The winners from the previous Jam in the Archives events, Dundee’s Team Coda from Abertay and Team Aberdeen, travelled with the organisers to the National Library of Scotland for the final jam last month. Jam in the Archives is all about helping shape the wider alignments of universities, archives, libraries, galleries & games in making a shared case for creative innovation.
Teams consult medieval manuscripts at the NLS
The challenge was to make games inspired by the historical collections held in the NLS. The student teams from Dundee and Aberdeen were judged on a playable game loop or a game concept with a robust plan for development. As in the preceding jams, they worked over two days, and they pitched their games to a panel of judges drawn from different areas of expertise.
Detail from Scone Abbey ChartularyDetail from Blackadder Prayer Book (St Luke & Ox)Detail from Herdmanstoun AntiphonalA charter of King William the Lion (1173 × 1182)Detail from Culross PsalterDetail from Herdmanstoun AntiphonalDetail from Blackadder Prayer Book (Christ as toddler in walker)Detail from the Culross PsalterDetail from Melrose Abbey ChartularyDetail from Herdmanstoun Anthiphonal (showing stitched repair to folio)Detail from Dunfermline Abbey Chartulary
On the second day the teams pitched their game concepts, to judges Jamie McIntosh (NLS) and Neil Gregory (Historic Environment Scotland).
The runners-up were Team Aberdeen (Caitlin Thaeler, Fariha Ibnat, Rebekah Leslie & Oliver Rowan), with their game ‘Marginalised’.
Marginalised (Team Aberdeen) The pun in this game’s title refers to its focus on the marginal decorations of medieval prayer books as well as the theme of how historical records marginalise women, drawing on the items presented at the NLS as well as the team’s engagement with scholarly reading on women and medieval manuscripts. Players work through a puzzle which represents in abstract form the illumination of manuscript margins, drawing on academic research about how prayer books could reflect women’s devotional practices and interests. Trust points accumulated as the player progresses are used to unlock entries on historical topics underpinning the game, weaving findings from historical research into the game’s reward structure.
The winners were Team Coda from Abertay (Emily Wilkins, Rebecca Taylor, Connor Adamson), with their game ‘Maintenance Monk’.
Maintenance Monk (Team Coda) This game takes its inspiration from medieval cartularies, particularly that of Dunfermline Abbey, casting the player as a monk responsible for both repairing existing manuscripts and adding new records to a growing cartulary. Progression is built around a reputation system, with a stronger standing attracting customers of higher social status to have their muniments copied. The work of manuscript maintenance and registration of new charters is represented by minigames such as stitching damaged pages or adding new charters in a mini-game inspired by Operation which captures the precision and care demanded by the work.
Teams, organisers and judges group photo
Jam in the Archives was funded by Impact & Engagement Accelerator Funding from the University of Aberdeen. It was led by Jackson Armstrong, William Hepburn and Miles Everett (Aberdeen), alongside Kayleigh MacLeod (Abertay), with coordination by Melissa Tan as IEAF Postdoctoral researcher at Aberdeen.
Warmest thanks are due to all the participants, judges, and to Chris Cassells, Jamie McIntosh, and Ulrike Hogg of the NLS.
The winning games from Jam in the Archives will be demonstrated at the upcoming ‘Drop in and Play’ showcase at the DCA, Dundee, in September 2026.
At the first pair of game jams in the series this month, Jam in the Archives teams gathered for competitions in Aberdeen and Dundee. Building on the original Jam in the Archives (2025), these jams returned in 2026 on a bigger scale, aiming to help shape the wider alignments of universities, archives, libraries, galleries & games in making a shared case for creative innovation.
Detail of a historical map of Utrecht, part of the materials for the jam (Aberdeen edition)
The challenge was to make games inspired by historical collections – student teams were judged on a playable game loop demo or a game concept with a robust plan for development. They worked over two days, and they pitched their games to a panel of judges drawn from different areas of expertise.
