Memory Insufficient

Vol. 2 Issue 5: Religion and games history

• Divining the self: Sortition as a window onto the soul - from knucklebones to paper fortune tellers, L. Rhodes gives an excellent account of how games and play are historically related to tools of divination.
• Meditative gaming: A dialogue on players in prayer - Amsel von Spreckelsen and Stephanie Cloete discuss whether games are meditative and whether meditation is a magic circle.
• Sinners & saints: The short-lived religion of the city of Columbia - Danielle Perry examines the theology of Bioshock: Infinite.
• Pray to heal: JRPGs relate complexly to the European Church - Austin C Howe looks at the role of the church as a building and an institution in Japanese role-playing video games.
• God killers: Nietzsche, capitalism and the gamer ethos - Mauricio Quilpatay takes a philosophical and anti-capitalist look at the notion of god-killing and meritocracy in Souls games.
• Magic and divine: The introduction of clerics to tabletop RPGs - in this extract from his book, Jon Peterson examines the cleric class in history and studies its implications for the modern and medieval attitude to faith and violence.