Spanish colonial architecture as selective authenticity in historical digital games

Fede Peñate Domínguez

doi:10.3989/chdj.2020.005

Abstract

Buildings play a major role in computer games set in the past, both as gameplay components and as elements of historical realism. Varying on the genre of the game they perform different functions, from the transition and movement possibilities they allow the player in action-adventure games like Assassin’s Creed (Dow, 2013) to sedentary headquarters in strategy and management titles such as Age of Empires and Civilization (Bonner, 2014). My goal with this paper is to analyse the purposes of Spain’s colonial architecture in computer games set in the period of the Spanish Monarchy’s rule overseas. In order to achieve it, I will use Adam Chapman’s theoretical and methodological framework to understand the games’ historical epistemologies and ludonarratives, and Salvati and Bullinger’s concept of selective authenticity to analyse the role of these buildings in evoking the past and giving meaning to it. Aided by these lenses, I will try to unravel the master narratives behind these titles and how they give meaning to the history of Spain and its former colonies.

Highlights

This is, they are components the player interacts with and arranges to follow the game’s goals, but that can generate in the process particular discourses of meaning-making about the past (Chapman, 2013)
The player is free to arrange the elements of the past in the way the historian does, her liberty is constrained by the value given by the developers to the lexia and the framing controls, restrictions often placed by already existing theories, ideology, and argumentation
The discourse derived from the sanctioned combinations of lexia becomes part of a narrative about the past when the ludic elements make use of the strategy of selective authenticity, this is, when they evoke images and ideas not necessarily true, but the ones that make audiences feel they are interacting with history

Summary

Introduction

This is, they are components the player interacts with and arranges to follow the game’s goals, but that can generate in the process particular discourses of meaning-making about the past (Chapman, 2013). Narrative is the communication strategy that makes the past comprehensive through a process in which different elements of the historical discourse are given a particular meaning and connected in specific ways.

Results

Conclusion