My intention for this post was to write something specific and reasonably authoritative on how the character of Stede Bonnet as seen (as performed by means of, really) in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag differs from what we know of the historical Stede Bonnet, and what I think the differenceContinue Reading
In my last post I outlined the way that the Assassin’s Creed series makes of its players what I call Ubicultural subjects. I argued that through the thematics of culture-clash that the games drape over the mechanics of free-movement within a notionally historical space and violence of a notionally historicalContinue Reading
The historical stories told within the animus of Assassin’s Creed are about the clash of cultures. The Assassins and the Templars are represented in the game’s version of history by those same Assassins and Templars (Assassin’s Creed), the forces of enlightenment and repression in Renaissance Italy (Assassin’s Creed II), NativeContinue Reading
In my last two posts about the shooting mechanic, I tried to demonstrate that an understanding of immersion as the player’s identification with the ruleset that conditions his or her performance can help us find ways that even as entrenched a mechanic as shooting can, together with the shaping ofContinue Reading
About the author: Iván Goldman is a political scientist from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is a Researcher at the Meridiano Foundation and the Argentinean Foreign Policy Research Group (GIPEA) of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires, where he also is a TeachingContinue Reading
What follows is the first part of an analysis of Paintbucket Games’ Through the Darkest of Times (TtDoT) using the Historical Problem Space framework (the second part goes live on 12/17/20). I hope this will serve as a historical review for educators and those interested in playing and studying historicalContinue Reading
We discussed Ethan Watrall’s foundational role in The Story of Play the Past, with regards to the Play the Past website, and community. Because of the demands and responsibilities incumbent to his role as Play the Past founder and manager—not to mention his academic career—Watrall’s writerly contributions on the blogContinue Reading
Ten years ago to this day, on November 17, 2010, Ethan Watrall officially launched a new blog, “Play the Past“, dedicated to a small community of scholars and enthusiasts, seeking an on-line venue to discuss ideas about the new culture of “gaming history”. Hosted by Watrall at Michigan State University’sContinue Reading
Distorted takes on indigenous culture and experience abound in games – some egregious, others more subtle. As we will see, some developers even strive to challenge colonialist assumptions; yet, many of the design and narrative choices they make remain problematic. Challenging these blinders will require a new set of game development practices, based on direct collaboration with indigenous developers.Continue Reading
This interview is the part three of a three-part series on teaching historical game studies at the undergraduate level, and the second half of our interview with Julien Bazile. In this interview, we discuss with Julien his research into Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed franchise, the use of historical sources in gameContinue Reading