Teams working with University Collections items and staff (Aberdeen edition)
In ABERDEEN on 11 & 12 June, six teams (twenty-one participants altogether) engaged with remarkable historical maps and atlases from University Collections. These included a seventeenth-century map of Utrecht, a John Seller’s pocket atlas of the world (1680), Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg’s Civitates Orbis Terrarum(1577-81), an original print of James Gordon of Rothiemay’s map of Aberdeen (Abredoniae Novae et Veteris Descriptio, 1661), drawings for the unrealised plans for James Byres of Tonley’s remodelling of King’s College about 1767, and a surveyor’s plan of the Fetteresso estate (near Stonehaven), showing the ‘Home Farm And Grounds’ drawn in 1862.
Five brilliant game pitches resulted (see summaries below). Congratulations to the runners-up ‘What Could Have Been’ and to the winners ‘Surveyor-Fetteresso’.
Teams visit the The McManus and meet with curators (Dundee edition)
In DUNDEE on 18 & 19 June, established student team Cosmic Coda split into two groups, Team Cosmic and Team Coda. They encountered digitised historical collections fromAbertay University’s archive. The teams then visited The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum, where the collections team showcased a range of historical records and objects from Dundee’s rich history of industry, from jute and whaling to technology and games. Items the groups considered were themed on ‘The Making of Modern Dundee’, and ‘Dundee and the World’. Objects included and a Sinclair ZX Spectrum (c. 1981-2); images from Joseph McKenzie’s photographic essay on Dundee: City in Transition, People in Jute, from 1964-6; an architectural model of Dundee as it was about 1850, and many more fascinating artefacts which captured the story of the working city, changing dynamically over time.
Two wonderful game pitches resulted (see summaries below). Congratulations to the runners-up ‘Sorting Slug’ and to the winners ‘Spirits of the City’.
Summaries of the game projects pitched to the judges in each event follow below:
ABERDEEN EDITION:
The Mystery of Cologne (Team F) This game uses George Braun’s sixteenth-century Civitates Orbis Terrarum as its chief inspiration, focussing on its map of Cologne. Built in Twine, the game offers a branching narrative inspired by visual novels and presents several vivid characters including Braun himself. The game aims to put players in a situation where they have to work like historians and interpret the guidance of a narrator whose reliability is left in question, subverting expectations by playing on tropes of wise old mentors such as Gandalf. The game impressed with charming hand-painted art and original guitar music which played with expectations of historical authenticity.
What Could Have Been (Team E) James Byres of Tonley drew up plans for a new King’s College, Aberdeen in 1767 that were never realised. This stealth game imagines a timeline in which they were, dropping players into a 3D-modelled version of the building. This alternative timelines offers a nightmare vision in which players have to avoid demonic professors to collect plans which allow them to access a time travel machine that operates laterally across timelines rather than backward and forward so they can escape. The game offers a compelling sense of tension, built by musical cues and a mechanic whereby threat level increases as players entered into view of more professors. Alongside the game, the players produced an impressive standalone architectural model of the alternate building based on the original plans.
What Could Have Been
Damnatio Memoriae (Team D) Named after the Roman practice of erasing individuals from the historical record, this game casts the player as a member of a dystopian society thrust into the role of novice archivist. The team was especially inspired by Gordon of Rothiemay’s famous 1661 map of Aberdeen and annotations on a later copy of it but more broadly reflected on the theme of how records shape our view of the past and how they might be tampered with to alter this view. Players carry out cataloguing work and are ordered to erase notes and other elements of maps to mould perceptions of the past according to the desires of their ominous rulers. Players have significant autonomy over how events unfold and work under deadline pressure throughout. The tone is dark, drawing on Papers, Please as a reference point.
