Confoederatio Ludens

🎙️ CH-Ludens – The Podcast #4 🎙️Eugen Pfister talks to Pierre-Yves Hurel, a postdoctoral media studies researcher at UNIL who wrote his thesis on amateur video games through an ethnographic study of online communities of practice. In our project, Pierre-Yves is drawing on his expertise to uncover the forgotten history of digital games in French-speaking Switzerland, conducting extensive media research and over 60 oral history interviews. https://letscast.fm/sites/ch-ludens-dd690e3b/episode/talking-with-pierre-yves-hurel-unil

#Repost #FromTheBlog 📖 „Nur ein kleiner Teil der Videogames erhält noch eine Verpackung und wird in Elektronikläden in die Regale gestellt. Früher war das ganz anders.“ – Eine Box ist nicht nur eine Box: Game Verpackung im Wandel der Zeit. Full post here ➡️ https://chludens.hypotheses.org/3754

🎙️👾 In our latest episode of the CH-Ludens Podcast, we spoke to Addrich Mauch about our joint project between the Uni Bern and the HKB, as well as our side project, Swiss Gamescapes+, which focuses on Swiss game cultures and involves conducting oral history interviews with Swiss players. https://letscast.fm/sites/ch-ludens-dd690e3b/episode/talking-with-addrich-mauch-university-of-bern

What does it mean for a game to be considered a source? CH-Ludens welcomed Tobias Winnerling (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf) as a guest lecturer last June. Read our article, 'Digital Games, Digital Born Sources, Discourses and Dispositifs', based on his talk, on our blog: ➡️ chludens.hypotheses.org/4118

Teenies, pimples and gaming: Our team in Bern conducted a new case study on the German gaming magazine Bravo Screenfun. The case study was led by Aurelia Brandenburg and involved Arno Görgen, @Eugen_pfister@fedihum.org and Corinne Hirter ➡️ https://chludens.hypotheses.org/5121

#Repost 📖 This week’s #FromTheBlog (in German): „Wider besseren Wissens – Geschichtsbilder in Videogames. Eine Tour d’Horizon über drei Real-Time Strategy Games der 1990er Jahre: Siedler III, Anno 1602 und Age of Empires II.“ Full Post here ➡️ https://gamelab.hypotheses.org/358

Have you heard that we now have 'CH-Ludens the Podcast'?🎙️👾 In our premiere episode, 'What is Confoederatio Ludens?', hosts @Eugen_pfister@fedihum.org and Arno Görgen introduce our project. https://chludens.hypotheses.org/5006

🎙️👾 PODCAST TIME: In our second episode, host Eugen Pfister @Eugen_pfister@fedihum.org talks with his colleague Prof. Yannick Rochat @yrochat@mathstodon.xyz. Together, they discuss the game studies scene in Switzerland and previous networking efforts, which ultimately led to ever closer cooperation in our Sinergia project. Check it Out ➡️ https://letscast.fm/sites/ch-ludens-dd690e3b/episode/talking-with-yannick-rochat-unil

#Repost #FromTheBlog 📖 All known Swiss C64 Games: The CH-Ludens team specialises in researching Swiss computer games from the 1980s and 1990s. While searching for Commodore C64 games developed in Switzerland, we discovered several interesting titles…. Full post here ➡️ https://chludens.hypotheses.org/3988#more-3988

#Repost #FromTheBlog 📖 In June 2024, a delegation from the Confoederatio Ludens project visited the Museum of Communication depot in Schwarzenburg, particularly to explore its computer hardware collections. Read the full article here. ➡️ https://chludens.hypotheses.org/2823

#Repost #FromTheBlog 📖 This week: *The case study of the game ’Ball Raider’* by Aurelia Brandenburg, Adrian Demleitner, Arno Görgen, Addrich Mauch, and Eugen Pfister. Full article here ➡️ https://chludens.hypotheses.org/2685

#Repost #FromTheBlog 📖 Can a strategy game still provide the same excitement and fun 40 years later? You can find the answer in Beat Suter’s blog post, “Galactic Empires for Networks (GEn): A Swiss Multiplayer Game (1984–2000)“. Read more here. ➡️ http://chludens.hypotheses.org/date/2024/11

🎙️👾 In our second episode, of CH-Ludens – The Podcast, @Eugen_pfister@fedihum.org talks with his colleague Prof. @yrochat@mathstodon.xyz . Together, they discuss the game studies scene in Switzerland and previous networking efforts, which ultimately led to ever closer cooperation in our Sinergia project. Check it Out: https://letscast.fm/sites/ch-ludens-dd690e3b/episode/talking-with-yannick-rochat-unil

