JapanLab’s first game was developed in 2020 as part of a pilot program run by the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin. The game, Ako: A Tale of Loyalty, was built by four undergraduate History majors with no specialized games design background. They were asked to develop a fully functional video game built around a specific historical topic and using only freely available platforms. The game they produced draws from the latest scholarship while incorporating a series of teaching points, allowing it to be deployed in high-school or college level classrooms. For more about the game design process, see here. To play the game click here.

Ako: A Tale of Loyalty places the player in Japan in 1701 in the role of a young samurai born into a low-ranking family that is struggling to survive. It is built around a famous episode in Japanese history known as Chushingura, the 47 ronin or the Akō incident.

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Ako: A Tale of Loyalty has been used in college classrooms across the country. It is available for free download here. The game is well suited for high-school and university learners interested in Japan.

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The game was designed by Ashley Gelato, Michael Rader, Izellah Wang and Alex Aragon working as part of Epoch: History Games Initiative. It allows players to explore the tensions between the myths and the realities of samurai life in this period. To hear from some of the student designers, see below.