The Paradox of Abstract Time in Historical Video Games
“Playing at history”. A few generations ago, science fiction writers seemed almost alone in entertaining the thought. Today, the very idea of going on a trip in a virtual historical setting has gone mainstream, thank in good part to the spread of video games. This success comes at a price.Continue Reading
Archives and Historical Accuracy in the Elder Scrolls Online
Libraries and archives are important and have been for as long as humanity has kept records. But why? In The Elder Scrolls Online, a quest asks this exact question. In this article, I discuss the “Historical Accuracy” quest in ESO and dissect the narrative around record keeping (and record destruction).Continue Reading
Feeling History in Blasphemous: Monstrosity and Spectacle through Time
This is a guest post by Dr Jack Orchard. Jack is Content Editor for the Electronic Enlightenment project based at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, and holds a PhD from Swansea as well as a BA and MA from University College London. His PhD was on reading practices in 18th centuryContinue Reading
The Academic Library in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Arcanaeum is a library in the College of Winterhold, an institution and guild that the player visits during the main quest in the 2011 game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. While the Arcanaeum is not quite like the academic libraries we often see and think of today, it isContinue Reading
Civilization or Hegemony: Playing Empire in Sid Meier’s Civilization VI
This is a guest post by Daniel Navarro. Dan holds a MA in Media Studies from NYU Steinhardt and a BA in both Comparative Ethnic Studies and Religion at Columbia University. His research focuses on connecting theory and history to media, most often with games or music. He can beContinue Reading
The Collector in Spiritfarer
There is a character in Spiritfarer called the Collector, a well-dressed, finicky walrus who goes by the name of Susan. When the player first meets Susan, she describes her distaste for the collection of “junk.” Nonetheless, Susan is the in-game collections achievement tracker, and will reward the player for findingContinue Reading
Feeling History in Blasphemous: Affective Piety and Our Lady of the Charred Visage
This is a guest post by Dr Jack Orchard. Jack is Content Editor for the Electronic Enlightenment project based at the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford, and holds a PhD from Swansea as well as a BA and MA from University College London. His PhD was on reading practices in 18th centuryContinue Reading
History, Take Three: How Video Game Replay Alters Your Perception of Time
On May 7, 2021 at the 88th ACFAS congress, I delivered a presentation on replayability in video games in a conference organized by Simon Dor from University from Quebec in Abitibi-Témiscamingue and Julien Bazile from the University of Sherbrooke, entitled “Controlling the Past: Design and Critique of the Mechanics ofContinue Reading
The Museum and Library in Stardew Valley
This is a guest post by Alvina Lai. Alvina holds an MS in Library and Information Science from Pratt Institute, and a BFA in Photography and BA in Creative Writing from The New School. Their writing appears in The Mary Sue, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and the NYT’s “Metropolitan Diary”; allContinue Reading
Through the Darkest of Times’ Historical Problem Space, Part 2
This is the second part of a historical-problem-space analysis of Paintbucket Games’ Through the Darkest of Times (See Part 1) Disclosures: 1) Paintbucket supplied me with a review copy of this game. 2) I have not yet made it past 1941 in multiple attempts, and my analysis is mostly basedContinue Reading