Jam in Archives: a medieval game jam
Last week was Jam in Archives: a medieval game jam inspired by manuscripts and books. Participants met on 22 January at the University of Aberdeen. This short, one-day jam focused on three examples of fifteenth-century cartularies, or books of charters, one from Scone Abbey (held by the NLS), one from Glasgow Cathedral, and one from Aberdeen’s St Machar’s Cathedral (both held in Aberdeen’s University Collections). They were introduced by Julia Vallius, a PhD student at Glasgow who has recently completed SGSAH-funded internship with the National Library of Scotland.
Jackson Armstrong introduced the day and William Hepburn gave an introduction to the variety of forms games can take, and to set out the theme and rules. The theme for the day was revealed to be “recording for the future” and the group formed into three teams. The icebreaker included some name badge making with various medieval images .
The teams had four hours in total to develop their ideas and demonstration materials for a digital game, and prepare a presentation for our guest judge Jon Ingold of inkle Studios.
The first team devised “Scribes of Succession”, a puzzle game which also invites players to learn about medieval records. After the death of a noble lord, his heir must show their claim to inheritance, and fend off the claims of a rival heir. The gameplay involves a series of tasks including locating a cartulary in a cathedral library, investigating who the scribes were that made copies of charters, and puzzling through their different handwriting, and identifying evidence to prove the heir’s right to succession against the rival.
The second team proposed the game entitled “Make your Claim”. In this game set in Scotland following the untimely death of King James II, the player is a clerk whose challenge is to evaluate the claims to lands of rival families. The clerk must decide who to support and whether evidence can be fabricated or ignored.
The third team created “Ink and Soil”, where the player’s job is to manage a medieval abbey’s lands and resources, and build up written records to protect their lands against neighbouring landowners. All the while pilgrims arrive making curveball demands on these resources.
Jon Ingold awarded an imaginary budget to each game. Scribes of Succession got £250,000, Make your Claim got £4,000, and Ink and Soil got £1,000,000 – as an indication of the scale of budget that might be required to realise each vision.
This Jam in the Archives event was a collaboration between University of Aberdeen, RGU, The National Library of Scotland, supported by the Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities, and Common Profyt Games Ltd. Special thanks to the Univeristy Collections team for their support, and to all our participants for their creativity and enthusiasm!
aberdeen registers 