Student teams from across Scotland have transformed rare historical collections into original digital and tabletop games as part of a University of Aberdeen-led initiative.
The 2026 Jam in the Archives programme brought together students, academics, archivists and heritage professionals across Aberdeen, Dundee and Edinburgh, challenging participants to create games inspired by original archive and museum collections.
The project aimed to demonstrate how university research and cultural heritage can be brought to life through creative collaboration.
Supported by the University of Aberdeen's Impact & Engagement Accelerator Funding, the programme gave students special access to collections spanning medieval manuscripts, seventeenth-century maps, architectural drawings and museum artefacts, encouraging them to interpret historical research through interactive design.
The first event, hosted by the University of Aberdeen, saw six student teams work with treasures from the University's collections, including seventeenth-century maps of Aberdeen, John Seller's Atlas Terrestris, Braun and Hogenberg's Civitates Orbis Terrarum, James Byres' unrealised plans for King's College and nineteenth-century survey plans of the Fetteresso Estate.
Over two days, the Aberdeen teams developed five original game concepts, ranging from historical mysteries and cooperative puzzle games to strategy and narrative adventures inspired by archival research. The winning project, Surveyor: Fetteresso, transformed nineteenth-century estate plans into an engaging game centred on observation, decision-making and historical surveying.
The programme then travelled to Dundee, where students from Abertay University collaborated with archivists and curators from The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum. Drawing on collections documenting the city's industrial and social history, teams produced games inspired by Dundee's heritage, with Spirits of the City emerging as the winning entry.
Both winning teams progressed to a final event hosted by the National Library of Scotland, where they explored medieval manuscripts curated around the theme of uncovering women's stories in historical collections. Inspired by these rare materials, Team Aberdeen created Marginalised, a game encouraging players to explore how historical records marginalise women, while Team Coda from Abertay designed Maintenance Monk, pitting the painstaking work involved in preserving and repairing documents against the pressure to keep adding new items to the record.
The programme was led by Professor Jackson Armstrong, Dr William Hepburn and Dr Miles Everett from the University of Aberdeen, alongside Kayleigh MacLeod from Abertay University. They were supported by postdoctoral researcher Dr Melissa Tan.
Jackson Armstrong said: “By bringing together universities, libraries, archives and museums, Jam in the Archives demonstrates how creative practice can help researchers engage new audiences with historical collections while giving students valuable experience of working with cultural heritage organisations. The initiative highlights the University of Aberdeen's commitment to impactful public engagement and finding innovative ways to bring collections to life.”
Kayleigh MacLeod said: “These jams demonstrated the power of games as a medium to engage with and explore cultural heritage, and how we understand the past, in exciting and critical ways. The events showcased Abertay University’s focus on civic engagement and cultural vitality in the creative industries.”
Lili Bartholomew (Registrar, The McManus: Dundee’s Art Gallery & Museum) said: “Interacting with the participants on their visit was really reaffirming of the purpose of our work in developing and managing the collections - for the collections to be a resource for everyone. It is always exciting for us to see the different ways the objects in our care can be used and it was such a joyful finish to see the games the teams made.”
Chris Cassells (Head of Archives and Manuscript Collections, National Library of Scotland) said: “It was brilliant to see the level of interest and focus the teams had on the medieval manuscripts we selected. Games offer a compelling way for new audiences to engage with our collections and we're already thinking about all the other parts of our archives that might inspire future jams.”
The winning games from Jam in the Archives will be demonstrated at the upcoming ‘Drop in and Play’ showcase at the DCA, Dundee, in September 2026. Find summaries of all the games made in the jams here and here.