What is Archaeogaming?

Archaeogaming is a newer sub-field of archaeology that integrates the methods of archaeological discovery into the synthetic environment of video games so that by playing games, one can teach and learn about the past. It has been proven that kids love video games, and according to Psychology Today, children and teens in the US play on average between one and three hours a day. Unfortunately, this medium is rarely used within educational environments. Our goal at The Ozymandias Project is to help bridge this discrepancy through our educational videos and custom lesson plans for classroom usage.

Our Archaeogaming program provides short, fun, and educational videos for teachers' use as a visual aid to take their students to see the pyramids in Ancient Egypt, temples in Ancient Greece, or sail around Dark Age England. Additionally, our customizable lesson plans can accommodate both synchronous and asynchronous learning. There are many games that are ideal for Archaeogaming lessons, including the Assassin’s Creed series, the Age of Empires series, the Civilization series, and others. These games offer both first-person role-playing games and third-person strategy games to accommodate all individual learning needs, abilities, and interests.

You can read, “Assassin’s Creed Origins as a Digital and Pedagogical Tool” by Dr. Christian Casey, an Egyptologist and avid archaeogamer, to learn more about the fast-growing field and its benefits for both the academic and gaming communities.

Hitpoints & History

The Ozymandias Project and Digital Hammurabi have joined to create Hitpoints & History (HpH), an interactive, virtual archaeogaming conference connecting academics, professionals, and gamers - regardless of character level! We explore the open world of archaeogaming through livestreams, workshops, and collaborative gaming events. Hitpoints & History is an ambitious quest to broaden the field and make some friends along the way.

2024 marked the second year of our conference, Hitpoints & History. Each year, we transform Gather.Town into a unique space for our conference. This year, we introduced After Dark, a post-dinner gaming event set in the ancient world, and an annual ARG (Alternate Reality Game) exclusive to the conference.

Another new event we had in 2024 was a game jam where, over 48 hours, teams and individuals designed games set in the ancient world. You can check those out and play through them here.

To learn more about Hitpoints & History, check out the website here, or follow the link in the menu bar. The recorded sessions from HpH 2024 will be available to the public on June 7, 2024, on our Hitpoints & History YouTube channel. In the meantime, check out our 2023 sessions!

Please reach out to hitpointscon@gmail.com with any questions regarding Hitpoints & History! To keep up with Hitpoints & History follow us on Instagram and sign up for The Ozymandias Project’s newsletter!