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'MyCraft': An Educational Video Game on Disability in Classical Antiquity

[EN] ‚MyCraft‘ is a conceptual design for an educational video game (serious game) that explores the representation of disability in ancient civilizations, focusing on Greece, Rome, and Etruria. The article, which aims to present the basic ideas of the game under development, is divided into three parts: the cultural and historical framework, the educational approach of the game design and the intended impact on the players. The first section discusses the reinterpretation of historical perspectives, emphasizing how mythological characters with disabilities were often portrayed as sources of strength and wisdom. The second section discusses the game design and its mechanics, which incorporate historical artifacts, puzzles, and dialog to promote empathy and challenge modern stereotypes of disability. The final section describes the potential educational impact of ‚MyCraft‘, particularly its ability to encourage young audiences to consider disability as a contingent social construct shaped by time and culture. Although still in the conceptual stage, ‚MyCraft‘ aims to provide an immersive platform that combines storytelling and interactive gameplay to promote inclusivity and historical awareness. This innovative approach seeks to change the way we perceive disability, both in the past and in contemporary society. [DE] ‚MyCraft‘ ist ein sich in der Konzeptionsphase befindliches pädagogisches Videospiel (Serious Game), das die Darstellung von Behinderungen in antiken Zivilisationen erforscht und sich dabei auf Griechenland, Rom und Etrurien konzentriert. Der Artikel, der die grundlegenden Ideen des in Entwicklung befindlichen Spiels vorstellen soll, ist in drei Teile gegliedert: den kulturellen und historischen Rahmen, den pädagogischen Ansatz des Spieldesigns und die beabsichtigte Wirkung auf die Spieler. Im ersten Abschnitt wird die Neuinterpretation historischer Perspektiven erörtert, wobei hervorgehoben wird, dass mythologische Figuren mit Behinderungen oft als Quellen der Stärke und Weisheit dargestellt wurden. Im zweiten Abschnitt werden das Spieldesign und die Spielmechanik erörtert, die historische Artefakte, Rätsel und Dialoge einbeziehen, um Empathie zu fördern und moderne Stereotypen über Behinderungen zu hinterfragen. Der letzte Abschnitt beschreibt die potenzielle pädagogische Wirkung von ‚MyCraft‘, insbesondere seine Fähigkeit, ein junges Publikum zu ermutigen, Behinderung als ein durch Zeit und Kultur geprägtes kontingentes soziales Konstrukt zu betrachten. Obwohl sich ‚MyCraft‘ noch in der Konzeptionsphase befindet, zielt es darauf ab, eine Plattform bereitzustellen, die Geschichten und interaktives Gameplay kombiniert, um Inklusion und historisches Bewusstsein zu fördern. Dieser innovative Ansatz zielt darauf ab, die Art und Weise zu ändern, wie wir Behinderung wahrnehmen, sowohl in der Vergangenheit als auch in der heutigen Gesellschaft.
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Performing Meaning Against All Odds: Dice in the Actual Play Anthology 'Dimension 20'

30. Dezember 2024 ·
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Dice rolls hold the potential to fuse all frames of Actual Plays’ ludic collaborative storytelling performance in an emotionally highly charged moment. The Actual Play series Dimension 20 makes particularly effective use of the potential force of dice rolls by staging them with extraordinary attention. Weaving cultural traditions surrounding the use of dice for gaming, gambling, and divination into the performance, Dimension 20 series increase the amount of emotional investment dice can attract, hold and redirect between frames, and celebrate the agency of knowing that whatever act of randomness one encounters, a cooperative community can always make meaning together.
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Rezension: Playing at a Distance. Borderlands of the Video Game Aesthetic

26. März 2024 ·
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      Sonia Fizek: Playing at a Distance. Borderlands of the Video Game Aesthetic. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press November 1, 2022. 9780262544627. 186 pp., 6 x 9 in, 23 b&w illus. The title of Sonia Fizek's work, Playing at a Distance: Borderlands of the Video Game Aesthetic, provides readers with...
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Screenshot aus Deus Ex: Human Revolution
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Projects, Situations, Places: a Phenomenological Analysis of the Immersive Sim

17. Mai 2023 ·
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This paper explores the immersive sim from a phenomenological perspective, focusing on five structures of existence. Phenomenologically, immersive sim players are engaged in future-oriented projects, developing their avatar’s skill following a path mediated by their own desire and preferred playstyle on the one hand, and the environment they encounter on the other hand. Such projectuality is defining of the immersive sim only when considered alongside the players’ embodied interaction within concrete situations to which they respond by making use of tools possessing a certain equipmentality. These situations take place within strongly atmospheric gameworlds experienced as places. [de] Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Immersive Sim aus einer phänomenologischen Perspektive und konzentriert sich dabei auf fünf Strukturen der Existenz (structures of existence). Phänomenologisch gesehen sind Immersive-Sim-Spielende in zukunftsorientierte Projekte involviert und entwickeln die Fähigkeiten ihres Avatars einerseits durch ihre eigenen Wünsche und ihren bevorzugten Spielstil und andererseits durch die Umgebung, der sie begegnen. Diese Projekthaftigkeit (projectuality) kann nur dann als Bestimmungsmerkmal der Immersive Sim eingestuft werden, wenn sie zusammen mit der verkörperten (embodied) Interaktion der Spieler in konkreten Situationen betrachtet wird. Reagiert wird auf diese Situationen mit dem Einsatz von Werkzeugen, die eine gewisse Ausstattungsqualität (equipmentality) besitzen. Diese Situationen finden in stark atmosphärisch geprägten Spielwelten statt, die als Orte erlebt werden.
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A Genre of Hybrids – Structured Hybridity Through Communicative Purpose in Immersive Simulation

