The length and scope of this research project provides many perspectives forreflection and critique. By utilizing mixed methods approach we have tried to studythe phenomenon from different perspectives in an exploratory manner. While thisapproach has provided certain breadth for our design knowledge findings, focusingmore on certain methods (e.g. interviews) could have provided deeper understanding.The game examples used in the workshops have most probably guided the discussionto certain areas while neglecting others and although there were also full dayworkshops, it seemed there could always be more time to play, analyse, and designgames with industry experts and academic scholars. Nevertheless, we consider ourapproach feasible, providing more questions and opportunities to study the design ofhybrid board games more deeply.

The digital element should be a well-designed part of the game. This often works bestif it is designed into the game from the beginning, but even if it is added later itshould be justified part of the overall game experience. Adding a poorly designedhybrid element often does not bring the desired added value.

In hybrid games, the physical and digital element can also be asynchronous andindependent of each other (Tyni et al. 2013). Players can for example practice playstrategies on digital adaptations of board games and bring the learned strategies toplay when engaging with the physical version of the game

Tangible physical objects are easy to grasp and use. Handling physical objects cangive players a feeling of ownership over what happens in the game, for example as aresult of a die roll or by picking a card from a player’s hand. Physical game piecesalso allow players to fiddle with them between turns, which can keep them moreengaged with the game and offers material pleasure. Physical elements also offeraesthetic pleasure to the players and are often in the center of attention

Players also like coming up with houserules, for example to suit their style of play, or to fix design flaws in the game. Assuch, the digital elements should not restrict this flexibility too much.

A digital tutorial allows players to engage with the gameright after unboxing it.

Such activities could be supported in HBGs through the digitalapplication. Social media integration could be also used as gameplay mechanic wherelikes and comments are used for playful purposes.

 Presence – acknowledging that there are other players or spectators(tele)present in the same physical space or over the network. Communication – the possibility of communicating through the game (text,voice, emoji, gestures etc.) either publicly or privately. Interaction – conflict and cooperation through gameplay mechanics

Presenting player-specific imperfect information about thegame state via application is one method to enrich sociability (e.g. social tension,bluffing).

The possibility to customize their game experience provides ownership for theplayers.

Digital elements make it possible to add new features in the hybrid board game later.Like video games, HBGs could be updated as time goes by.

Digital applications often have shorter life spans than physical board games. Part ofthe charm of board games is that the player can dig out an old game from the attic andplay it even after decades.

In analog board games, missing game pieces can be replaced with relative ease. Withdigital elements there is a danger that the game is not playable if the application doesnot work under certain conditions

Utilizing existing technology like personal devices makes the game more accessible.Rather than designing new technology just for the game, it could be more feasible touse existing technology and utilize it in a novel way.

It is plausible that the digital application or technology in general used by the gamewill fail at some point. The game should be able to recover from such errors quicklyand gracefully. Whether it is a network connection problem or crashing of theapplication, the players should be able to continue playing without losing the gamestate. Another perspective is to use the failure as a game mechanic and exploit thesituation for the benefit of game experience.

Further, digital elements are goodfor adding narrative elements, for example letting players listen to narrative textpieces instead of reading them.

Utilize all audiovisual possibilities. Different game events can have images, video,music or sound effects attached.

Arduous and boring tasks can be automated. Bookkeeping can be error prone, timeconsuming, and boring, but an application can take care of it faster and moreaccurately. The digital element can be used to replace a human game master, lettingall the players play together against the game.

The role of digital elements is to enrich the game experience. The hybrid board gameshould provide added value that is meaningful for the players. There are several waysto utilize this guideline:1. Exchange an analog component for a digital component2. Expand the game with digital features3. Extend some non-digital feature with digital one

A familiartheme or brand can help a new player to get over the threshold created by unfamiliartechnology. On the other hand, tangible elements are good at communicating thegame state, and familiar board game elements can lower the threshold of entry formany

DESIGN GUIDELINES

Added Value, Aesthetics, Automatization,Availability, Customizability, House Rules, Recovery, Scalability, Shareability,Sociability, Tutorials, and Universality.

Audiovisuality, Availability, Automation, Customization,Recovery, Scalability, Shareability, Tutorials, Universality, and Value.

 Digitalize the most laborious tasks. Consider multisensory experience – especially audio. Universality – The digital element should work on multiple devices. Mind the cultural context – e.g. conversation culture. Hybridity should not reduce tacticity or sociality. Consider if hybridity can offer something that cannot be achieved otherwise

Bernard Bailyn describes history as having two meanings,“one is simply what happened . . . the other is history as knowledge of whathappened.”

