This Friday (24th; 6pm UK/1pm Eastern) I'm speaking with Daniel J. Finnegan on our work with the Cardiff Heritage Jam, engaging students with local history & heritage through games, for this Teaching Game Studies roundtable (in excellent company, too!)

Register here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

a flyer depicting an illustration of the parthenon with an image of an eye overlaid on top. the center of the eye contains a QR code. the text on the poster reads "Is your vision less 20/20 and more 438 BC? The Playful Time Machines project at Leiden University is looking for players of historical videogames who are interested in volunteering for an eye-tracking experiment about how videogames can shape perceptions of the past. Are you a player of historical grand strategy, adventure, or shooter games? We'd like to watch you play! Scan the QR code above or go to edu.nl/cd849"

it's that time of year again...are you a historical videogame player living in the Netherlands? do you want to contribute to player-focused research on past-play? come sign up for a gameplay session so i can watch you 👀 for science! check out edu.nl/cd849 to learn more 🏛️🎮⚔️🎲

Had a brilliant time talking to Liz for @beyondsolitaire.bsky.social podcast. A very wide ranging chat on researching and teaching historical games!

Manly Men With Uzis: Tabletop Role-Playing Games and American Cold War Masculinity | Historical Games Network In 1980s American popular culture, men with Uzis were everywhere. In The Terminator (1984), the titular killer cyborg played by Arnold Schwarzenegger demanded an “Uzi 9mm” from a gun store owner prior...

The first post for our Analogue theme is up! @malcolmcraig.bsky.social explores depictions of armed American masculinity in a Cold War context across Tabletop Role-Playing Games like Delta Force: America strikes back!, Twilight: 2000, & The Price of Freedom:

www.historicalgames.net/manly-men-wi...

An Island That Will Not Load: Fictional Worlds and the Labours of Historical Play | Historical Games Network Hashima Island is now better known through its fictional avatars than through its archival record. James Bond fans recognise it as Raoul Silva’s lair in Skyfall (2012). Survival-horror players know it...

New post on the HGN blog: for “Fictions,” Christopher Gerteis discusses HashimaXR, an immersive heritage project that grapples with the blurring of historical fact and fiction, contested historical and political memory & the meaning of “historical play”

www.historicalgames.net/island-that-...

New FUNDED PhD opportunity with me, @doktornick.bsky.social, and @bomlab.bsky.social on 'Playing in Public: Game-Based Interventions for Sustainability, Community and Environmental Engagement' as part of the CreaTech Frontiers CDA scheme!
Deadline: 10 April
Details: www.bcu.ac.uk/research/our...

M*A*S*H ended 43 years ago today with the 2 1/2 hour finale, “Goodbye, Farewell and Amen.” The groundbreaking final episode still holds the record for the most watched scripted television show of all time!

Mailing list | Historical Games Network

We're trying something new - if you've signed up to the mailing list, you should have the first HGN newsletter (baby steps). We've moved e-mail platforms so do check any spam or junk folders! If you have signed up you can here: www.historicalgames.net/contact/

New HGN theme up now!! 👇

If you need evidence that the HGN blog is the place to go for quality #historygames writing, look no further than this piece.

Absolutely fantastic dive on the complexities of video game time - even in historical games that may look very simple on the outset.

We Didn’t Lose, the War Ended: Temporal Fictions in Raid on Taihoku | Historical Games Network We usually expect the fiction in historical games to appear in obvious places: invented characters, simplified battles, alternative endings where “history” might have gone another way. Raid on Taihoku...

New on the HGN blog, the next post in our Fictions theme. Sara Morini explores how Raid on Taihoku reworks time to create narrative fiction and rewrite history. Enjoy! www.historicalgames.net/raid-on-taih...

#gamestudies #gamingthepast #skystorians

Very much our pleasure, John!

Had a fantastic time speaking to the history departmental seminar at Cardiff University yesterday. Great questions and conversations with a brilliant and collegial group of historians. Thanks so much to @enwright.bsky.social & @mrfw17thc.bsky.social for the invitation and for such a warm welcome!

A bit of weekend listening/watching to brighten your Sunday!