Damnatio Memoriae
Beneath the Quad (Team C) This game also drew on James Byres plans for King’s College but took that inspiration in a radically different direction. Reminiscent of games such as It Takes Two and Split Fiction, this was a two-player co-op experience, a design the team were keen to tackle because it was something they had not tried before. The core game mechanic was built around the clever conceit that puts the two players in different roles: one as a living person and one as a ghost. These characters inhabit different versions of the same building and must navigate puzzles whereby if an object if blocked in one layout it may be possible to move it in the other layout. The narrative framing for this central mechanic was the ghost of Byres aimed to change the future by having his plans realised after death.
Beneath the Quad
Surveyor: Fetteresso (Team B)
This game was inspired by Fetteresso estate plans from the 19th century. This elegant game is built around a simple ‘spot the difference’ central mechanic framed by a story in which the player takes on the role of an experienced surveyor who is hiring an assistant and needs to choose between three candidates by comparing their estate maps against his own. These in-game maps are closely based on the Fetteresso source material and inspiration was also drawn from one team member’s studies of surveying. On top of this, the game offers dialogue choices that shape the story and there are three different endings. This package is presented with charming pixel art visuals and original music.
Surveyor: Fetteresso
DUNDEE EDITION:
Sorting Slug (Team Cosmic) Sorting Slug takes the categorisation of archival objects as its central mechanic, tasking players with sorting items by dragging them into the correct categories. The examples used in the demo were from the collections of The McManus but the team focussed on this simple, engaging and tactile core loop with the intention that it would provide a solid foundation which could be adjusted to suit different audiences and age demographics and rapidly expanded with new content. In this way the game could be adapted for use by different heritage institutions and used for a range of purposes such as crowdsourcing exercises involving the collective interpretation of ambiguous or contested objects. The result is a clean, adaptable design that gestures toward real applications in archival and heritage work.
Spirits of the City (Team Coda) Inspired by the concept of the genius loci — the protective spirit of a place — this cooperative board game for 1-3 puts players in charge of three of Dundee’s economic sectors, drawing on inspirations from The McManus and from Abertay University’s archives. Players must build up their own sectors but the game emphasises their interconnectedness, so players must stay aware of the effects of their actions on the city more broadly. Buildings in each sector share the same mechanical function but carry distinct flavour, grounding the gameplay in a sense of place while making the system adaptable to different cities. The strong sense of character provided by the Dundee setting was also seen in the game’s imaginative event cards based on real historical events, including the arrival of the famous Tay whale and the competing pressures of wartime, which drove demand for jute while depleting the workforce.
Spirits of the City
Jam in the Archives was funded by Impact & Engagement Accelerator Funding from the University of Aberdeen. It was led by Jackson Armstrong, William Hepburn and Miles Everett (Aberdeen), alongside Kayleigh MacLeod (Abertay), with coordination by Melissa Tan as IEAF Postdoctoral researcher at Aberdeen. These events were judged by Miles Everett and Jane Pirie (Aberdeen), and by William Kavanagh (Abertay) and Lili Bartholomew (The McManus).
A great many thanks are due to all the participants, and to Lisa Collinson, Jane Pirie, and Andrew MacGregor of the Aberdeen University Collections Team, to Ruaraidh Wishart of the Abertay Archives, and to Lili Bartholomew & Julie McCombie of The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum.
On Thursday 27 June Mr Phil Astley received the Honorary Degree of Master of the University.
Professor Jackson Armstrong gave the laureation address at the evening degree ceremony. He highlighted Phil Astley’s career-long dedication to archives and records management, and noted in particular his leadership in securing UNESCO UK Memory of the World recognition for the earliest council registers, and his instrumental efforts in establishing and fulfilling the thriving collaboration between City & University in the Aberdeen Burgh Records Project.
Jackson Armstrong also noted that Phil’s leadership of the City & Shire Archives has substantially contributed to Aberdeen’s civic cultural offering, including by example lunchtime talks at the Maritime Museum and Cowdray Hall, annual festivals such as Granite Noir, and numerous exhibitions at the Aberdeen Art Gallery and other venues.