Our #SwissGameOfTheWeek 🕹️👾 is "Ilyad", a side-scrolling shoot-'em-up game from Ubisoft released in 1989. The game features large sprites, and the aim is to defeat enemies while controlling a spaceship. Have you heard of it? ➡️ https://stage.chludens.ch/games/ilyad/

Our #SwissGameOfTheWeek is “Rings Of Medusa” (also known as ROM). This strategy, role-playing, and economic simulation game was published by Starbyte Software in 1989. Have you heard of it? ➡️ https://stage.chludens.ch/games/rings-of-medusa/

Our #SwissGameOfTheWeek is “A Young Person’s Guide to Walking Outside the City”, a computer animation by Alexander Hahn (1983). It follows a small blue protagonist on a surreal journey through the countryside, which is full of strange events. Have you heard of it? ➡️ https://stage.chludens.ch/games/a-young-persons-guide-to-walking-outside-the-city/

#FromTheBlog #archive #Repost: Back to April 2024 when we started "Collecting Historical Gaming Magazines". You can find the full blogpost here: ➡️ https://chludens.hypotheses.org/2386

“I think I’ll be holding a controller in my hand until I drop dead. And you can’t take this from me anymore. It’s a bit of a way of life, all these cultures.” 📖 Excerpt from our #Archive #Repost #ofTheWeek on *Diving into Early Swiss Player Cultures with Swiss Gamescapes Plus – Methodological Approach and Early Phase Report* full blogpost here ➡️ https://chludens.hypotheses.org/3464

The Swiss Game of the week is Ping (Epsitec, 1987), a ping-pong game for Smaky computers in which you can "break" the net, brick by brick. Have you heard of it? https://github.com/blupi-games/smaky-legacy #SwissGameOfTheWeek

#Repost #FromTheBlog 📖 „Bridging Disciplines: Reflections on ReAnimate Summer School and Interdisciplinary Approaches in Digital Game Studies.“ In June 2024, the ReAnimate Summer School in Montréal brought together a diverse group of scholars and practitioners from all over the world to explore the intersections of digital game history, criticism, and development. Read the full article on our blog ➡️
https://chludens.hypotheses.org/3110

Behold, CH Ludens the Podast is here! 🎙️👾 In this premiere episode, hosts @Eugen_pfister@fedihum.org and Arno Görgen present the project ‘Confederatio Ludens’. They explain the interdisciplinary collaboration, the project's goals and the significance of digital gaming culture for the digitisation of (Swiss) society. ➡️ https://letscast.fm/sites/ch-ludens-dd690e3b/episode/what-is-confoederatio-ludens

„Back from the Dead: Re-Animating Viruses of the Floppy Disk Era.“ How a piece of hardware from our GameLab in Bern kept a group of hackers busy at HUGOCON 2025 with a 40-year-old virus, and inspired a new dating method ➡️ https://gamelab.hypotheses.org/280

#Repost #FromTheBlog 📖 This week: LINEL – a Swiss Game Publisher – Part 2: Collaborations and Unreleased Games ➡️ found in our blog #archive: https://chludens.hypotheses.org/1296

#FromTheBlog 📖 *The Feel of Sweaty Fingers* – the CH LUDENS team's first memories of digital games. How did we, as scientists, become who we are today? Where does our interest in digital games come from? Join us on a short journey to the beginnings of the CH LUDENS team ➡️ https://chludens.hypotheses.org/2467

This is the last #Repost from #FromTheBlog for 2025. With an impressive 16 blog posts, there are a lot of interesting articles to discover. Do you have a favorite? You can find them all here #Archive ➡️ https://chludens.hypotheses.org/page/2?s=2025 We're curious to see what next year will bring 👀✨

#Repost #FromTheBlog 📖 This week: LINEL – a Swiss Game Publisher – Part 1: A complete list of LINEL’s games ➡️ found in our blog #archive: https://chludens.hypotheses.org/983#more-983

#Repost #Archive 📖 “On the other hand, the girls are quite discreet”: Strip-Poker-Reviews in early German Gaming Magazines by Aurelia Brandenburg #FromTheBlog ➡️ More here: https://chludens.hypotheses.org/3197

#Repost #FromTheBlog #Archive 📖 A few weeks ago, we re-shared the first part of 'The "Computer" Exhibition of Lausanne' by Pierre-Yves Hurel. Part 2 is about 'Esprit Romand' and the 'Röstigraben', and can be found on our blog: ➡️ https://chludens.hypotheses.org/608