My current research at Brock University centers around the ability of computers and games to simulate and represent how systems work in the context of history. Many historians have used agent-based simulations to represent battle scenarios or migration patterns. But these simulations have limited interaction: essentially the researcher interacts (or plays) with the system to [...]
For the past several months I have been exploring different ways to promote the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 in Niagara. To date, my research has been largely devoted to academic articles investigating hybrid and virtual reality along with historical research aimed at key people and places in Niagara during the War of [...]
The class projects from this year’s crop of students in the Interactive Arts & Science program at Brock University are now online… full details here. The theme is ‘Niagara 1812′, when the Niagara peninsula (location of Brock University, no coincidence) was the flashpoint for hostilities between the young American republic and Great Britain. Lundy’s Lane, [...]
A mod for Civilization III – The History Canada Game “The year is 1534… Play the New World A strange, pale-faced man named Jacques Cartier arrives on the shores of the Baie de Gaspé accompanied by a crew of 61 men. He raises a cross on the shore emblazoned with the French coat of arms. [...]
The decisions we make when we try to simulate an historical period – especially in a video game – are only part of the ‘rhetoric’ that playing the game embodies. If we are making the game from scratch, like our game set during the Montreal Plague of 1885, we can control that rhetoric from the [...]