To mark the occasion with a gift for Phil, Jackson commissioned artist Stephanie Graham to make an enamel and silver lapel pin, using an image of the famous ‘fishman’ from the Aberdeen Council Registers. A beautiful result!
On 21 February Jackson Armstrong and William Hepburn gave a talk on ‘Historical Archives & Video Game Development’ in Edinburgh.
This was for the History, Time & Temporality in Music, Sound & Media research cluster, at the Reid School of Music, Edinburgh College of Art. The cluster is running a series this semester on games, coordinated by Dr James Cook.
The presentation explored the approach to history adopted in Strange Sickness, the idea of ‘creative translation’ of historical sources, the different ways a game can be historical, and the lessons learned in making this game. There was a stimulating discussion with the audience questions, in person and online, around the textual, visual and aural layers of games.
William Hepburn reflecting on visual representations of lost spaces
On 29 November Dr William Hepburn gave a paper to the Aberdeen History seminar.
While it is well known that the Aberdeen Council Registers document the social and economic life of the burgh especially through the lens of legal activities, William Hepburn’s paper argued that these records of everyday administration also represent an expression of the town’s political culture. They capture the ideals and practices that were reinforced time and again by the governing elite over many decades.
Writers such as William Dunbar addressed themes of the moral and religious context of late medieval government
Demonstrating some of the language analysis undertaken in the FLAG project (AHRC-DFG, 2020-2023), he argued that what emerges is a political culture underpinned by the notion of balanced and fair accounting, stemming from the burgh’s foundational transaction and the myriad transactions which remained its raison d’etre, especially for those at the heart of government: the burgesses themselves. The idea of the burgh as an upholder of fair and balanced transactions expressed through a language of order, and of community, in fact served to justify an oligarchic and near-hereditary regime.
This paper closed by indicating some new directions for expanding research questions to address other Scottish burghs records.
Herbst/Winter (Oktober–Dezember), showing Augsburg Perlachplatz, by Heinrich Vogtherr the Younger (c. 1550). The Town Hall is on the right. See commons.wikimedia.org . Original painting in DHM, Berlin.
On 20 February the Burgh Records Project was pleased to welcome Prof. Dr Jörg Rogge (JGU Mainz), to Aberdeen, to give a paper on “The town hall of medieval Augsburg – a material expression of communal self-concept”.
Jörg’s paper explored the administrative functions of the Town House (Rathaus), its upkeep and renovation (works detailed in the BMB Baumeisterbücher), and the symbolic aspects of the building.
He addressed the medieval Town House as – foremost – a functional space. As a secure building it was the place where the council met, where peace-breakers were imprisoned, where taxes were paid until the 1470s and where financial officials, including the Baumeister, conducted their transactions (in a dedicated chamber known as the Baumeisterstube), and stored their records. It was the focal point in Augsburg for demonstration of a consensus between the governing council and wider civic community of burghers, and the Town Hall itself expressed the idea of a ‘cooperative community’.
All the same, Jörg argued, such a consensus came to be replaced by a less participatory civic culture in the decades from the 1470s-1490s, and onwards. In this regard the paper examined how the same building came to be more exclusively focused on the urban elite, asserting their position as rulers of the city and exercising their collective power in way that adopted the forms used by the nobility.
The elaborate model of the medieval townhouse pictured above is in the Maximilian Museum in Augsburg. It was made by craftsmen in the early seventeenth century, when the medieval building was demolished to make way for the new construction designed by Elias Holl, in 1615, which survives today.
Jörg remained in Aberdeen for the week and collaborated in person in FLAG-related writing projects, and managed to catch a Dons match.
Mainz: The Old Cathedral (foreground) and St Martin’s Cathedral
Late medieval urban government was under discussion through the main project themes of ‘order’, ‘budget’ and ‘unity’.
On 6 and 7 October FLAG hosted its second international workshop, a gathering in person at Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz. The main purpose of the workshop was for the project team to share working drafts of publications, and to hear insights and input from a panel of commentators and round-table participants. Following the event a group of FLAG team members visited Augsburg – long overdue as we had originally hoped a team meeting there would have been a first gathering back in 2020!