History is the analysis of human action in past events, the circumstancessurrounding their occurrence, and their implications for other people andsubsequent events.

We approach Playing with the Past as editors and authors from a positionthat varies from that of both narratology and ludology. This is not becauseof a desire on our part to offer something new simply for the sake of beingnew, however. The examinations in these pages are all predicated on variousgames that carry one common denominator: they are games that deal, in onefashion or another, with history. This is not always an obvious thing—someof the chapters in what follows are about “histories” that never happenedand are imaginary in the sense that they present alternate pasts or imaginedfutures. But, in each chapter there is an aspect of history—or historiography—that the player must engage with

n historical terminology, then,teleology describes a goal, objective, or endpoint, so a teleological narrativeis simply the presentation of something as an inevitable conclusion, andthus recounting a tale as though that outcome was the only possible one, aposition termed “determinism”

Thus, from the very outset, any claims about the relationship betweenpopular culture’s representations of history are obliged immediately torecognize the inherent fallibility of history as a discipline itself—or at the leastthe recognition of its lack of objectivity.

The first is a typeof flat “names, dates, facts, and figures” conception of history, while thesecond is the narrative produced from the first—whether by a professionalhistorian or not.

In this book we aim to build on this existing work and toapproach what is an old question (about historical representation in modernpopular culture) from a new perspective, using a methodology drawn fromboth of our earlier works on the depiction of history in popular culture—that isfrom the perspective of history rather than that of games studies proper, onthe grounds that this approach raises new questions that take us away fromdiscussions about accuracy or nostalgia, which have dominated some of theearlier work in this area.When we ask about how games engage with history, it seems to us thatwe need to specify precisely what we mean by these terms:1 First of all, what do we mean by history? What kind of history?2 What do we mean by games? Can games be treated as one and thesame thing in their relationship with history? Do different kinds ofgames engage with history in different ways?3 What about intentions? Before trying to evaluate whether games canteach history, we also need to establish whether a historically themedgame is even trying to do so in the first place

Games Help Children Learn, alongside Kurt Squire’s work on Civilization IIIand learning about history, which we discuss below.9 Likewise, judging bythe number of students passing through our offices recently who want todo research on history and games, as well as the enormous response to thiscollection, all of the indications hint that, if anything, this scholarly interest islikely only to grow.

In fact, research into games’ potential for education has broken significantground over the last decade, reaching a tipping point in recent years, as indicatedby James Paul Gee’s classic What Video Games Have to Teach Us aboutLearning and Literacy, as well as David Williamson Shaffer’s How Computer

One such issue is the conception of history not as an academicor exclusive field of study (what Rosenstone famously terms “History witha capital H”3) but as “the past,” a more inclusive and inviting concept thatembraces all aspects of our history and implicitly refers to its relationshipto the present. Another important term is, of course, “playing,” whichhas largely been replaced in Game Studies with the more technical term“ludic.” That term, from the Latin ludus, has come to mean “play,” and wechoose to use it this way even though it also carries with it the implicationof spontaneous or aimless play that does not fit neatly with the notion ofplaying the “historical games” studies here. However, we use the term sinceit recognizes both the ludic nature of digital games—the sense that gamesare not designed as artifacts only to be looked at or understood narrativelylike films or television, but to be played, thus their ludic nature obliges us tounderstand them differently—but it also recognizes the importance of play asa human activity, which according to Huizinga, has the ability to “promote theformation of social groupings,”4 and which Suits, building on Caillois, suggestsas being “the voluntary effort to overcome unnecessary obstacles.”5 It is thisconception of play—and that built up in later studies of ludology—which is ofsignificance to our understanding of engagement with history.

It is, then, the issue of representing history, and the wider questions aboutthe representation of history, that this book aims to address by looking atseveral major issues concerning the ways in which digital games approachthe past.

When history can be simulated, re-created,subverted, and rewritten on a variety of levels, new questions arise about therelationship between video games and the history they purport to represent,questions that traditional historical approaches cannot properly address.

There he observedthat the opportunities for mediation through play pose new and difficultquestions about narrative authority and representation. “What happens,” heasked,if we push the notion of mediation beyond language, to the domain ofgame, enactment, or simulation? Does this allow us to slip out of the well-critiqued trap of representation? And if so, where does it land us?

what is “the past” and how does it relateto “history”?

the relationship betweenvideo games and their complex, changing, and multifaceted association withhistory