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AI and History Conference 2026

Playable PastsMaking Classroom Games with AI

Kwok-leong Tang

Managing Director, Digital China Initiative
Lecturer, Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
Harvard University

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About these slides

AI Disclosure

AI helped with

  • Page design and code
  • The timeline and agent diagram
  • QR codes and some screenshots

I did

  • The talk plan
  • The choice of examples
  • Review of all text and links

Tool: Claude Opus 5.5 (Anthropic), in Claude Code. Images are screenshots of the immersionED, JapanLab, ArtCraft and Playable Pasts websites and games, of a YouTube video by Bijan Bowen, and of Ace Attorney (Capcom). Engine logos from Simple Icons.

My email signature has this line: “Kwok-leong Tang uses multiple AI models and agents in all his digital work.”

From Playing GTA to Making GTA

First half
Prof. Tore Olsson: how we learn history from a game.

Second half
How AI helps us turn history into a game.

QR code for ultimateplay.com, Bijan Bowen's siteBijan Bowen’s site
ultimateplay.com
A GTA-like 3D city game, built by an AI model, shown in a YouTube video by Bijan Bowen
YouTuber Bijan Bowen asks each new AI model to build a GTA-like game. He uses it as a test (a “benchmark”).
AI booming since 2025

Chatbots vs Agents

2023–2024
Chatbots

You ask. It answers once. You fix the bugs.

2025
Coding agents

Claude Code, Codex, Gemini CLI: AI writes, runs and fixes its own code.

“Vibe coding”: Collins Word of the Year 2025

2026
Agents for everyone

Desktop apps like Claude Cowork. No command line. Plain English.

Why everyone can build now

An Agent: A Loop

CONTEXT grows each round Original request AI MODEL reads it all not yet TOOL CALL e.g. run the game TOOL RESULT e.g. an error message added to context Previous response Tool call Tool result ⋮ goal met DONE ✓

You describe the game in plain English. The agent does the coding.

Before AI agents

Making a Game Takes a Team

Story

Plot, characters, dialogue

Game logic

Rules, choices, scores

Research

Sources, facts, context

Art design

Characters, scenes, screens

Coding

Build it in a game engine

Testing

Play it, find the bugs

Game engines

Frameworks You Need to Make a Game

Each one has its own language and tools to learn.

The same team, with agents

How AI Agents Can Take Up the Jobs

Story
The agent drafts scenes and dialogue.
Game logic
It turns your rules into code.
Research
It finds passages in the sources you give it.
Art design
Image models draw characters and scenes.
Coding
It writes the code, in HTML or in Godot.
Testing
It plays the game, takes screenshots, fixes bugs.

You stay the historian: the sources, the argument, the final check.

Recent development

Cloning / Replicating

The ArtCraft Crafting Apps page: thirteen app icons, such as PhotoCraft, FilmCraft and DeckCraft
getartcraft.com/apps

ArtCraft: 13 free, open-source apps.

Image, video, slides, spreadsheets, CAD …

From a famous game to a history game

Ace Attorney and Courtroom Reversal

Phoenix Wright points across the courtroom in Ace Attorney
Ace Attorney (Capcom, 2001): find the lie in the testimony.
Courtroom Reversal: the lawyer Cheng Yilong points in a Qing courtroom
逆轉公堂 Courtroom Reversal: the same play, set in the Yang Naiwu case (1873–1877).QR code for Courtroom ReversalPlay it
A more historical learning version

The Yang Naiwu Case

The Yang Naiwu Case, Chapter 1: case documents, portraits of the people in the case, and the background from the 1877 memorial
Chapter 1: you are the county magistrate.

Play four roles: magistrate, family, commissioner, Board of Punishments.

Pick evidence from the 1877 memorial, the Code and the Shenbao.

QR code for The Yang Naiwu Case gamePlay it
Made in Godot
Playable Pasts

Make a Game: Start Here

The Playable Pasts Make a game page: Step one, copy this into your AI assistant, with a box of text to paste
kltng.github.io/playable-pasts/start

Copy one message into your AI assistant.

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot …

QR code for the Playable Pasts Make a game pageMake a game
No coding
Playable Pasts

How to Use It

# paste this
Follow the instructions at this link to help me build a game for my history course: https://gist.github.com/kltng/2a2b26a8817540531f3191412c308276
I am not a programmer. Please interview me first, a few questions at a time.
  1. It asks you questions: students, goal, sources, time.
  2. It reads your sources and marks each fact: attested, interpretation, assumption, invention.
  3. It builds the smallest version first.
  4. You get one HTML file, a teacher guide and debrief questions.
  5. Check it with the site's checker, then on the classroom computer.
Demo · Playable Pasts gallery

Map Quiz: Many Centres, One World

The map quiz: a world map with four lettered pins and the question about the 1405 Ming fleet
Find 24 ports, mines and capitals, 1400–1600. The rounds start in East Asia, not Lisbon.
QR code for the Many Centres, One World game pagePlay it nowkltng.github.io/
playable-pasts
Demo · Playable Pasts gallery

The Influenza Front Page

The Influenza Front Page title screen: Your page. Six columns. No hindsight. Philadelphia, October 1918.
Philadelphia, October 1918

Edit a front page from 18 newspaper reports, Oct. 3–10, 1918.

Spend 3 or 6 research checks. Fill 6 columns.

Then the Oct. 12 death figures arrive: qualify, replace, or defend one story.

QR code for The Influenza Front Page game pagePlay it now
60 minutes
Existing historical game-making tools

JapanLab · UT Austin

Home page of JapanLab at the University of Texas at Austin
utjapanlab.com

A seminar on Japanese history, literature, or film + a game lab.

Student teams build a game or write a game proposal.

QR code for utjapanlab.comVisit the site
Existing historical game-making tools

immersionED

immersionED page of adaptive learning simulations, such as Drafting the Declaration (1776) and America's Dilemma
platform.immersioned.org

AI checks the reasoning behind each decision.

Build your own from your sources. No coding.

QR code for the immersionED trailer on YouTubeWatch the trailerYouTube
QR code for platform.immersioned.orgFree teacher accessplatform.immersioned.org
Thank you

More on My Website

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Kwok-leong Tang