How do we transmit and transfer ideas about the Middle Ages in game formats? One of the problems of medievalism in games is that communicating the depth of information needed to intuitively understand a medieval world is an immense challenge. People in the past grew up with: how do we best prime a modern game player with the information they need to understand and interact with a historically-informed world? Are there other goals we need to be accomplishing with information and how we structure it? From bestiaries to background sound to item descriptions, this panel considered the problem of getting thoughts and information about medievalist worlds across to the people playing in them.
Jason Grinblat is the creative head at Freehold Games and co-creator of Caves of Qud, a simulation-driven, science-fantasy videogame set in the far future. His jams include offbeat science fiction settings, emergent narrative, baroque prose, and the simulation of fictional histories. He has written and spoken extensively about each of these topics and how he brings them together in his design practice. Caves of Qud won the 2025 Hugo Award for Best Game or Interactive Work and the award for Excellence in Narrative at the 2025 Independent Games Festival.
Brian Bucklew is a creative technologist, co-creator of Caves of Qud, and the co-founder of Freehold Games.
Lu Yahuai is an Associate Professor at Yangtze University in Hubei. Her broad research interests include Late Antique history, the history of asceticism, the structures of historical texts and information, and historical game studies.
The panel was chaired by
Mariana Lopez.