Oneiric Timescapes: History and Image-Affects in Benign Land and The Séance of Blake Manor

This paper examines the use of dreams as affective devices in two recent games about Irish history: Benign Land, a walking simulator spanning eras from the Neolithic to The Troubles, and The Séance of Blake Manor, a narrative game set during the Irish Celtic Revival. Its central argument is that historical games like these should be analyzed not only as representations of the past but as representations of a process of dreaming about history. Drawing on Bergsonian theories of memory and Deleuzian readings of dreaming, the author contends that Benign Land's levels, which collate material and immaterial heritage in phantasmagorical fashion, function as digital emulations of image-affects. Rather than following chronological order, these associations reflect a virtual multiplicity of the past coexisting with the present, a structure the paper argues challenges the categorization criteria commonly used in historical game studies.

The paper proposes a methodology for interpreting Benign Land's experimental, largely wordless structure alongside more conventional historical signs, and it situates this approach within existing work on rhizomatic narrative and the temporal recurrence of respawning in games. The author emphasizes that such modes of engagement reach beyond "pure" historical facts and historiographical narrative expectations, highlighting the epistemic role of affect in historical experience.

By contrast, The Séance of Blake Manor follows familiar narrative conventions and a clearly stated historical agenda, supported by knowledgeable characters and in-game books. The paper applies the same affective reading to the game's collective dream sequence, arguing that it reveals frictions and cracks within the game's otherwise coherent historical message and its time-related mechanics. The analysis is theoretical and interpretive rather than empirical, drawing on a body of games scholarship, philosophy, and historical theory to frame its close readings.