Tag: Video Games
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Is Two Point Museum the Most Accurate Video Game Depiction of Museum Work?
Kinda! Okay, so real life museum work doesn’t usually involve collecting poltergeists and we don’t often have groups of clowns regularly visit (at least, not in my experience). Two Point Museum (Two Point Studios, 2025) is obviously full of charming bits of nonsense that have been found throughout the simulation video game franchise. And yet,
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Archives are for the Gamers (and Everyone Else): Making Archives Available for All
This past Christmas, my dad gifted us an Atari 2600 from about 1982. Originally launched as the Video Computer System (VCS) in 1977, this compact console would eventually be renamed as the Atari 2600 in 1982, coinciding with the launch of the company’s new 5200 SuperSystem console (Lendino 2022). While we have no idea if
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Dreaming of the Past: Using Narrative & Fiction to Understand Archaeology in “I Am Dead”
Please note that this blog post contains spoilers for the game “I Am Dead”. I’ve already written at length about how much I loved I Am Dead (Hollow Ponds, 2020) as an archaeologist and as a museum worker. However, I want to discuss another element of the game a bit further – more specifically, the
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On Getting There: The (Im)patience of Archaeology and Heaven’s Vault
Please note that this blog post contains spoilers for the game “Heaven’s Vault”. As I wrote in a post almost a year (!!!) ago, I finished my second playthrough of Heaven’s Vault (Inkle Studios, 2021). And perhaps one of the things that struck me most on this replay was just how long the travel sequences
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Stories and Histories: The Importance of the Written (and Spoken) Word in ‘Pentiment’
Please note that this blog post has major spoilers for the video game Pentiment, which I highly recommend you play before reading further as its a fantastic game! There’s lots you can talk about with Pentiment, a point-and-click historical mystery game set in 16th century Bavaria (and I’m sure I’ll talk about this game a
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Did They Finally Make an Archaeology Game? A Very Late (Archaeological) Review of Heaven’s Vault
Yes, okay this game came out in 2019, and I actually played it for the first time in 2021, but I didn’t actually write a review then, so I’m writing one now based on a recent playthrough. So, if you haven’t played it in the past four years since it was released, beware of spoilers
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The Importance of the Little Town Museum in “I Am Dead”
This blog post will contain some slight spoilers for the game ‘I Am Dead’. As readers may remember, I absolutely loved the video game I Am Dead (Hollow Ponds, 2020) and wrote a previous blog post about how it was actually more of an archaeology game than players may actually realise. Perhaps one of my
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The Archaeology of Memories and Mementos: An Archaeologist’s Review of “I Am Dead”
Please note that this blog post contains spoilers for the game “I Am Dead”. So, one of the things I was most excited to get to post-PhD was my ever-increasing backlog of video games (damn you, Nintendo Switch sales!), and I was particularly excited about tackling the long list of indie games. One of these was, of course,
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“He Tampered in God’s Domain” – Looking at the Mix-and-Match Fossil Trope
What is it with fossilised remains and the desire to defy the laws of nature? No, I’m not talking about reviving extinct species (well, not exactly), but of the Mix-and-Match trope that sometimes gets applied to fossils…and then often gets revived into some sort of strange creature. For example, let’s take a look at perhaps
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Hey, is That a Great Auk in My Assassin’s Creed Game?! Reviving an Extinct Species in the Digital World
Okay, so a disclaimer: despite me being a so-called “video game enthusiast”, I have actually only played one out of the 12 games that make up the bulk of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Yeah, I know, feel free to boo me. That said, I was surprised to find out that I actually have more of
Animal Archaeology 