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This is the highly informal blog of the GAME-department. We use it mostly to document the things we do outside of running one of the worlds strongest game educations. For information about our education, programs and courses, check the official site at Uppsala University.
Best in Show: Ball Bash, Kvitter
The Innovation Award: The Curse of the Manor Strange & Beatrice
Best Game Design: Layers of Pest Control
Best Art Design: Illume
Best Audio Design: Bullet Dance
Best Level Design: Overstay
Best Storytelling: Overstay
Best Presentation: Kvitter
Best Arcade Experience: Several Raccoons in a Trenchcoat
Jury Spotlight: Pilgrims on Gotland, Painted Peril, Project 4X
Public Choice: Flap Off
Student Choice: Bullet Dance
The Department of Game Design is offering 4 freestanding graduate-level courses in transformative game design, in Autumn 2023 – Spring 2024!
These courses focus on the applied use of analog role-playing games as vehicles for personal and social change, whether facilitated in-person or in online environments. The courses are online, half-time, and freestanding. Anyone with a Bachelor’s degree can apply for the courses and take them from anywhere in the world.
Students who complete all four courses in order with passing grades are eligible for a Certificate in Transformative Game Design. The courses are:
Ideally, our students plan to work or are employed in helping professions, such as educators, therapists, social workers, community leaders, coaches, camp counselors, spiritual guides, etc. We especially welcome students to apply who have some background in role-playing games as designers, facilitators, and/or participants.
The application period begins March 15 and closes April 17. This year the application needs to go through the Swedish website. Read about the application process here.
For more general information about Admissions from the Department, click this link.
If you have further questions after reading the information in the link, please contact our study advisor at gamedesign@speldesign.uu.se
Deadline for Submissions: March 5th
Notification: End of March
Submit your abstract here.
The Game Educators’ Summit is a two-day gathering of people teaching subjects in higher education that are relevant for games as artifacts and lived culture, particularly focusing on game design, art and animation, game programming, storytelling and narrative design, and the management of game projects. It happens in real life, on Gotland, May 24-25, right before the main part of Gotland Games Conference.
From specific questions around teaching and being a teacher in this field, we also want to address the big questions, such as: what can we as game educators contribute to society and education at large? What is the value of Game literacy?
Our goal is to use these two days to exchange experiences around the challenges, joys, and lessons learnt of teaching “Games Stuff.”
OTHER: if you have something you want to share, but it just doesn’t fit in any of the above, but it relates to being a game educator in some way, shape or form, submit it. We will look at it and see what we can do!
Consider that your abstracts should not exceed 1000 words and be clearly structured around:
Our selection criteria for 1000 Word abstracts are as follows:
We envision presentations to be 15min with 10min for Q&A but we reserve the right to change our minds based on the submissions we receive. Other formats may be more useful. In any case, we want to give as many people as possible a chance to share their work, so we can have lively discussions, rather than emphasizing individual voices or topics.
“Howling for Pack Support” Sessions: If you have a tricky game education related issue and would like to pick other people’s brain about it, share your issue with us in a 500 word abstract. Be clear what your issue is and what you’d like to get people’s input on.
We will look at all submissions in this category and see if we can group issues together to create “Howling Packs” for exchange, inquiry and mutual support. Depending on the number of submissions, we will assign workshop time to these “pack” issues and coordinate with you around the workshop structure.
Link to the online abstract submission system:
https://doit.medfarm.uu.se/bin/kurt3/kurt/84553
Q: Is this a hybrid conference?
A: NO. we do it on Gotland, precise location to be announced, but in the vicinity to Campus Gotland where the main conference is also happening.
Q: does attendance cost anything?
A: no
Q: how big is the capacity for participants (including but not limited to speakers)
A: it’s a small-ish event, but this allows us to have high-quality interactions. We can accommodate about 50 participants.
Q: what is the review process for the submissions?
A: there is a small team of researchers, including PhD students, who will help review all submissions with an eye on the criteria mentioned above and the priority of creating the most inclusive, diverse and insightful program we can put together for you. So, if anyone asks: yes, this is peer reviewed.
Q: is there going to be a publication of submissions?
A: the focus for this event is not paper writing or paper discussing, but a directed exchange of practices, potentials and pitfalls of teaching “game stuff” and the contexts it is happening in. So, no, there is not going to be a book or other form of edited publication. We may post the abstracts online. Stay tuned for that.
Q: my home department won’t cover travel costs without a publication (or for whatever other reason). What do I do?
A: we suggest you ask your internationalization office for Erasmus money. Tell them you are checking us out for potential Erasmus agreements with us! This isn’t even a lie, we hope 😉