A Master Betrayed! is a set of physical and digital interactive narrative works, connected with the East Looe Old Gaol Museum in Cornwall, UK. This volunteer-led museum, occupying the medieval magistrate’s court building at the centre of this small fishing port, tells of the town’s civic, social and economic history through the stories of the […]
Thank you to everyone who tuned in to the livestream playtest of my in-development tabletop game Witch Which? on May 28th 2025, and to anyone who’s watched it on Twitch since. The recording is now available on the Historical Games NetworkYouTube channel with improved audio, and embedded below (content note: the playtest includes themes of historical witchcraft trials […]
Announcing a bonus special event as part of the Gender theme for the Historical Game Network: a livestream playtest of a new tabletop roleplaying game! This livestream will feature four researchers who work in gender and history gathering round the (virtual) table to test out a new game World Weaver: Which Witch? written by myself, Tess Watterson, […]
Guest chair/convenor: Tess Watterson Gender shapes the way that we interact with the world, and thus the way we interact with and in virtual worlds. From avatar creation and embodiment, to the design of non-player characters and in-game interactions, to the marketing and popular reception of games – gender is a crucial factor but not […]
As both a game developer and a medieval historian, each of my interests informs the other. In this post, I’m going to talk you through some ways I approach putting medieval elements in games and think about why they’re there. The process I use is based on thinking about medieval ideas as a sort of […]
Created as a collaboration between the Council of Europe’s HISTOLAB project and the Historical Games Network, we’ve created a tutorial explores how teachers can begin to use historical videogames in their classes. It uses two games developed by Charles Games (Attentat 1942 and Svoboda 1945) as examples. HGN co-convenors Esther Wright, Iain Donald and Nick […]
Via the HGN YouTube channel, watch the recording of the 10th discussion panel event on the theme of “Technology”, featuring guest speakers Amy Hondsmerk, Hannah Price, and Jonathan Ferguson (chaired by Dimitrios Darzentas). You can read more about the theme, and our speakers, via the call page, and read all of the blog posts for […]
Technology trees are everywhere.[1] They’re a really useful game design tool. But they come with a lot of baggage and often don’t align with scholarly or popular views of the past. In particular, this often leads to unusual representations of the ‘Dark Ages’. The medieval world is typically presented as backwards and superstitious[2] (not to mention violent […]
Here’s a provocation for you: AI has been used in the creation of this blog post… When I say I use AI in my work I meet a variety of reactions. Some people shrug – of course I do. Some people are worried, or horrified even, visualising the forthcoming robot army of the AI apocalypse. […]
From the classic ‘super shotgun’ of DOOM 2 (1994) to the non-lethal ‘Portal gun’ from the game series (2007-2022) of the same name, the gun is an important piece of technology represented in countless games and one of the primary means by which the video game player interacts with their world. Famously, it has spawned […]