Dr Florence Smith Nicholls

@florencesn

Video game archaeologist + game dev// Postdoc @itu.dk on theorycraft + archaeogaming // Prev: Story Tech @gutefabrik.bsky.social, Planning Archaeologist at Museum of London Archaeology they/them 💾 florencesmithnicholls.com

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Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· 10d

Photograph of the front of Folkets Hus, with a sign saying "our stiletto nails will dig fascists into graves"

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· 10d

March going past graffiti that says "Protect trans kids"

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· 10d

At the first ever Copenhagen trans pride

A person holding a trans flag and Palestinian flag

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· 17d

Enjoying the whimsy of this public toilet

Hooks with graffiti next to it saying "a weird elephant" and another person writes "but cute" and there's a fish sticker for some reason

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· 18d

placed 2nd as spongebob

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· 20d

Enjoying decorating my new flat

Photograph of two framed prints, one featuring a dragon and another with a sword that says "trans people have always been here"

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· 25d

Real ones know

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· 29d

My favourite Sam Neill performance is him as the titular wizard in the TV mini-series Merlin that came out in 1998. My late aunt and uncle showed it to me when I was a kid and it probably permanently changed my brain chemistry

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jul 3

I've been invited to write the "Archaeogaming" entry for The Living Handbook of Historical Game Studies! See the abstract and links to other topics here: hgshandbook.ug.edu.pl/archeogames/

Archaeogaming is the archaeological study of video games, at the intersection of archaeology, game studies, computer science and HCI. This entry will chart the history of archaeogaming as a field that emerged in the 2010s but which has much longer antecedents in the form of cyber archaeology. It will present a taxonomy of archaeogaming, including reception studies, serious games, archaeology of digital artefacts and field studies. Brief case studies demonstrating the breadth of archaeogaming research will be presented. The question of the future of archaeogaming and its contributions to games research will be explored, and a case will be made for the unique contributions of archaeogaming as distinct from historical games studies in terms of archaeology’s specialisation in the study of material culture. The potential applications of archaeogaming to level design and play preservation will be presented.

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 26

So tired of academia man

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 19

Farewell DiGRA

Picture of a hunting party with the text "game is over"

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 17

You met me at a very poyo time of my life

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 16

We have extended the Games and Archaeological Play call for zines until July 17th! Anyone can submit a zine: you do not need to attend or register for the conference to submit. gapworkshop.org/call-for-pap...

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 15

There's a lot of rhetoric about the government siding with families over tech companies but ultimately children will still have access to AI chatbots, even if with some "restrictions."

Quote: "So-called AI 'romantic companion' chatbots...Will have to enforce a minimum age of 18. Similar intimate functionalities will be restricted for under-18s on AI chatbots more widely.

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 14

Here's the title slides because I like them #digra

Slide of statue of a satyr having sex with a goat and the title "Keeping the Secret(um): Sensory Archaeologies, Porn Games and Paratexts

Slide with icons of different gestures in the game Elden Ring, and the title "More Than a Nice Gesture: Players as Indexical Storytellers in Elden Ring"

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 12

Got my hair cut and feeling more myself again

Selfie of me with short hair and a black too against a wall

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 9

Conclusion (from my book chapter "Androgynous Artefacts")
“For well over a generation, stories of Link, hero of Hyrule, have been passed down in sacred text, cartridge, and disk.” Thus, Link, Zelda and even Sheik form part of the “triumphal procession” of games history, heirlooms that are handed down between commercial games and generations of players. It is precisely this legacy, indeed this “legend” that perpetuates the damsel role of Zelda, as it is legitimised by the commercial success of the franchise. Sheik is an androgynous artefact not based on the reading of their polygon body, but because they have ignited so much discussion about how that body can be rationalised. This is not to say that the gender binary is not real – just that it is not any more real than a polygon body. As Belcher understands the Halaf figurines through potential human interactions with them, it is not just the media they are made of that dictates their purpose, but the possibility space of gender as researchers have constructed it. We need to be self–reflexive about our own standpoints as scholars with lived experiences that inform our work. That means taking non-binary genders in both archaeology and video games seriously, not because they form part of the received wisdom of either but rather they can bypass the impossibility space of the gender binary, embracing ambiguity beyond androgyny."

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 9

My thesis “Archaeological Game Design: Video Game Archaeology as Interpretive Play and Play Preservation” is now online and open access! You can access the official version here, however this has some figures redacted: qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle...

Archaeological Game Design: Video Game Archaeology as Interpretive Play and Play Preservation

Abstract: Video game archaeology is a relatively new field. This can involve studying players through the traces they leave in digital game worlds, though only limited work of this kind exists. Furthermore, the potential of these methods to record ephemeral play experiences for preservation purposes has not been widely explored. The first part of the thesis establishes the background literature on games archaeology and play preservation. The second part reports on the development of novel archaeological methodologies for preserving play. This includes three case studies; a go-along study in the massively multiplayer online game Wurm Online, an archaeological survey in Elden Ring, and a collaborative autoethnography in Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree. The third part of this thesis reports on the results of a player study investigating how participants interpret environmental storytelling. We report on a study in which participants (N=202) played a game about exploring a procedurally generated ruined village and were then surveyed on their interpretations. We draw on methods and theory from archaeology, a field that specialises in the interpretation of material remains, to support a grounded theory analysis of the survey responses, from which we form the theory of an archaeological gameworld mental model. Finally, the fourth part of the thesis synthesises these case studies to argue that archaeological game design brings together both the archaeological recording of player traces, as well as player interpretations of a fictional gameworld that should also be preserved. This work contributes both novel methodologies for play preservation and a new theory for how players interpret gameworlds. This work has narrative design applications, and interdisciplinary contributions to game AI, games studies and HCI.

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 7

I'll be publishing a blog post about my experience of running Ruin The Game at several festivals, as well as making it publicly available on itch.io for others to run soon!

Photograph of rock mascot and different wikilim site choices

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 7

Ready to go!

Little rock mascot and an entry from the "WikiLim" for the fictional game Limerance

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 7

Very cute to see the little rock mascot for Ruin The Game in the @voidspacezine.bsky.social programme. It's sold out too!

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 6

It's real good

Screen shot from Penguin Colony with the prompt on-screen to "Waddle"

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 6

Don't want to spoil it but the fact that the photo mode in Penguin Colony is tied to a specific type of penguin is such a great design choice

Black and white photograph of a tiny adorable round baby penguin with the photo mode interface on screen

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· Jun 3

I'll be running my keepsake larp, Ruin The Game, at @voidspacezine.bsky.social this Sunday! Come and play as a video game archaeologist exploring an abandoned MMO and meet this mysterious lithic character

Picture of a rock with eyes on a red background

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· May 29

ITU out of context

Football is the most important of the less important things

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· May 25

34 today!

Selfie if me wearing a velvet waistcoat and a torc

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· May 20

Elle Fieggan talking about the gardening mechanics in @gutefabrik.bsky.social 's Mutazione at the Playing Futures conference! Always lovely to see the studio's work discussed

Elle in front of a slide that says "environmental gameplay"

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· May 14

Been a lot of boats in my life recently

Photograph of the Thomas Dambo wooden sculpture troll Kaptajn Nalle pulling a boat on a rope

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· May 13

Time to set sail

Dr Florence Smith Nicholls@florencesn· May 11

Well now I have this bureau in my flat because someone was giving it away for free on facebook