Digitala Gotland 2017

Our local computer shop arranges an IT exhibition every year. For 2017 they rechristened it “Digitala Gotland” and moved down to Wisby Strand – literally across the street from campus. So they reached out and invited us to their show floor and scene program, which were happy to avail ourselves off. 🙂

A few of our students put up three new games for the public to try out, while Adam Mayes spoke, twice, about the promising research done on using games as therapy and a tool for social work.

A Dangerous Game? Problematic Aspects of Digital Gaming

This is the fifth symposium on digital games hosted by the Swedish Museum of Science and Technology. This time we were discussing game addiction / problematic gaming. Our new colleague Patrick Prax​ shared his research taking a holistic approach to treatment.

“Rather than taking games away, we need to add life back.”

From the program:

More people than ever before are playing digital games. For many it is just an enjoyable leisure activity but games and gaming are also associated with concerns about gaming addiction, violent content and problematic representation as well as hate speech and harassment among players.
 
The Swedish Media Council report on youth media use (2012) showed that digital games was the media category young people felt most concerned about and was most favorable about age limits for. It was also the media category they felt adults were least interested in.
 
Is there such a thing as digital gaming addiction and if so, how common is it? Are the gamers affected by violent content and values expressed in games? What are the judicial aspects of harassment in online games? Is the talk of “problematic gaming” just a part of a moral panic? These are some of the questions that will be discussed by our invited speakers at this symposium.

Students interviewed about Alt.Ctrl:GDC

Local press caught up with our students as they returned from exhibiting at Alt.Ctrl:GDC: “The place to be om man är spelutvecklare”

Puzzle game Cryptogram uses a real bookshelf to open secret doors

I’ve never in my life had the experience of tilting a book off an old dusty bookshelf and unlocking a secret passageway, but I hope I do before I die. Movies have never sold us a more believable-but-still-magical fantasy than the passage behind the bookshelf, or the revolving bookshelf that turns under your feet and rotates you, speechless, into a hidden laboratory. But I have now gotten to play a game inspired by that fantasy, and it’s one of the most creative things I’ve seen at this year’s Game Developer’s Conference.

GDC hosts a small selection of games with weird input methods every year under the banner of Alt.Ctrl.GDC, and the standout for me this year was bookshelf game Cryptogram.

[PCGamer: Puzzle game Cryptogram uses a real bookshelf to open secret doors]

Student projects selected for Alt.Ctrl:GDC

Every year, the best and brightest of the game industry gather in San Francisco for the Game Developers Conference (GDC). As part of the 5 day event the organizers also host alt.ctrl.GDC – an on-site showcase of unique games built around alternative control schemes and interactions. Or in their own words: “a chance to play some of the most inventive and innovative games around using unique, one-of-a-kind controllers.”

This year, two of our student teams will be present! Among the only 20 finalists chosen, our first-year teams Cryptogram and Zombie Crawler both made the cut and thus will be travelling to the US this spring and exhibit their games alongside a long time friend of the department; developer, all round creative, and now teacher – Jerry Belich.

This is a fantastic opportunity for our students to present their games on an international stage, and we’re incredibly proud and happy that they can represent the education in San Francisco.

You might have played these games at the Gotland Game Conference 2016 (What? You weren’t there? Why not? You should be here for 2017.), or at Comicon in Stockholm, earlier this autumn.

If you missed those events, you can look at the gallery here and see what you missed out on. 🙂

Alumni Days 2016 gallery

Looking for details about the Alumni Days? Check this post. The YouTube playlist is available here.