CMW6 Keynote: Coding Medieval Worlds

[Jubal]

What are we doing here and how did we get here? After half a decade of Coding Medieval Worlds events, this year's keynote aims to give a personal story of how history and game development can grow together and to show some of the processes and ideas behind the ways a "both hats" developer-historian thinks about using and playing with the past, medievalisms, and fantasy in games.

Along the way we'll not only learn about some of the thought frameworks and tools we can use to understand what history is doing in our games - and why that matters - but we'll also be dipping into a wide range of things along the way. From thought-experiments on how littoral cultures develop, to the party rogue in a 120 character Chinese adventuring party, to why medieval painting influenced modern takes on the Ancient Green underworld and nobody puts enough charcoal burning in RPGs, a colourful array of personalities, mechanics, manuscripts and code will provide food for thought on how we encode and play with medieval worlds.

James Baillie is the convenor of Coding Medieval Worlds and a historian whose work focuses on the ways in which technology interacts with our understanding of the medieval past. His particular focus points are the medieval Caucasus, data modelling for humanities research, and the ways that code and mechanics transmit ideas through games. He is also an active developer of adventure and role-playing games including The Exile Princes, a solo-developed medieval fantasy adventure game with minimalist graphics based on medieval manuscript art.

The session was chaired by Madeline Sterns.