Yokohama by night

Stumbled out of a restaurant in Tokyo right into a book shop full of artworks & merchandise from Inio Asano's mangas. Couldn't have asked for a more perfect Christmas.

I guess it's official: I'm finally on vacations! No more history or games. Until Jan 10th, I'll live on an exclusive diet of udon, Anime figures, and cat ads.

@bretdevereaux.bsky.social and I lighting up the world with our erudition about video games in the economist (though Bret made out better than I did; but then again, Bret plays a lot more EU than I do) www.economist.com/christmas-sp...

First anime watched? Gatchaman. Anime that turned me into a figure-collecting, convention-going otaku? This masterpiece:

There is no AI used in Blue Prince. The game was built and crafted with full human instinct by Tonda Ros and his team at @dogubomb.bsky.social. It is the result of eight years of development, fuelled by imagination and creativity, and we are extremely proud of what Tonda has achieved.

We just dropped our latest regular issue of Eludamos! With an editorial, 12(!) articles, 4(!) book reviews and a commentary, it's a big boi, and I'm really pleased to see all this excellent work out in the wild.

Featuring chapter(s) on games, both focused and (in my case) more broad scope - I looked at Persephone's narrative roles across a range of games to argue that despite seeming variety, games do not provide a wide range of possibilities or, particularly, narrative agency, for this fascinating goddess!

I think that someone should make a Video Games Awards that really reflects the state of the industry. Some category examples: - CEO with biggest salary who fired more people - Publisher who most supported Zionism - Real Engine Maker CEO who most supports AI - Biggest budget behind an "indie" game

This game is a masterpiece

Call me old fashioned, but I like to generate new ideas using my brain.

I wrote a new article: it’s on the Fallout franchise, & it’s just been published in Games&Culture I’m currently trying to wrap my head around a bigger project on historical video game promotion and branding & this article is a slice (in progress) of that + it’s open access! doi.org/10.1177/1555...

In addition to being a stunningly beautiful cover, choosing an image from a video game that remediates classical board game aesthetics illustrates the balance the volume tried to achieve between digital and analogue approaches. I'm super eager to put my hands on this book!

Somente você pode fazer tua arte. Tuas histórias de vida, referências, alegrias e decepções são únicas. A forma com a qual você processa tudo isso também é exclusivamente tua. E a maneira com a qual você transpõe isso para sua arte vem dessa vivência. Vai lá e cria. Só você pode fazer isso.

Tivemos o privilégio de receber @jennycromwell.bsky.social para uma palestra sobre archaeogaming, Egito Antigo, e sua pesquisa super minuciosa aplicando técnicas analíticas ao game The Talos Principle! Um excelente começo para o terceiro dia do Congresso Brasileiro de Arqueologia!

Meu livro, A Trama do Mundo, está disponível em ebook! Fica a dica para quem quiser uma leitura de fim de ano.

Games are such a funny medium to generalize about because like, games is an absurdly broad umbrella that we've decided is one medium even though you can easily come up with two examples of a "video game" that are more unlike each other than any two movies or novels

Using Vinicius’ lovely comment to remind people that if you have used one of my games in teaching then please do let me know because: A) it’s really nice to hear and makes my day B) it helps me in my argument to allow interactive mediums as submissions for academic work

The nominations for The Steam Awards close tomorrow, 1 December 2025. This is your chance to vote for your favourite games in a number of categories. store.steampowered.com/steamawards/...

Mechanics designed to deliberately induce/exploit addiction. I'm aware this would reduce to corpus of existing video games to, like, four titles. Might as well delete video games and rename the outliers.

You're Ruining My Lore is great. More than worth the few minutes it takes to play it. Although, of course, the real fun is discussing it with the class.

Introduce yourself with 5 animals you've seen in the wild: 1 - Toucan 2 - Great kiskadee 3 - Peregrine falcon 4 - Guan 5 - Woodpecker

Heaven's Vault (inkle Ltd, 2019)

ALT text:

This 👇

Going to shamelessly use this to remind people that if you’d like a historian who is also a writer and narrative designer to bring some of these perspectives to your game, then in the new year I’m available for work

- Dad gave me a copy of Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist for B-Day. - Got hooked on Ireland; went to live in Galway. - While living in Ireland, bought & read James Lydon's The Lordship of Ireland in the Middle Ages. The rest, as they say, is history (quite literally in my case)

"Guv, Burke has been spotted on the top floor of the Stephen's Green Shopping Centre". "What, where TK Maxx is?" "No, the very top floor, the weird floor". "... It's hopeless. The Gardaí aren't allowed up there".