Workshop underway in Mainz
The papers presented in advance for discussion addressed FLAG’s examination of urbanitas as a focus for comparison between Augsburg and Aberdeen, and explored the digital methods we are using. The discussions around the papers highlighted the importance of bringing Scottish and German historiography into new dialogue, which is also one of the goals of FLAG.
On the morning of the 6th we were treated to a guided tour by excavation director Dr. Guido Faccani of Mainz’s ‘Old Cathedral’ (today’s Lutheran Johanniskirche). This is the only cathedral building originating in the early middle ages in Germany, and it is the predecessor building of the Romanesque cathedral of St Martin.
Dr. Faccani leads the tour
On 6 October the programme included the following sessions:
Welcome and introduction – Professor Jörg Rogge and Dr. Jackson Armstrong
Dr. Regina Schäfer: On administrative structures and terminology in Augsburg (1368 to 1466). Commentators: Dr. Mathias Kluge, Augsburg; Dr. Dominique Adrian, Nancy.
Dr. William Hepburn: Compt, rekning and payment: The Economic Ideal of Urban Government in Late Medieval Aberdeen. Commentators: Dr. Eliza Hartrich, University of East Anglia; Professor Graeme Small, Durham.
Dr. Wim Peters & Dr. William Hepburn: Evaluation of digitised sources – digital hermeneutics. Commentators: Professor Jessica Nowak, Leipzig/Mainz; Dr. Benjamin Hitz, Basel.
Above: Images of Augsburg Cathedral (L), effigy of Abbot Heinrich Friess (d.1482), in the Basilica of SS. Ulrich and Afra (C), and the Perlachturm (R)
On 7 October the programme included the following sessions:
Professor Jörg Rogge & Dr. Jackson Armstrong: Urbanitas – Augsburg and Aberdeen in Comparison. Commentators: Prof. Gabriel Zeilinger, Erlangen-Nürnberg; Dr. Alan MacDonald, Dundee.
Roundtable: Professor Michael Brown, St. Andrews; Professor Edda Frankot, Universität Nord; Professor Jelle Haemers, Leuven; Professor Steffen Krieb, Akademie der Wissenschaften in Mainz.
On 8 and 9 October members of the FLAG team visited Augsburg, and included a visit to the Maximilian Museum which holds the fifteenth-century archive chest, and early modern wooden models of the medieval town house.
Jörg Rogge, Regina Schäfer, and William Hepburn with the archive chest of 1470 from the Augsburg town house, in the Maximilian Museum.
Above: detailed images of the model of the medieval town house of Augsburg, in the Maximilian Museum.
History Scotland magazine, Strange Sickness on Mac, and more
A few quick highlights to draw attention to this summer from the burgh records project!
In June Strange Sickness was released for MacOS, to join the version already available on PC. Find out more at strangesickness.com
Jackson Armstrong wrote a short piece on the voices of medieval people in History Scotland’s special issue on the middle ages (Sep/Oct 2022 issue). This article explores how the written words and spoken words can be recovered from the Aberdeen council registers. The special issue also features articles on towns, women, plague, and more, by great contributors.
More activities, news and posts are to follow in the coming months. Look out for Songs from Medieval Aberdeen at the Lunchbreak Concert on 10 September!
The Strange Sickness team gathered with backers and supporters for an evening of live music and celebration at The Blue Lamp in Aberdeen on Friday 13th May 2022.
To mark the completion of the game William, Katharine, Alana and Jackson came together in person for the first time and met over thirty supporters who were able to be there. The event had generous support from the University of Aberdeen Development Trust.
There was a Q&A session with the game creators, followed by a cracking performance by Songs from Medieval Aberdeen, who provided the track for the game’s credits.
Songs from Medieval Aberdeen playing live
Later in the evening the organisers held a raffle draw for a special bottle of Chivas Regal 25 Year Old, kindly gifted by Chivas Brothers, and three game download keys.
