A Historian's Guide to Researching Your Historical Game

Explore effective strategies for researching and designing historically themed games in this 2019 GDC Game Narrative Summit talk. Gain insights from Dr. James Coltrain on using historical thinking to understand past cultures, uncover unfamiliar facts, and enrich game narratives. Learn about choosing topics, gathering sources, addressing cultural sensitivity, recognizing biases, ensuring accuracy, developing characters, and improving representation. Discover how to create a research diagram and apply these techniques to enhance the authenticity and depth of historical game storytelling.

Introduction
Choosing a Topic
Gathering Sources
Cultural Sensitivity
Biases
Accuracy
Characters
Representation
Research Diagram
Conclusion