8 Bit Test Pit - Episode 0

At the 2018 Society for American Archaeology meetings in Washington, D.C. in April, APN founder Chris Webster sat down with archaeogamingenthusiast Adam Spring to talk about Pokémon Go and whether it helped destroy historical and archaeological sites as was predicted in the summer of 2016 when it was released. They also talk about other augmented reality games and their potential impact on history and historical sites.

Raiford Guins (Indiana University) joins Andrew Reinhard for a discussion on the history of video games.

The Archaeogamers are back! The hosts discuss representation of archaeology in games; review the Hoyuk board game; and explain and discuss "procedural generation" and how it relates to archaeogaming and the user experience.

On today's episode, the recent release of GlobalXplorer, a project to combat looting and archaeological site destruction, prompts a discussion on the ethics of gamification for archaeological researchers. The panel talks about ethics as they apply in digital archaeology and the archaeology of video-games.

On today's episode Andrew Reinhard talks about video games and archaeology. Can video games be archaeological sites?

The panel discusses new and inventive ways to communicate their work in ArchaeoGaming. What's the best way to present data about gaming? Maybe write your own game? Create a video? Podcast about it? And is Academia ready for a shift away from traditional ink and paper forms of presentation and how can we help it along?

Today we talk about the No Man's Sky Archaeological Survey (#NMSAS) and look over the challenges the survey has faced in its first month. We talk about the game a bit, and how archaeology works in games like NMS. We also talk about preparing future archaeologists for the digital worlds they're going to encounter, and how to get current archaeologists up to speed.

Today we talk about ethics in video games as they pertain to archaeology. We talk about heritage use and representation in games, artifact interaction, cultural privileging, and list a bunch of games we think get it right! (you can play them on Steam, Hint Hint)

In the first Episode of 8bit Test Pit: Main Campaign we meet our host panel Andrew Reinhard, Meghan Dennis, and Tara Copplestone. We talk about what Archaeogaming is, the history of the field, and what the overall goals of studying the intersection of gaming and archaeology are. We also talk about the upcoming No Man's Sky Survey and why a survey like this should be done.

8Bit Test Pit is here to put Archaeogaming on the map. Hosted by key players in the archaeogaming world, 8Bit Test Pit sets out to explain the weird and wonderful connections between the study of our past and the virtual worlds we like to explore.