Some of the game team went on a sunny excursion to Dunnottar Castle the following morning! It was a great occasion and a fun way to toast the Strange Sickness collaboration.
‘Order’, ‘budget’ and ‘unity’ were among the themes explored in the first FLAG workshop on the topic of New perspectives on civic administration in fifteenth-century towns.
In-person workshop participants meet together and online
On 5 and 6 November FLAG hosted its first international workshop, a ‘hybrid’ in-person and online gathering in Aberdeen. This brought the project team together, alongside participants invited to share perspectives from their own work.
Some early arrivals in Scotland visit Dunottar Castle
The FLAG team presented the project’s challenge to identify shared aspects of ‘urbanitas’ in towns as different as Augsburg and Aberdeen. The themes of ‘order’, ‘budget’ and ‘unity’, and the digital tools and methods deployed in FLAG, were explored in the first two papers given by the project researchers.
The invitees then presented work-in-progress papers on their own work, covering aspects of medieval urban record keeping, and the interlinked themes of ‘order’, ‘budget’ and ‘unity’. An important goal of FLAG is to bring Scottish and German historiography into closer dialogue, and this was evident in the rich discussions that followed each paper. We were also treated to a display of Aberdeen council register volume one, by Phil Astley (City Archivist). Our hybrid format was a success, with the kind assistance of PhD student Ebba Strutzenbladh as facilitator. All participants followed the current measures for covid-19 mitigation. The programme outline follows below.
A full report on the workshop will be made available at the FLAG project website.
The meeting also allowed for some excursions around the formal planned sessions, including to Dunottar Castle, and Huntly Castle.
The walls of Huntly Castle welcomed some of the group
On 5 November the programme included the following sessions:
Welcome and introduction – Jörg Rogge (Mainz) and Jackson Armstrong (Aberdeen)
Wim Peters (Mainz) and William Hepburn (Aberdeen), Digital hermeneutics: methodology and first results from the Aberdeen ARO corpus
Regina Schäfer (Mainz), Talking about Law and Order in Augsburg
Amy Blakeway (St Andrews), War and the burghs, 1528–1550
Julia Bruch (Köln), Accounting Practices in Monasteries, Towns and Courts. Methodological Reflections
Dunottar Castle ruins
Elizabeth Gemmill (Oxford), The language of things: descriptions of objects and consumables in the burgh court records of late medieval Aberdeen
Jessica Bruns (Halle), Knowledge between pages. Book usage as a new form of administrative practice in late medieval Soest
Eliza Hartrich (UEA, Norwich), For the Comene Wele? Languages of Unity and Division in English and Irish Municipal Records, c. 1450-1500
Phil Astley (Aberdeen City & Aberdeenshire Archives) – viewing of Aberdeen Council Register volume from City Archives
Some FLAG visitors outside Huntly Castle
On 6 November the programme included the following sessions:
Jens Klingner (ISGV, Dresden), Texts and transmission. City books and account books from late medieval Dresden
Andrew Simpson (Edinburgh), Brieves in the Burgh Records of Aberdeen, ca.1400-1500: Some Preliminary Thoughts
Christian Speer (Halle), Are town books reliable witnesses of the past? Critical considerations on the categories “note“, “transcript” and “fair copy” based on the Libri civitatis and Libri obligationum of Görlitz in the 14th and 15th century
The workshop was held in the Craig Suite at the Sir Duncan C. Rice Library, University of Aberdeen. The crisp November weather offered a sunny treat to participants, some of whom who also took up the kind offer of a visit to see the Kirk of St Nicholas.
One of the medieval effigies in the Kirk of St Nicholas
Following the end of the workshop the sun came out for a visit to King’s College Chapel, and St Machar’s Cathedral, while others went to see the Dons lose to the Steelmen, before carrying on to hear Public Service Broadcasting play at the Music Hall!
aberdeen registers 
