Volume 12, Issue 4, 2025
Articles
- Postcards from the 2025 BIPOC Game Studies Conference
This collaborative essay brings together seven participants to reflect on their observations and experiences at the 2025 BIPOC Game Studies Conference at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, NY.
- Getting in Good Troubles with Mancala
This paper discusses the term "mancala "and the implication of its use as a generic term for all classic African board games with holes, and seeds. We textually analyzed recent literature on classic African board games; we address the use of "mancala" in the literature. We focused on the names of three classic African board games and discussed these games names and the historical relationship between the game name and the ethnic group to argue that history, culture, and identity erasure happen when mancala is used as a generic term to classify these games. Mancala reflects the dismissal or neglect of African communities and ethnic groups contribution to the expansion of knowledge about games and gameplay. As shown by the literature of different fields, we contend that precise and appropriate use of names limits ambiguity, and even prevents the erasure of a group’s history, creativity, and game design approach.
- Defining the Miniatures Wargame: Five Pillars
This article provides a preliminary description and definition of the miniatures wargame. Rather than defining the miniatures wargame via the use of miniatures, which is obvious, it locates the specificity of the miniatures wargame in the centrality of the table to play, the use of non-discrete movement, the prominence of bricolage style craft in customization and terrain building, the order of operations in ludic storytelling, and the centralization of the hybrid industrial/craft miniatures wargames industry. The article aims to spark discussion of the specificity of miniatures wargames as a genre of analog game.