Interview: Witches of Islandmagee Project | Historical Games Network This interview features Dr Victoria McCollum and Dr Andrew Sneddon (Ulster University) in conversation with Kirstin Mitchell (PhD student with Cardiff University and Amgueddfa Cymru/Research Assistant...

On the HGN blog: an interview with @drandrewsneddon.bsky.social & Dr Victoria McCollum @ulsteruni.bsky.social on the amazing Witches of Islandmagee project. Huge thanks to Kirstin Mitchell (HGN Research Assistant Extraordinaire) for leading this conversation! www.historicalgames.net/interview-wi...

Fiction as Historiographic Method: Ethical Mediation and the Politics of Representation in USAWA | Historical Games Network USAWA is an Afrofuturist impact game I co-created with the Kenya-based game studio Jiwe in collaboration with the Malian NGO Donkosira and communities in southern Mali. Set in a speculative future sha...

New HGN blog for our “Fictions” theme: Marie Rodet writes about USAWA - an Afrofuturist game co-created with Kenya-based game studio Jiwe. The post explores the use of fiction as historiographical method, the “problem of representation”& ethical game design:

www.historicalgames.net/fiction-as-h...

One of those captcha things. This one says ‘select all images with bicycles. Click verify once there are none left’. There are 9 squares - 4 contain photos of bicycle seats, with the remaining 5 showing the beautiful head and face of a grey greyhound with a white stripe going from the top of their head to the tip of their nose.

Hats off to whoever did this (and the beautiful model).

History ended in the 2000s. now this is History NG+

Think someone else has mentioned it but the Vinland section of AC: Valhalla is really interesting in its lack of subtitling to English (the only shame being that it’s easy to miss and optional as a section of the game)

Cover of Writing Game Histories, edited by Esther Wright, Iain Donald, and Nick Webber. The top half features a minimalist black background with the title in script and sans-serif fonts. The bottom half is filled with a colorful, hexagonal map-style layout resembling a strategy game interface, populated with icons, numbers, and zones. A green vertical label on the right side reads "Writing History" connecting the book’s theme to academic and game studies.

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

a green approved stamp with a black background ALT: a green approved stamp with a black background

I'm extremely excited that the Forum section I'm co-organising with the amazing @enwright.bsky.social on British historical game studies has been green lit by a journal. More details to come in due course. What a nice way to end the semester.

If you have any trouble let me know, I can ask!

I assume so, likely on publication? You can possibly use the “request inspection copy” on the page for the book?

In addition to being a stunningly beautiful cover, choosing an image from a video game that remediates classical board game aesthetics illustrates the balance the volume tried to achieve between digital and analogue approaches.

I'm super eager to put my hands on this book!

And now, Writing Game Histories (2026) with cover art (courtesy of @murthynikhil.bsky.social’s Syphilisation)

www.bloomsbury.com/uk/writing-g...

Nic & I wrote hundreds of events for Amberspire, so I can say (with some bias) that the game’s world is so considered & interesting, but allows the player to form their own narrative that is reflected back at them in the cities they build.

I’m proud to work on it, and everyone should wishlist it!!

A screenshot of the article’s title and author on the Games & Culture website.

I wrote a new article: it’s on the Fallout franchise, & it’s just been published in Games&Culture

I’m currently trying to wrap my head around a bigger project on historical video game promotion and branding & this article is a slice (in progress) of that
+ it’s open access!
doi.org/10.1177/1555...

Foundational work on Fallout!

A screenshot of the article’s title and author on the Games & Culture website.

I wrote a new article: it’s on the Fallout franchise, & it’s just been published in Games&Culture

I’m currently trying to wrap my head around a bigger project on historical video game promotion and branding & this article is a slice (in progress) of that
+ it’s open access!
doi.org/10.1177/1555...

Are you a scholar in Games Studies, Museum Studies and/or Digital Humanities and want to help NMS develop research in Collecting Video Game Heritage? Come and apply to be an IASH Fellow at the University of Edinburgh!
Applications
Opens - Dec 25
Closes - April 26
www.iash.ed.ac.uk/iash-nationa...