Call for papers
We invite the submission of short papers of up to 4 pages (not including references).
We would welcome papers including, but not limited to, the following themes:
{Archaeological game design}: development of games about the practise of archaeological interpretation, environmental storytelling and level design, re-use of archaeological archival data in games;
{Interpretive play, eudaimonia and metroidbrainias}: archaeological fandom, emergent narrative, puzzle design;
{Archaeology of games}: evidence of games and play in the past, AI and reconstructions of ancient games;
{Code archaeology}: retro-engineering games, code as archaeological artefact;
{Game and play preservation}: game paratexts and ephemera, gameplay recordings, game development documentation;
{Archaeological fieldwork in games}: archaeological surveys, ethnographic research, HCI and archaeological games;
{Reception and ethics}: depictions of the past in games, colonialism and archaeological games, depictions of gender, race, sexuality and disability, historical game studies;
{Educational and serious games}: games for teaching about archaeology, heritage and the past, in museum and classroom settings, and beyond;
{Non-digital archaeological games}: board games, LARPs and TTRPGs set in the past or informed by archaeological theory
Submission Instructions
Papers should be submitted via the FDG Easychair link to the Games and Archaeological Play workshop track.
Papers must be anonymised and use the ACM Masters template or they will be desk-rejected.
Accepted short papers will be included in the conference proceedings.
Submission deadline: April 5th 2026
Call for zines
We welcome zines on any topic relating to archaeology and games. Zines can be of any length up to a maximum of 8 A4 pages, and should be submitted as a PDF to flonic@itu.dk
Zines will not be included in the conference proceedings, and they do not need to be anonymised. We plan to print them out to create a zine library as part of the workshop. Zines will also be published on a dedicated workshop itch.io page. You do not need to attend the conference to submit a zine.
Submission deadline: June 10th 2026
Policy on Generative AI
The workshop does not accept papers where generative AI is one of the topics of study. In addition, we do not accept papers that contain text or images created using generative AI systems such as ChatGPT, Claude or Midjourney. If you have questions or need clarification, please ask the organisers.
Games and Archaeological Play Workshop 