Just your regularly scheduled share of this masterpiece by @tomgauld.bsky.social

Call for Contributions - Analogue | Historical Games Network Introduction Over the past two decades, scholarship on historical games has tended to privilege digital forms, whether that is strategy games, simulations, role-playing games, or those with distinct h...

We're announcing our new theme: Analogue. It's an open call, and full details are available on the HGN blog here: www.historicalgames.net/call-for-con...

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/

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.

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...

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...

Step inside the Empire Exhibition of 1938 — rebuilt as a fully interactive 3D model with 6 guided tours.

The Exhibition is now almost forgotten. This project helps us revisit its legacies with fresh, decolonial perspectives.

Download the 3D model + lesson plans here: sit.gsa.ac.uk/project/deco...

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...

Just a reminder that this call is open if the overlap of history, fiction and games is your thing!

Why should students care about historymaking in videogames?  | Historical Games Network We might spend time exploring zora monoliths in Breath of the Wild’s (2017) Hyrule and the tales they speak around kings of old, or snooping through an item’s description (such as a holy great sword, ...

Some Sunday ready over on the HGN blog! Today’s new post from @xurvermilion.bsky.social explores the potential of videogames as a way of engaging students with historical research, and key skills in critical analysis:

www.historicalgames.net/students-his...

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

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

come hang out with us tomorrow! we'll be discussing digital drip and (inevitably) talking shit about dress to impress 🕺

a poster with a blue background and an isometric pattern of green hexes with a blue and red decoration. the text reads CALLING ALL HISTORICAL GAMERS: Playful Time Machines is an NWO-funded research project investigating what historical video gameplay means to players. We are looking for survey respondents aged 18 and up who play grand strategy, action/ adventure, and shooter games about the past! Fill in our survey at edu.nl/7w3yn!

hey y'all! my questionnaire on player experience in historical videogames is now LIVE! if you play videogames about the past, we want to hear from you! edu.nl/7w3yn

I'm keynoting the Animex Symposium next week! My talk is titled "The promises and pitfalls of posthuman and postanthropocene games". It currently consists of a series of bleak, existential questions. And some pics. What more could you ask for?! #GameCultures #NetZero

www.tees.ac.uk/minisites/an...

At some point I’ll do a thread that overviews the chapters in more detail, so watch this space. But for now, it is going to be an affordable(?!) academic textbook, and please ask your library to buy one!!

@tesswatty.bsky.social @murthynikhil.bsky.social @poppywilde.bsky.social @alexvandewalle.bsky.social @edvollans.bsky.social @times-new-roman.bsky.social @copperkeerthi.bsky.social & more not on BlueSky.

I am so grateful to my co-editors (& my @historygamesnet.bsky.social co-conspirators & friends) @doktornick.bsky.social @doni.bsky.social for being in this with me. And our contributors are such a stellar lineup, too: @hollynielsen.bsky.social @robehoughton.bsky.social @writegameread.bsky.social +

The book, really, is designed to be a starting point: a textbook that introduces students (and anyone else who’s keen, too) to a range of frameworks and lenses for studying history and games. It draws on academic researchers and game makers to explore key areas in theory and practice.

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…

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...

Call for Contributions - Fictions | Historical Games Network Our theme of Fictions started with a HGN | IWM panel at the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Curious Festival. You can read more about the event on the Historical Games Network blog and you can watch the ...

We're happy to announce the call for contributions for our new HGN theme: Fictions! Following a successful event last month, this theme explores the relationship between history and fiction in games, and how they shape each other.
www.historicalgames.net/call-for-con...

#gamestudies #gamingthepast

Exploring New Horizons in Video Game Cultures @ Sidestone Press This book brings together a selection of papers delivered at the Video Game Cultures 2023 conference, held from 7 to 9 September 2023 at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria. An interdisciplinary col...

As part of our reboot of the @videogamecultures.bsky.social conference series, we have our first book coming out, of papers from the 2023 conference in Klagenfurt, Austria. It should appear in the wild on 6 November. Details here: www.sidestone.com/books/explor...

I’m over here trying to enjoy PSLF and this comes across my screen. Sigh. IGN claims his classes are “a world first.” FIRST TIME IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD, EVERYONE!!!! NEVER BEEN DONE BY ANYONE EVER!!!!

Meanwhile, I and many others have been doing this for a decade or more.

Galar (Chapter 1) by Vinicius Marino An ecological VN about the plague in Ireland

After some technical hiccups (including a broken laptop), I'm happy to annouce the first prototype of my new game, 'Galar', is available for download! 🧵1/5

#historygames #gamingthepast #gamestudies #gamedev #archaeogaming

Historical Games Network Discussion Panel: Gender (29th July 2025) YouTube video by Historical Games Network

If you missed our Gender panel event on Tuesday, you can now watch the recording of this fantastic discussion here via our Youtube Channel! Featuring @verysrsgames.com @katexe.bsky.social @tesswatty.bsky.social & @ide4fix.bsky.social

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtP3...

Picture of me in my office, in front of my computer, displaying the Demo page of The Abbess Garden :)

Maybe, I just clicked on the "Release Demo" button for The Abbess Garden and maybe you can play it now 😱

store.steampowered.com/app/3873090/...

(it's a cozy and historical gardening game ;) )

#indiedev #cozygame #gamedev

Wrong tag! It was in fact the wonderful @ide4fix.bsky.social who was part of the discussion.

Fantastic discussion of gender and historical games with @leandrowallace.bsky.social , @verysrsgames.com and @tesswatty.bsky.social this afternoon, thanks very much to @historygamesnet.bsky.social for hosting us and everyone who came and participated!

RDR2 Demographic Data An overview of race, gender, and disability in RDR2.

Apropos the recent RDR2-adjacent *discourse*, @readdead.com’s work is a phenomenally in depth consideration of RDR2’s literary, cultural & historical contexts. You should check it out, incl. this hugely valuable demographic assessment of all significant characters (1/2)
readdead.com/2025/07/02/r...

What we play: Chatting about History, Gender, and Videogames | Historical Games Network Videogames offer us the possibility to create spaces to enjoy and engage with in ways that approach the past visually and interactively. We can play with history, and we can play to do history. But pl...

New blog post! Our final panelist for this afternoon's Gender theme, Leandro Wallace reflects on how we think about and engage with gendered play spaces in and around video games, and what we can do to create welcoming and diverse ones:

www.historicalgames.net/what-we-play/

Last call for our exciting online panel discussion with experts on history, games and gender! 16:00 UK time >>today<<.