History, Played

Why Stories, Not Trivia

Most history education is built around recall. What year did the plague arrive in Florence? Who painted the Sistine Chapel? Which battle ended the Hundred Years' War? That genre is well served already, by Trivial Pursuit, Sporcle, Kahoot, and every multiple-choice exam ever set. Recall is fine but limited. It tests whether you memorized a fact, not whether you understand the moment the fact describes.

A story tests something else. It puts you in the position someone actually occupied, with the information they actually had, which is usually far less than you have. You do not know how the plague spreads, because nobody in 1348 did. You do not know whether the fire will jump the next street. You do not know if the pardon is a trap. Decisions feel different when you have to make them inside the same fog the real people did.

The Format

Every story follows the same shape:

• A specific person on a specific day. Not a vague medieval peasant. You are this person, in this street, on this morning, with these obligations.
• Three to four chapters. Fifteen to twenty-four decisions across a full run, each one narrowing what is still available to you.
• Consequences that persist. Who you helped, what you carried out, and who you left behind follow you into later chapters.
• Illustrated throughout. Original artwork per scene rather than stock imagery.
• An ending that belongs to your run. Not a score. An outcome that follows from the specific decisions you made.

Sourcing

The worlds are built from the documented record, and each story cites the history it leans on as you play: the London Museum on the Great Fire, the Bahamas National Archives on Woodes Rogers and the 1718 pardons, the National Gallery on the Medici, Caesar's own account of the Gallic War.

The people you play are ordinary rather than famous, so they and the crews, households and ships around them are written rather than transcribed. The streets they run down, the laws that constrain them, and the dangers they face are not. Where a story would otherwise blur a real date, law or outcome, it says so in a history note instead.

Frequently Asked Questions