Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar

Jeremiah McCall (he/him)

@gamingthepast.bsky.social

449 followers 360 following 1004 posts

PhD; History, games, and game design: Gaming the Past Routledge (2022), Musings on history, education, games & their intersections; High school history teacher + historian; big fan of Buddhist compassion; jmc.hst@gmail.com

Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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For which we're all grateful 🙂 Full on over the top with the bag would be to call yourself "Dr. Catastrophe" at conventions!

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Sharp! Have you seen my game-stuff cart for school? Benefits for mobility but nothing nicely labelled and sorted like your system

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Congratulations!

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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I realized this morning while procrastinating on writing, I haven't done an ask-me-anything on history games, history and games, history ed and history games in ages. I promise a thoughtful answer. C'mon, we'll have fun! Whattya say?!?!?! (Gscholar link if you'd like context)

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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@enwright.bsky.social 's excellent latest piece on how historical authenticity is discussed and negotiated in the texts around Pentiment -- reviews and dev and marketing statements

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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As far as readings for early cities, I'm working on a 1st cities analog game for my 9s and using mostly articles to read up on the scholarship from the Ubaid culture into the Uruk, Chalcolithic. Anything by Geoff Emberling or Jason Ur is helpful. 2/

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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I've enjoyed using the city builder Nebuchadnezzar with my 9th graders. It's a Mesopotamian focus and quite good, modeled on the old Impressions city builders. There is also Pharaoh: A New Era, though I do not have any time with it (appears to be on sale on Steam right now) 1/

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Lovely!

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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I know I'm doing the latter right now when I could be drafting a chapter! Solidarity, my friend!

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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I realized this morning while procrastinating on writing, I haven't done an ask-me-anything on history games, history and games, history ed and history games in ages. I promise a thoughtful answer. C'mon, we'll have fun! Whattya say?!?!?! (Gscholar link if you'd like context)

1 replies 1 reposts 1 likes

Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Ps, don't forget I love talking shop, so just reach out if you have thoughts, comments, questions, really anything on the positive critically constructive side

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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So it'll be a resource for ed. designers and students but also something Historical Game Studies folk who want tools for analyzing board games can use. Now if only I could draft and write faster!!!!! 2026 is coming though! 2/

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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I'm really excited that _Designing Historical Games for Class_ gets me finally around to applying the Historical Problem Space framework to board games. This chapter, for example, discusses how hps is modeled in boardgame mechanics. 1/

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Joshua Foust 🪖🎮's avatar Joshua Foust 🪖🎮 @joshuafoust.com
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It feels a little OBE, but I recorded an episode of the AMN podcast, From the Pell Center at Salve Regina University and the creators of the Active Measures Newsletter. We’re talking about disinformation and games and government innovation. Give it a listen!

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Not yet, but itching to do some analog game dev this week on vacation

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Another of this year's exemplar 10th grade Interactive Histories is up. Really proud of this as it presents a person experiencing and resisting marginalization (which is not always easy to persuade students to focus on). B.R. Ambedkar. Don't know who that is? Play this TERRIFIC interactive history!

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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This! If the WHOLE of your discipline (history) focuses upon being able to trace all human expressions you engage with back to their human sources, what can AI do? What are actual AI use cases for practicing the REAL historical discipline?

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Another of this year's exemplar 10th grade Interactive Histories is up. Really proud of this as it presents a person experiencing and resisting marginalization (which is not always easy to persuade students to focus on). B.R. Ambedkar. Don't know who that is? Play this TERRIFIC interactive history!

1 replies 2 reposts 1 likes

Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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There's just something so neat about your art when it is in monotone ink sketching stage. Like magic how all these strokes end up representing the rumpledness of a shirt tucked in or fall of hair. Fwiw, I think you are so talented!

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Reposted by Jeremiah McCall (he/him)

Dr Abeba Birhane 's avatar Dr Abeba Birhane @abeba.bsky.social
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excellent investigation, beautiful visualisation, and scary findings.

tech corps are burning our planet down so people can stop making art

www.bloomberg.com/graphics/202...

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Updated my History is a curated representation of the past doodle for a talk on Boardgames as gamic history in class coming up. The old version was labeled specifically for games, but doodle 2.0 is meant to represent all "historying" as scholars like Dening and Munslow have called it.

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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The tiger is a friend, right? Hope so.

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Some really nice seniors decided to make one for my birthday maybe a decade ago. Wikipedia itself booted me for being unimportant but apparently my entry is in the data somewhere out there, Lol
en.wikipedia-on-ipfs.org/wiki/Jeremia...

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Helpful! Since you asked 9 years ago (🙂) I would add video games and digital interactive texts. It may be that they are more public digital history if one wants to split that way, but the definitely do some historical work.

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Reposted by Jeremiah McCall (he/him)

Cole Wehrle's avatar Cole Wehrle @colewehrle.bsky.social
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It was lovely to spend a rainy afternoon in Saint Paul working in the Molly House rulebook. I'm really happy with how the spreads are coming together, and it's looking like a rulebook about the same length as Pamir's.

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Had this scenario (I'm testing movement rules with my tablet so as not to wake up the doggie. HI would advance (following the movement rules) w/ HUGE threat to rear. 1st thought NO!!!! 2nd thought: Yup! if that is the critical point of the battle, best move your general there for an override. 2/

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Had a little fun tweaking rules for Command & Chaos (the Mediterranean heavy infantry heavy cavalry, more-authentic-commander's perspective game I've developed on an off). Here's the title for the rule: Default unit movements will often cause commander frustration: lean into it! 1/

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Thanks ! It's not a super complex game but at It's core it is 1 Greek and 1 Trojan duelling with deity cards representing gods interfering with the duels and I tried to,pick appropriate powers,so I'd say it is reasonably following the source material.

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Hi #Gamedesigners does anyone have any suggestions for publishers I can research who might be interested in looking at Gates of Troy? It's a solid and fun core 2p Trojan War duel design in max 54 cards and a few extra components. Not historical, but mythological.

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Okay, love this and promise to try my best to use the power for good!

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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In English, THE. BEST. ROMAN. NAME.

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Just entered the pre-prototype I-need-to-start-playing-Dawn-of-Cities-prototype-and-create-an-initial-system-but-I'd-rather-avoid-the-work-and-just-keep-designing-player-sheets stage

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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Not a ringing endorsement for Harvard B School and LinkedIn's ad targeting algorithm

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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I have this really big experience of (others) gatekeeping + (my) impostor syndrome about getting to call myself a game designer that I want to share, but (this should be a sign, right?) I don't have time because I have games to design and a book on classroom game design to write.

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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In all humility, I'm confident _Designing Historical Games for Classrooms: A Practical Guide for Educators_ can really help teachers make their own games & guide students in historical game design projects. That makes me impatient to get it done (but well). Luck wishes most gratefully accepted. 3/

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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2) Chip away and shape the slab of words until the (hopefully) meaningful book text appears 3) Polish. By those standards I'm 1/3 done with the throwing-words-together (any words, just damn it; get some words on the page). 30,000/95,000. I wonder, can I generate a full slab of words by August? 2/

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Jeremiah McCall (he/him)'s avatar Jeremiah McCall (he/him) @gamingthepast.bsky.social
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I like to (grandiosely) pretend writing is like sculpture when it's a how-to book like _Designing Historical Games for Classrooms: A Practical Guide for Educators_ 1) Get lots and lots and lots of words all thrown together of varying quality. This becomes the slab of stone 1/

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