond to the point that the Historical Problem Space framework for analyzing (and thus thinking about designing) Historical games analog, ttrpg, and digital applies fully to ANY game which comes with a gameworld. 1/
December 20, 2025 at 12:01 PM
Started in on listening to most of the @rangedtouch.bsky.social Game Studies Study Buddies episodes in chronological order (historian 🙂). I think I have this part of the list correct:
Definitely need to recheck the more recent ones up to 2012, and, when I get there, add the post 2012 stuff
Definitely need to recheck the more recent ones up to 2012, and, when I get there, add the post 2012 stuff
December 20, 2025 at 12:01 PM
An excellent brief essay and definitely illustrates some of my concern with LLM in Humanities. But it (I quickly skimmed) leaves out a facet that I would stress just as much. Let's leave aside concerns of not attributing sources included by LLM as potential plagiarism for just a moment and ... 🧵1/
It’s good to see papers start to address LLMs as structural plagiarism — provenance, more hidden than the original words or training data. www.nature.com/articles/s42...
December 20, 2025 at 12:01 PM
@bretdevereaux.bsky.social and I lighting up the world with our erudition about video games in the economist (though Bret made out better than I did; but then again, Bret plays a lot more EU than I do)
www.economist.com/christmas-sp...
www.economist.com/christmas-sp...
What if the best way to learn about history is by playing with it?
Video games are changing the way people understand the past
www.economist.com
December 20, 2025 at 12:00 PM
The library of games I’m using this term in my History Through Board Games course. #wargaming #boardgames #gamingthepast #gamesineducatiin #tabletopgames #GamesForLearning #HistoryGames
December 11, 2025 at 11:25 PM
The library of games I’m using this term in my History Through Board Games course. #wargaming #boardgames #gamingthepast #gamesineducatiin #tabletopgames #GamesForLearning #HistoryGames
Sabotage
Train to resist the Nazi occupation in occupied Denmark in this historical game.
boardgamegeek.com
December 11, 2025 at 10:14 PM
December 10, 2025 at 2:21 PM
#gamingthepast (Ok, not the past, but you get the idea.)
Ran a matrix wargame as an explorative edu game today. Pleasure to see people realize the method's potential for edu and analytic purposes, feel the power of synthetic experiences, understand importantance of diverse perspectives and the grave geopol implications of climate change. #wargaming
December 9, 2025 at 10:32 PM
#gamingthepast (Ok, not the past, but you get the idea.)
Hugely useful, thoughtful and well written resource for any aspiring - or experienced! - tabletop designers here. I link to one of these in basically every BoardGameWire newsletter, always super insightful stuff:
There are over 180 articles in the Skeleton Code Machine archives about game design and tabletop mechanisms.
All available for free: www.skeletoncodemachine.com/archive
#boardgames #ttrpg #gamedesign 🎲✂️
All available for free: www.skeletoncodemachine.com/archive
#boardgames #ttrpg #gamedesign 🎲✂️
December 8, 2025 at 2:41 PM
December 5, 2025 at 4:41 PM
Please remember, this has always been a designer-side framework, NOT an attempt to guess at player experience.
As you probably know, my work is on the #HistoricalGameStudies side and #gamingthepast side for history education. 2/
As you probably know, my work is on the #HistoricalGameStudies side and #gamingthepast side for history education. 2/
November 27, 2025 at 12:36 PM
Please remember, this has always been a designer-side framework, NOT an attempt to guess at player experience.
As you probably know, my work is on the #HistoricalGameStudies side and #gamingthepast side for history education. 2/
As you probably know, my work is on the #HistoricalGameStudies side and #gamingthepast side for history education. 2/
Sending this out again for more #gamingthepast interested folk to see. A new iteration of Historical Problem Space framework diagram that includes an enumeration of the most common action-choices (archetypes of action choices) that player agents have in historical board AND video games. 1/
November 27, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Sending this out again for more #gamingthepast interested folk to see. A new iteration of Historical Problem Space framework diagram that includes an enumeration of the most common action-choices (archetypes of action choices) that player agents have in historical board AND video games. 1/
For anyone who wants to be deputized (heck, sheriffed -- no hierarchy here) to go do important new #gamingthepast work in education. Get cracking on reviving parser-games for history. Use Graham Nelson's fantastic Inform 7 parser-based text games & start making & having kids make history games. 1/
Inform 7
Inform is a natural-language-based programming language for writers of interactive fiction.
ganelson.github.io
November 26, 2025 at 12:17 PM
For anyone who wants to be deputized (heck, sheriffed -- no hierarchy here) to go do important new #gamingthepast work in education. Get cracking on reviving parser-games for history. Use Graham Nelson's fantastic Inform 7 parser-based text games & start making & having kids make history games. 1/
Anticipating 2nd semester researched historical boardgame projects and, as usual editing Designing Historical Games. Realized I can set out vast majority of action-choices in historical games in a helpful(?) new HPS diagram.
Any constructive feedback? (I know graphic design is iffy)
#gamingthepast
Any constructive feedback? (I know graphic design is iffy)
#gamingthepast
November 24, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Anticipating 2nd semester researched historical boardgame projects and, as usual editing Designing Historical Games. Realized I can set out vast majority of action-choices in historical games in a helpful(?) new HPS diagram.
Any constructive feedback? (I know graphic design is iffy)
#gamingthepast
Any constructive feedback? (I know graphic design is iffy)
#gamingthepast
On the use of games when teaching history, @adapalmer.bsky.social has an unexpected suggestion.
