historical video games

In dealing with digital games that engage with the past, one inevitably steps into the academic field of historical game studies (Chapman 2016a). Nonetheless, of course, ‘history’ is not the only proper theoretical perspective to look at the past. Using the fantasy game Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Intelligent System & Koei Tecmo 2019) as a case study, I will suggest looking at digital games from the perspective of memory studies, understanding them as ‘memory-play-spaces’ in which players continuously engage with memory-making.

Consumers of manga (comics), anime (cartoons), and video games increasingly search for alternative ways to forge a connection with their favorite characters. In Japan, many of the actual places used in such media as models for background scenery have within recent years become popular as tourist destinations. In an effort to connect with the characters from the action-adventure game "Sengoku Basara", female gamers began to gather at a shrine dedicated to Japan's war dead. At the shrine they choose to express their adoration for the game characters by drawing comic illustrations on votive prayer tablets. Based on a field survey of the votive prayer tablets found on display at the shrine, I argue that through the production of folk art, that is religious icons, fans engage with the game characters in a personal and spiritual manner, while simultaneously creating bonds with other fans.

This chapter examines performance through role-playing, an important concept of medievalism, yet under-studied in its function as a form of adaptation, particularly with historical medieval games. It analyses three medieval games and their approaches in adapting England for a digital game audience through their particular style of combining historical authenticity, game design, and gameplay. These three games are Medieval II: Total War Kingdoms, War of the, and Expeditions: Vikings. By explaining these medieval games’ approaches to adapting medieval England, the chapter discusses how their approaches incorporate medievalism and role-playing by using Daniel T. Kline’s concept of “participatory medievalism” as an emergent-based theory of adaptation in medieval games. The combat mechanics in War of the Roses further authenticates the player’s role-play adaptation of the history of England through medieval fighting by its style of one-on-one duels with another opponent during the game matches.

El objetivo de nuestro artículo no es otro que el de proporcionar una panorámica general sobre la que se asienten futuros análisis y que pueda servir como fuente de herramientas o puesta en situación para quienes deseen adentrarse en este novedoso ámbito de estudio que
supone la cultura de masas sobre el pasado en sus manifestaciones videolúdicas.

Az oktatás szakmai módszertanának reformjának kérdése már évek óta a kutatók fókuszában található. Mind a külföldi szakirodalom (Prensky 2006; Gee; 2012), mind a magyar (Fegyverneki 2016; Prievara 2018) kutatások megpróbálják frissíteni az elérhető tananyag szakmódszertani spektrumát, főleg a digitális pedagógia eszközeivel. A kutatók egyrésze viszont a videojátékok segítségével képzelnék el az oktatás jövőjét (Squire 2003; Wainwright 2014). Magyarországon 2016 óta foglalkoznak a videojátékok oktatásban történő felhasználásával, főleg a történelemoktatáson belül (Vas 2017, 2018). Jelen kutatás egy olyan koncepciót mutat be, melynek segítségével, a témával történő foglalkozás már az egyetemi képzésben elkezdődik, a gerincét pedig az a pilot kurzusa adja, amelyet a szerző tartott a 2017/2018-as tanév második felében a Debreceni Egyetemen témavezetőjével. A kurzus tapasztalatait foglalja össze az előadás, köztük annak követelményeit, tartalmát és a kurzus során felvett három kérdőív eredményeit (N=82). A kérdőívek különböző aspektusok mentén vizsgálták a hallgatók videojátékos szokásait, otthoni eszköztárát, a négy kategóriáról alkotott véleményüket, azok oktatásban elfoglalt helyét, illetve maga a kurzus is értékelésre került.
Az eredmények szerint leginkább az első- és másodévesek vették fel, akik leginkább laptopot, telefont használnak játékra. Stílus alapján leginkább a mobiljátékokat részesítik előnyben, ám nagy eltérések vannak a nemek között (nők: mobiljátékok, férfiak: stratégiai játékok), míg tantárgyi szempontból a nyelvoktatásra használnának fel videojátékokat. A hallgatók elégedettek voltak a tanórával, kiemelték az oktatók felkészültségét, tematikai felépítését, illetve az órák hangulatát.

In the rapidly developing forms of entertainment industries there are several factors, which can be used in education. These products use more or less authentic settings including historical- or socio-cultural background where the target group is mainly the young adult society who are in the high schools or in the universities. They get a lot of influence, which help them learn from the materials they see, read, listen or play. These products should be integrated more with the education to be in step with the contemporary needs the students have. One of this product is the video games which have the most complex system of all kinds of entertainment products. Games use narrative and interactive components as well, which help the student to have an immersive, interactive effect on them, but in the meantime the narrative components help them to learn while they play with the programs. There are several authors, researchers who have been investigating this field since the 80's including psychological essays, pedagogy thesis's and several other monographs in connection with the video games industry which serves as the first part of this essay. The essay tries to investigate how the video games can be integrated with the education of history in the classroom including a theoretical background, which consists of three major aspects. Firstly, the main sources of the topic are mentioned and summarized briefly. After the outlook of the academic background a more practical aspects are investigated as A. Martin Wainwright has had several successful university seminars combining the video games with the history teaching. His experience is collected in an essay titled Teaching Historical Theory through Video Game which was published in 2014 in The History Teacher journal. The essay provides a critical investigation into Wainwright's work in connection with the possibility of a Hungarian seminar based on the seminars Wainwiright's had kept. The core of the essay comes after the investigation, where I have divided the video games in four categories based on their possibility of using them in History teaching.

