‘"The Triumphs of Turlough": a scholarly videogame about Medieval Ireland’

Vinicius Marino Carvalho, Universidade de São Paulo / Trinity College Dublin. @carvalho_marino https://twitter.com/MidAgesModGames/status/1278340434041937924 1 #MAMG20 – Hello everyone and thank you for coming. Today I’ll introduce you to The Triumphs of Turlough (ToT), a historical game with a purpose (GWAP) currently in development by @lemeusp and @arch_arise. 2 #MAMG20 – We wanted to let people play with assumptions and evidence from actual historical theses – and, in the process, help authors better understand the implications of their own ideas. This has been done in other fields (eg @Foldit) but not so much in history. 3 #MAMG20 – In practice, this means designing games as labs on which people can run their own experiments, not unlike an ABM. We believe such a tool can be used to validate historical theses and, as a bonus, bring researchers and lay enthusiasts closer. 4 #MAMG20 - Before introducing the game itself, a little historical background. ToT is set in Ireland between 12761318, when the de Clares, an English lineage, tried and failed to pacify the Gaelic kingdom of Thomond. 5 #MAMG20 – ToT’s environment and underlying model is based on my original (and ongoing) PhD thesis. Its goal is to evaluate to which extent a series of environmental and economic troubles in the period may have help thwart de Clares’ ambitions.

6 #MAMG20 – Although it’s a game about war, we wanted to avoid an unduly focus on combat. Our problem space, as @gamingthepast would put it, concern the challenge of mobilizing and provisioning armies amidst escalating economic devastation. This is reflected in our loop:

7 #MAMG20 – Our title comes from a well-known 14th c. account of the wars of Thomond. Commercial games hardly ever mention historical sources. We decided to bring ours to the forefront to try and bridge this gap (and also show historians where we’re coming from). 8 #MAMG20 – A historical explanation of our entire design process (as well as our methods for incorporating player feedback back into the thesis) will be published in a series of papers and dev diaries – the latter starting later this month.

9 #MAMG20 – Our original plan was to prototype ToT as a boardgame. Due to covid-19, however, we’ve started playtesting on Tabletop Simulator. While our priority is the physical version, we may release our very own (and freeto-play) digital boardgame in the future. 10 #MAMG20 – @arch_arise has made other scholarly games that proved very successful with students and history teachers. We hope to draw from their experience to make a game that is appealing as well as historically valid. 11 #MAMG20 – Our figurines are made by @_alexmartire based on actual sites such as @caherconnell and @BunrattyCastle. The map, logo and original artwork are being designed by @_crdr97 and @desenhosoltos (look them up on Instagram). 12 #MAMG20 – If successful, ToT will be used as a model for a series of historical GWAPs by @lemeusp. The idea is to give visibility to the work of our researchers and play with (pun intended) the possibilities of game-based crowdsourcing. Thanks for reading!