28: Analysing and Developing Videogames for Experimental History: Kingdom Simulators and the Historians

28: Analysing and Developing Videogames for Experimental History: Kingdom Simulators and the Historians

Vinicius Marino Carvalho, @carvalho_marino, Universidade de São Paulo Today I’ll talk about experiments. Historians and archaeologists sometimes use experiments to get insights about the past. Andrew Reinhard once compared videogames to sims like Agent Based Models, arguing that gamers can act as researchers by tinkering with virtual worlds. Agent Based Models and the like are related to complexity theory, an approach that allows us to explore less anthropocentric understandings of history. It can be used to investigate the many ways in which natural and environmental processes influence human decisions – and vice versa.

The potential to use games as ‘virtual labs’ for this kind of analysis is evident in grand strategy games & city builders. Yet, historians and archaeologists have a lot to gain from extending their attention to simpler games – such as kingdom simulators. As Robert Houghton wrote, these games are interesting because they attempt to model the political and informational constraints faced by medieval rulers. In this presentation, I’ll run by some examples and highlight what we should be in the look-out for.

First, some king sims are scripted. These games rely on what Adam Chapman calls framing controls to create the illusion of reactive agents. They can be useful, but not as experiments, unless coded with non-deterministic outcomes (they are usually not). Reigns provides such outcomes thanks to a semirandomized, card game-styled structure. There are both individual and collective parties to appease. The binary nature of choices reflects the limits of royal agency. Often, one has to “go with the flow”. Kingdom: Classic takes an ecological approach to medieval society. NPCs have simples schedules that add up to complex social behaviour. Social mobility is a thing. Limited non-human agency, but the procedural environment has a great impact on gameplay. King of Dragon Pass has many examples of non-human agency, such as the weather, the gods and a complex seasonal model. It also represents the body politic as a social entity with conflicting interests rather than an “experimenting deity” (cf. Jeremiah McCall).

So, what can we take from them? FEASIBILITY: Let’s not kid ourselves. A well-polished game needs the pros. Yet, a basic "lab" can be created and experimented with with widely available tools. Games like Reigns can be made as traditional card games. INFORMATION is deliberately scarce to reflect bounded rationality. A notable exception is King of Dragon Pass; as a) we play as a whole clan, b) it’s a “saga sim”. The confines of narrative are its main theme; knowledge of tropes are necessary to play with them. HISTORICAL CHANGE is the Achilles heel of model-based history, and king sims are no different. “Change” happens within strict confines; fundamental rules are not challenged. This is most visible in Reigns and Kingdom: Classic, which equate “medieval” with stagnation. To truly account for historical change, we’d need games in which mechanics themselves have room to procedurally evolve. King sims are not there yet, but they are a gateway to master the world of game developing – and for us to one day contribute to it.

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