Apply now for Spring 2026 Games Internships in JapanLab and History Games Initiative
Plant Hunters
Create a resource-management role-playing game that guides players through a perilous journey deep into the Peruvian Andes in search of the 19th-century miracle drug quinine. Plant Hunters follows the expedition of British geographer and explorer Sir Clements Robert Markham into the tropical Andean forests of Peru in the mid-1800s to gather specimens of cinchona, a tree whose bark produces quinine, an antimalarial medication. The game is part of the History Games Initiative which is a partner with JapanLab. Click on the image to find out more or apply directly here.
A Living Map: Rebuilding Treaty Port Nagasaki
The treaty port city of Nagasaki was a world unto itself in the late nineteenth century, where fortunes could be made and lost, where goods from all over the world could be found, where there was just enough confusion about who was in charge to make fraud a lucrative enterprise. Aspirational fraudsters like Toyama Ichiya, a down-on-his-luck Kumamoto samurai, rubbed shoulders with merchants, diplomats, missionaries, vagrants, sailors, innkeepers, shopkeepers, and families from dozens of different nationalities who mixed, mingled, and squabbled within the city’s borders. This Nagasaki has been lost to time. In this project, the team will expand on existing technical, artistic, and research infrastructures to build an interactive 3-D map of the city of Nagasaki. Click on the image to find out more or apply directly here.
The Iwakura Mission: Investigating Empire
In 1872, Iwakura Tomomi left Japan at the head of a 100-person diplomatic mission, tasked with circumnavigating the globe to gain recognition for the new Meiji government and learn more about how contemporary European and American empires worked. This team will create a resource-management role-playing game that puts the player in Iwakura’s position as the head of the mission. Do you fill out your roster with students, engineers, or socialites? Will you put on a show for the crowds, or for Congress? As you explore San Francisco, New York, London, Paris, and more, can you find the secrets to modernity and empire? Click on the image to find out more or apply directly here.
YOU CAN APPLY FOR THESE PROJECTS HERE. APPLY BY 21 November 2025.
FOR SOME FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THESE INTERNSHIPS SEE HERE.
FOR IMAGES FROM SOME PAST PROJECTS SEE BELOW