This paper seeks to address the theme of the 2018 conference by examining the significant role game developers now have in mediating our understanding and engagement with history by placing players in historical events/scenarios thick with faithfully rendered artefacts, architecture, styles, and social encounters. In doing so, we argue for a new wave of historical games in which developers are no longer merely translating established scholarly perspectives on the past, but operating as historians through their practice-led research that attempts to bridge representational learning with more direct experience by historicizing the player's experience, gameplay, and interactions. This paper principally illustrates its argument via a range of contemporary game titles that demonstrate a proclivity for creating authentic living socio-cultural systems, game mechanics, themes, and goals that invite players to learn about the past, distinct from games that employ uchronic times, alternate histories, or simply use history as window-dressing.

In this paper, I present a provisional framework for analysing and exploring historical games based on identity/alterity theorizations. Using this approach, I situate history in different roles exploring multiple dimensions of identity/alterity. I propose an application of these dimensions to analyse how games represent historical themes and convey specific discourses. I will argue that similar frameworks that aim to deconstruct history are pertinent tools for exploring the medium's potential as they allow deeper insights on historical representations and unveil new designing perspectives. In this sense, I use this approach to identify unique characteristics of games that could challenge specific discourses, adventuring how games can add further historical reflections, reaching creative and critical interpretations of the past. While the framework presented here requires further development, I hope this paper will encourage debate on the applicability of critical approaches as tools for the design of subversive historical games.

After a brief reconstruction of the main stages of video game’s development and the links with military research and strategic simulations, the article analyzes the use of video games as a form of propaganda and questions, within the epistemological reflection on history, the relationship between gaming and communication and violence and explores the possible use of video games both in history teaching and public history. Finally, the essay examines the role that a historical environment plays in the construction and reception of video games and in which way historical video games affect our perception pf the past.

Survival is one of the main drivers of action in video games. The gamer's quest to survive zombie attacks, to end the siege of the earth by aliens, to fend off wild animals and human 'savages,' and to outlive and curb global natural disasters makes games not only appealing, but, more importantly, possible – that is playable. Among these instances of survival, the focus of the present article is on humanitarian crisis video games (HCGs) – a rather recent development in the ludisphere that, to simplify, casts a critical look at historically significant humanitarian crises of various degrees and their repercussions on the local and individual levels. HCG games place emphasis on the individual (actors who have caused, denied, and fallen victim to disasters in the making) in their encounters with local, national, or global disasters in the Anthropocene. Providing a detailed, comparative analysis of the different ways the siege of Sarajevo is rendered in Saragame and This War of Mine, the article categorizes HCGs into 'referential' and 'supra-referential' games as they take inspiration from specific events in modern history, such as September 11 th or the recent refugee crisis, in order to tell the tale of individual suffering and survival as a common human fate in a world closely and chaotically wired through globalization.

Negli ultimi anni stanno aumentando gli studi in cui, oltre a mappare e descrivere la produzione videoludica italiana, si tenta di definirne le caratteristiche peculiari rispetto all'estero (si vedano per esempio Gandolfi 2015; Tarantino e Tosoni 2019; Gandolfi e Carbone 2020; Giovannini e Toniolo 2020; Carbone e Fassone 2020). Una di queste peculiarità-al momento poco discussa-riguarda l'attenzione particolare di molti videogiochi "indipendenti" (con tutta l'attenzione che il termine richiede: Ruffino 2013 e 2020) italiani per storie e contesti locali, molto definiti a livello spaziale e temporale, e spesso marginali rispetto a narrazioni o ambientazioni più note. Come rilevato anche dal database 'mappa giochi' di IVIPRO (Italian Videogame Program), a una maggioranza di videogiochi, soprattutto prodotti all'estero, che privilegia ambientazioni 'da cartolina' e mete turistiche molto note, come Venezia e la Toscana, si va opponendo una serie di produzioni indipendenti italiane che propone un approccio differente. Queste selezionano in particolare storie ai margini, ambientate in contesti lontani da quelli più battuti dalle narrazioni videoludiche, in cui il valore della testimonianza assume una posizione di rilievo. Tale interesse sembra trasporre in chiave videoludica l'attenzione di una corrente di ricerca storiografica nata e sviluppatasi proprio in Italia a cavallo degli anni Settanta, grazie soprattutto al lavoro di Carlo Ginzburg-ovvero la microstoria (per un'introduzione, vedi Magnússon e Szijártó 2013). L'approccio microstorico, volendo riflettere su culture regionali e locali e volendosi discostare dalle 'grandi narrazioni' reperibili nella maggioranza delle storie accademiche e popolari, si focalizza proprio su contesti periferici e su piccole vicende di scarso impatto per narrazioni storiche tradizionali (Gizburg 1993).