17. Mai 2023 ·
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The genre of immersive simulation is increasingly difficult to identify as the games within it become more diverse in their gameplay and themes. While players and critics regularly discuss the genre online, academic discourse on the subject is largely absent. This article argues that the genre is defined by the way in which key developers express their communicative purpose in their games resulting in a game structure that is recognisably similar across titles. Through textual and paratextual analysis of Dishonored, the structural build-up of the game is compared to other games in the genre, aiding in understanding why these games are grouped together. [de] Das Genre der Immersive Sims ist zunehmend schwierig zu bestimmen, da die Spiele innerhalb des Genres in Bezug auf Gameplay und Themen immer vielfältiger werden. Während Spielende und Kritiker*innen regelmäßig online über das Genre diskutieren, findet ein akademischer Diskurs zu diesem Thema kaum statt. In diesem Artikel wird argumentiert, dass das Genre durch die Kommunikationsziele führender Entwickler bestimmt wird, was zu einer Spielstruktur führt, die in allen Titeln erkennbar ähnlich ist. Durch eine textuelle und paratextuelle Analyse von 'Dishonored' wird der strukturelle Aufbau des Spiels mit anderen Spielen des Genres verglichen, um zu verstehen, warum diese Spiele unter einem Genre gefasst werden.
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Impermanent Aliens – Modifying the digital body in Prey

17. Mai 2023 ·
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Self-Enhancement is a prominent feature of 'Prey' (2017), as well as of other games within the concept of immersive sim, such as the 'Deus Ex' series (2000-2016) or 'Dishonored 2' (2016), offering complex opportunities for reflections on body-modification and its role for construction of identity. Even though these strategies aren’t exclusively reserved to immersive sims, the principles of the concept allow a direct connection between the enhancement of the avatar and the influence of chosen approaches of playing on the digital environment. Applying cyberfeminist perspectives to the analysis of decision-making for (or against) modifying the digital body within 'Prey', the immersive sim presents itself as potential game concept for reflections on possibilities of queered identities.
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Immersive Sims and Moral Gameplay: A Case Study from Deus Ex

17. Mai 2023 ·
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This paper is about immersive sims and moral gameplay. Moral gameplay is defined in terms of opportunities to exercise moral skills associated with the Four Components of moral expertise, and the moral player as someone who engages with a game’s moral content on its own terms, treating moral scenarios as moral and not merely opportunities to maximise ludic outcomes. The Four Lenses, a loose framework derived from the Four Components, is a set of questions and perspectives intended to help developers design moral gameplay by facilitating moral agency. The crux of this paper is that the design philosophy of immersive sims is highly consonant with the Four Lenses framework, and therefore especially well-suited for designing morally engaging gameplay. To illustrate this, I dissect a scene from the immersive sim Deus Ex and show how the Four Components manifest to make for compelling moral gameplay.
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Azeroth as Theatre: The history of digital games… as performance(s)?

10. Mai 2023 ·
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The preservation and historiography of digital games confronts scholars, institutions, and hobbyists with numerous technical, legal, as well as cultural challenges demanding a variety of sources. Troubles begin with two basic issues: Accessibility and versioning. Games depending on server infrastructures are the most extreme form of this conundrum, as once they are gone, so is the game. Considering how contemporary games, even single player experiences, are distributed, patched and framed by online services, those researching gaming’s past will increasingly encounter digital games as changing entities and temporal events, warranting special approaches. Luckily, game studies already involves itself with a field tackling this very problem – performance studies.
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‘The Inevitable Patriarchy’

28. November 2022 ·
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In recent memory, whether Netflix Original, Blockbuster or Video Game, historical or historical adjacent fiction frequently finds itself facing ‘controversy’ for the inclusion of LGBTQ+ or ‘strong female characters’ on the notion that such inclusivity damages the verisimilitude and immersive properties of the fiction. Using the example of the Dragon Age series, this paper will address the diegetic inconsistencies of the world of Thedas relative to this notion of historical verisimilitude, and suggest an explanation for the inconsistencies that emerge and the persistence of the discourse at large.
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Johann Esaias Nilson: Das Bretspiel . 1765National Gallery of Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
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Quo Vadis German Game Studies? A Commentary

15. Oktober 2021 ·
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In this short commentary, Sonia Fizek explores the disciplinary foundations of German-speaking game studies and asks about the future of the field as a standalone discipline of Spielwissenschaften.
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© 2025 Paidia - Zeitschrift für Computerspielforschung (ISSN: 2363-5630)
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