Postgraduate Course: History, Heritage and Games (EFIE11478)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh Futures Institute |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | The course aims to provide theoretical and practical tools to explore how games (analogue as well as digital ones) interact with historical and heritage narratives.
Theoretical tools will come from academic scholarship dealing with the past, game design, as well as industry practice. Practical ones will come from engagement with case studies and creative practice. |
| Course description |
The course will equip students with the theoretical and practical tools to evaluate and creatively engage with how analogue and digital games have interacted and can interact with the past. Along with academic scholarship on the past, on game design, and on practices in the games and heritage industries, the course will engage with creative approaches via case studies and the way it is assessed.
Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) - Hybrid Course Delivery Information:
The Edinburgh Futures Institute delivers many of its courses in hybrid mode. This means that you may have some online students joining sessions for this course. To enable this, the course will use technologies to record and live-stream student and staff participation during their teaching and learning activities.
Students should be aware that:
- Classrooms used in this course will have additional technology in place: in some cases, students might not be able to sit in areas away from microphones or outside the field of view of all cameras.
- All presentations, and whole class discussions will be recorded (see the Lecture Recording and Virtual Classroom policies for more details).
- You will need access to a personal computing device for this course. Most activities will take place in a web browser, unless otherwise stated. We recommend using a device with a screen, physical keyboard, and internet access.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
|
Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2026/27, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 30 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Supervised Practical/Workshop/Studio Hours 20,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
176 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
The course will be assessed by means of the following components:
1) 2,000 Word Essay (50%)
Students will enhance and complete, through additional reading and individual research, a 2,000 word essay, focused on the critical evaluation of a specific game (video or analogue). Essays will include supporting visuals and key references. It will be graded and make up 50% of the overall assessment.
2) Design Document or Pitch Deck for a Game Concept (50%)
The second assessment will be a design document or pitch deck for a game concept, which will be marked and make up 50% of overall assessment. |
| Feedback |
Feedback on any formative assessment may be provided in various formats, for example, to include written, oral, video, face-to-face, whole class, or individual. The Course Organiser will decide which format is most appropriate in relation to the nature of the assessment.
Feedback on both formative and summative in-course assessed work will be provided in time to be of use in subsequent assessments within the course.
Feedback on the summative assessment(s) will be provided in written form via Learn, the University of Edinburgh's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).
Formative Feedback Opportunity:
Formative feedback is ongoing feedback which monitors learning and is intended to improve performance in the same course, in future courses, and also beyond study.
Students will be required to submit an essay plan as formative feedback and to discuss it with one of the Course Organisers prior to the submission of each essay. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate competence in core skills including independent research, planning and writing, group collaboration and oral presentation.
- Critically analyse and put into dialogue scholarship dealing with the topics of history and historical narratives, games and historical games studies.
- Show knowledge of the theory and practice of historical games design in different game media, including video games, boardgames and roleplaying games.
- Apply existing and acquired skills to produce a gaming output in a selected game medium.
- Reflect critically upon the process of creating a game design output based on a historical narrative.
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Reading List
Essential Reading:
J. Juul, 'The game, the player, and the world: looking for a heart of gameness', in M.Copier and J. Raessens (eds.), Level up: digital games research conference proceedings (Utrecht, 2003), 30-45.
Chapman,A. Foka and J. Westin, 'What is historical games studies?', Rethinking History: the Journal of Theory and Practice, 21 (2017), 358-71 (e-journal).
M. W. Kapell and A. B. R. Elliott,'Playing with the past: digital games and the simulation of history' (New York, 2013) (e book), especially p 1-30.
Ramey, Lynn et al., 'Revisioning the Global Middle Ages: Immersive Environments for Teaching Medieval Languages and Culture,' Digital Philology: A Journal of Medieval Cultures 8, no. 1 (2019): 86-104, https://doi.org/10.1353/dph.2019.0016.
Recommended Reading:
J. de Groot,'Consuming History (Abington, 2009) (only available in printed copy).
Mukherjee, Souvik, and Emil Lundedal Hammar. 'Introduction to the Special Issue on Postcolonial Perspectives in Game Studies.' Open Library of Humanities 4, no. 2 (November 6, 2018). https://doi.org/10.16995/olh.309.
D.Spring, 'Gaming history: computer and video games as historical scholarship', Rethinking History: the Journal of Theory and Practice, 19 (2015), 207-21 (e-journal).
Slingluff, Sarah, Deniz Vural, Glaire D. Anderson, and Dara Etefaghi. 'The 200-Million Student Classroom: Teaching Islamicate History, One Video Game at a Time?' International Journal of Middle East Studies 56, no. 3 (2024): 465-84. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743824000795.
Wharton, Annabel Jane. 'Digital Play.' In Architectural Agents: The Delusional, Abusive, Addictive Lives of Buildings, 151-84. Minneapolis, Minnesota; University of Minnesota Press, 2015.
Further Reading:
Anderson, Glaire D. 'Video Games and the Work of Islamic Architectural History.' International Journal of Islamic Architecture 15, no. 1 (2026): 29-33. https://doi.org/10.1386/ijia_00185_7.
T. J. Copplestone, 'But that's not accurate: the differing perceptions of accuracy in cultural-heritage video games between creators, consumers and critics', Rethinking History: the Journal of Theory and Practice, 21 (2017), 415-38 (e-journal).
J. Begy, 'Board games and the construction of cultural memory', Games and culture, 12 (2017), 718-38 (e-journal). |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | History,Heritage,Games,Analogue Games,Digital Games,Game Design,Creative Practice |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Glaire Anderson
Tel:
Email: glaire.anderson@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Miss Zoe Hogg
Tel:
Email: Zoe.Hogg@ed.ac.uk |
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