Fictional Games Imagined by Real Historians
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56198/Keywords:
Historical games, Fictional games, Game-based learning, Digital humanities, Procedural reasoning in games, Adaptation, Design Thinking, HistoriographyAbstract
We developed a practical exercise, titled “The Game That Does Not Yet Exist”, which helps historians take the first step in imagining their thesis turning into a ludic experience (games, MR experiences). The exercise simplifies core design elements, so no designer is required at this early stage. Scholars are asked to think about historical arguments as interactive systems. We tested the exercise on our archival, interpretive, qualitative, and quantitative research, producing three conceptual prototypes: a VR game on ancient Greek inscriptions, a sailing simulator based on a sixteenth-century logbook, and a narrative thriller using seventeenth- and eighteenth-century maritime accident records. The exercise is now available on the Engineering Historical Memory (EHM) platform for broader use. This exercise is part of an ongoing project to emphasize authorship and enable early-career historians to create, rather than merely consult, historical ludic experiences. It opens the path for participatory experiments in which scholars design and share their own (eventually not only fictional) games.
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