This #MapMonday, we're sharing a map from the Hardiman Atlas Collection, deposited in the DRI by Trinity College Dublin. This map of Ireland, created circa 1560-1620, shows the names of the families holding possessions in each district. Explore the collection!: doi.org/10.7486/DRI....

Also didn't expect this gentlemen to become my favourite character, given my lack of familiarity with his spiritualist tradition. But Mr. Dupré is simply the best. 'Air of sadness' is an understatement. This guy's story will floor you.

Just finished @blakemanorgame.bsky.social & don't know what to do with my life. I was prepared for the history & mythology. I wasn't prepared for the feels. This game hits right in the guts (in the best possible way!) Also: apologies for the cryptic image; I'm doing my best to not give spoilers!

Exciting news! Some of the most creative voices in the field have contributed to this volume. #gamingthepast #historygames

"metrics are a design tool to move player agents to care about aspects of the problem space historical agents would have cared about." @vinicius-marino.bsky.social thought this a quotable in my DHG draft. I'm like it too. Anyone interested in #gamingthepast want to know more? (back to editing)

Mi novela, "La Trama del Mundo", fue traducida al castellano! Es una fantasía urbana sobre las relaciones entre mitología y cultura pop, que reimagina la obra de Yeats - y su fascinación por máscaras espirituales - en el contexto del mundo contemporáneo del cosplay. Leed el resumen abajo:

My reaction every time I read a scathing anime review written by an anime neophyte.

I had the pleasure of (virtually) hosting @florencesn.bsky.social at Unicamp a few years ago, before their research soared to so many new heights. This talk is not to be missed. And I'm very happy it's going to be recorded so I can watch if later as well!

Friends! On November 19th at 16:00, in Auditorium 3 at the ITU, we are hosting a talk by Florence Smith Nicholls. The talk is titled How to be a video game archaeologist. You can read about it here: digitalplay.itu.dk/event/floren...

There are a few tells that indicate an article about videogames is not worth reading. This is one of them.

Mi novela, "La Trama del Mundo", fue traducida al castellano! Es una fantasía urbana sobre las relaciones entre mitología y cultura pop, que reimagina la obra de Yeats - y su fascinación por máscaras espirituales - en el contexto del mundo contemporáneo del cosplay. Leed el resumen abajo:

And if you’re like “I’m a game dev & I don’t see how a narrative person who is also a historian is helpful for me and my non-historical game” Then you can read my design diary about some of the work I’ve done for Amberspire (which has a fantasy sci-fi setting) lunardivision.net/micro-and-ma...

This looks incredible!

Meu livro sobre cosplay, "A Trama do Mundo", foi assunto de uma matéria no Jornal da Unicamp! De quebra, falei sobre minha pesquisa sobre práticas lúdicas e sobre o CEDA, grupo de pesquisa de que faço parte. Kudos para a arte sensacional da Gisela Pizzatto! #literatura #gamestudies

I can see how starting at Chapter 4 makes the experience less daunting (esp. given that Proteus (Ch3) is one of the toughest chapters in the book.) My alternative suggestion is to start with A Portrait of the Artist and proceed straight to Ulysses. You'll get a grasp of Stephen Dedalus' story.

Meu livro sobre cosplay, "A Trama do Mundo", foi assunto de uma matéria no Jornal da Unicamp! De quebra, falei sobre minha pesquisa sobre práticas lúdicas e sobre o CEDA, grupo de pesquisa de que faço parte. Kudos para a arte sensacional da Gisela Pizzatto! #literatura #gamestudies

Months ago I gave a paper on Irish mythology in games, which was almost entirely a list of what games do wrong with the theme. Then comes @blakemanorgame.bsky.social, which does almost everything right. What a joy of a historical game! Comhghairdeas leis an foireann ar fad ag Spooky Doorway!

This was one of the most rewarding and unusual (in a good way!) conversations about #historygames that I had recently. And Part 2 gets ever weirder and deeper into philosophy of history. Super excited to share it with you. #gamingthepast

So, today I'm announcing a new book project... and doing a call for papers: crpgbook.wordpress.com/2025/10/31/t... It's an anthology of video game history outside the usual US perspective - an accessible & exciting panorama of different realities - and I'll pay 300 USD per article. Please share :)

Porque nem de longe estão pagando imposto suficiente. De nada.