#GamingHistory
#GamingHistory
![In my Renaissance class, for extra credit, students can borrow one of my collection of Renaissance-themed board games, many mediocre, some loving yet disastrously overcomplicated, a few playable, but there is one that teaches this phase of Italy's history better than anything: Siena. It's 1338, and you begin as a farmer with aspirations to become a merchant. You sell your crops, either locally or by sending wagons out of the city where, the farther you go, the higher the price you get, but the greater the odds of bandits murdering your wagoner and taking everything. As you gain wealth, you can invest in more lucrative trades: cloth and spices, whose profits are an order of magnitude higher. If successful, you soon earn so much in the cloth trade that you spend in every turn what you toiled rounds to earn as a farmer, and you become part of what Machiavelli and Varchi would call the popolo. As your money pile grows, you enter the final stage: Spend! Spend! Spend every penny you have on public works projects, art, bridges, building the cathedral, spend it all!!!!! Why? To win public acclaim and secure a seat on the city's ruling council. That's right: the win condition of Siena is not to end rich, it's to end broke, turning all that money into power, since with power comes long-term security, influence, safety from taxation, from banishment; with power comes swarms of merchants and peasants who flock to you for protection and aid and pay well in return, in sum: stability. Because in a world without a list of rights, or social safety nets, money does nothing for you if you end up on the wrong side of power. And in real history, beyond the board game, if you're on the ruling council, and beloved, and suppress your rivals, and hire private troops, and make friends with neighbors who have troops too, it's not hard to become de facto dictator of what remains a republic on paper[...] [T]he line between republic and monarchy can blur.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:lkicuossg2grpom7sp3pnls6/bafkreibrmicq4dnmkrrwnjmhqhm62c7da4lm2ned6ux6whb7zr7locvl3a@jpeg)
November 20, 2025 at 12:41 AM
Hi friends! I had a great discussion w/ 2 new academic history game designers abt modeling complex research realities in game form (use HPS framework of course!!!), & a new digital colleague sent me a new syllabus for an edgy history game course.
LOVE to help w/ these endeavors 1/
#gamingthepast
🗃️
LOVE to help w/ these endeavors 1/
#gamingthepast
🗃️
November 19, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Hi friends! I had a great discussion w/ 2 new academic history game designers abt modeling complex research realities in game form (use HPS framework of course!!!), & a new digital colleague sent me a new syllabus for an edgy history game course.
LOVE to help w/ these endeavors 1/
#gamingthepast
🗃️
LOVE to help w/ these endeavors 1/
#gamingthepast
🗃️
#HobbyGamesRecce
Inspired by an old Osprey Illustrated Military Diary, I consider the possibility of running a historical #wargame each week, coinciding with a notable event one could explore through simulation...including event and game suggestions.
#GamesForLearning #GamingThePast #HistoryGames
Inspired by an old Osprey Illustrated Military Diary, I consider the possibility of running a historical #wargame each week, coinciding with a notable event one could explore through simulation...including event and game suggestions.
#GamesForLearning #GamingThePast #HistoryGames
Wargame Calendar Challenge
“ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” — H.G. Wells One of the perks of my time working at West ...
hobbygamesrecce.blogspot.com
November 18, 2025 at 8:40 PM
#HobbyGamesRecce
Inspired by an old Osprey Illustrated Military Diary, I consider the possibility of running a historical #wargame each week, coinciding with a notable event one could explore through simulation...including event and game suggestions.
#GamesForLearning #GamingThePast #HistoryGames
Inspired by an old Osprey Illustrated Military Diary, I consider the possibility of running a historical #wargame each week, coinciding with a notable event one could explore through simulation...including event and game suggestions.
#GamesForLearning #GamingThePast #HistoryGames
Exciting news!
Some of the most creative voices in the field have contributed to this volume.
#gamingthepast #historygames
Some of the most creative voices in the field have contributed to this volume.
#gamingthepast #historygames
A project that started with a DiGRA23 workshop is finally, nearly out in the world! Coming May 2026 from Bloomsbury’s Writing History series, Writing Games Histories is a collection of essays on historical game studies methods&approaches. Find the ToC here:
www.bloomsbury.com/uk/writing-g...
www.bloomsbury.com/uk/writing-g...
Writing Game Histories
This book offers an accessible introduction to the dynamic intersection between history and games, and the flourishing discipline of Historical Game Studies. Fr…
www.bloomsbury.com
November 15, 2025 at 5:08 PM
Exciting news!
Some of the most creative voices in the field have contributed to this volume.
#gamingthepast #historygames
Some of the most creative voices in the field have contributed to this volume.
#gamingthepast #historygames
"metrics are a design tool to move player agents to care about aspects of the problem space historical agents would have cared about."
@vinicius-marino.bsky.social thought this a quotable in my DHG draft. I'm like it too. Anyone interested in #gamingthepast want to know more?
(back to editing)
@vinicius-marino.bsky.social thought this a quotable in my DHG draft. I'm like it too. Anyone interested in #gamingthepast want to know more?
(back to editing)
November 15, 2025 at 12:13 PM
"metrics are a design tool to move player agents to care about aspects of the problem space historical agents would have cared about."
@vinicius-marino.bsky.social thought this a quotable in my DHG draft. I'm like it too. Anyone interested in #gamingthepast want to know more?
(back to editing)
@vinicius-marino.bsky.social thought this a quotable in my DHG draft. I'm like it too. Anyone interested in #gamingthepast want to know more?
(back to editing)
I'm hoping to lead the kids to think about 7 Wonders: Architects as more of a representation (showing in aesthetics) the ancient civs and Roll through the Age: The Bronze Age more an simulation (a system and how the parts work together) 2/
November 12, 2025 at 12:33 PM