Category: Blog

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.

Posted on - 1 Comment on Game Camp Visby
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Game Camp Visby

Science Park Gotland – our local incubator – has helped run Game Camps around the baltic the past couple of years. Game Camps are recurring events for individuals and businesses that are working with game development, or wish to do so. The final installment took place in Visby this weekend!

More than 80 participants attended this 72h business development bootcamp, from Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Sweden. During three days the 19 teams focused on building the business side of their startups,  further developed their business models as well as establish roadmaps to launch their game to the market. 

While here the teams (and their game prototypes) received input and support from game development veterans and investors. At the end of the weekend the most promising teams were awarded financial support, invites to further publisher/investor events at the Game Developers Conference and Casual Connect. 

Four teams from Gotland (student teams and alumni) were there, and two of them brought home prices.  Eat Create Sleep took home the special price – All Access Passes and travel to Casual Connect. Emily and Max over at BetterBuild Studios took home the grand slam – €10000 euros to invest into their business as they see fit. 
Big huge congratulations and well played to all of you! 

Posted on - Comments Off on My First Jam 2018
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My First Jam 2018

~7 hours of development time. 85 students participating. 17 teams, 17 games delivered – that is an astounding success rate! 30 individually wrapped prices, 45 pizzas, 6 cartons of soda, 4-5kg of sweets (for much-needed energy throughout the day), 4 silo-sized thermoses of coffee and one rented minivan to taxi non-Visby students home after the awards.

Tons and tons of fun. 🙂

Nominees for Best Interpretation:
— Super Sven Bros
— Fin
— Fondo And Rondo’s epic Adventure

Nominees for Best Execution:
— Bone Zone
— Resurrection
— Skyrim android edition

Nominees for Most Fun
— A few more bounces
— Eggception
— Fondo and Rondo’s Epic adventure

Winner Best Interpretation: Fin
Winner Best Execution: Resurrection
Winner Most Fun: Fondo and Rondo’s Epic adventure

Posted on - 1 Comment on Educating social workers on problem gaming
 CategoriesBlog, Guest Lectures, Publicity
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Educating social workers on problem gaming

Patrick Prax was invited by Region Gotland to educate our local social workers and medical providers about problematic gaming, youth and “addiction”.


(the lecture was in Swedish – you can help us add subtitles on Youtube!)

The talk was in Swedish but Patrick recommends the book “What’s the Problem in Problem Gaming”. It is an anthology which provides a number of perspectives on the issue, such as players’ life conditions and lifestyle choices, problem gaming from a family perspective, the voices of treatment professionals, and how game design can become problematic. The book is an essential read for researchers in the field as well as for policymakers, social workers, clinical psychologists, teachers and others who encounter problem gaming in their profession, and the digital version is freely available to download here.

Vad är problemet med problematiskt datorspelande?
Många barn och unga spelar datorspel. För de flesta är spelandet ett utvecklande intresse eller avkopplande tidsfördriv. Somliga har svårt att begränsa datorspelandet vilket kan medföra att skola, kamrater och andra viktiga åtaganden försummas. För att kunna stödja barn i deras digitala vardag kan du som vuxen skaffa dig mer kunskap om datorspel. Hur fungerar spelvärlden? Varför väcker spel engagemang? Och när blir spelandet ett problem?

Du som i ditt arbete möter barn, unga och föräldrar är välkommen till en halvdag (för- eller eftermiddag) om datorspelande (på engelska ”gaming”). Ni får lyssna till Patrick Prax, forskare anställd vid institutionen för speldesign Uppsala universitet Campus Gotland, som kommer att ge er kunskap om gaming, presentera forskning på området och berätta vad vi vet om problematiskt spelande och hur det kan förebyggas och hanteras.

Föreläsningen arrangeras av BarnSam inom ramen för partnerskapet mellan Uppsala universitet Campus Gotland (UUCG) och Region Gotland.

Datum: 27 september 2018
Tid: 8.30–12.00 eller 13.00–16.30
Plats: Ljusgården Rådhuset, Visborgsallén 19 i Visby
Anmälan för regionens medarbetare via särskild länk som erhålls via BarnSam

Utbildning om problematiskt datorspelande 20180927 (.pdf)

Posted on - Comments Off on Prof. Bartle back on the island!
 CategoriesBlog, Guest Lectures 

Prof. Bartle back on the island!

We’re continuing the expansion of our research wing at the Department of Game Design, and we are happy to announce that Prof. Richard Bartle is joining our team on Gotland as a guest professor!

We welcome professor Richard Bartle – Honorary Professor at University of Essex and Guest Researcher at the Department of Game Design at Uppsala University!

Professor Bartle co-wrote the first virtual world (MUD, in 1978), making him a pioneer within the massively multiplayer online game industry, wrote the seminal ‘Designing Virtual Worlds’ and authored the ‘Bartle Test’ which has inspired countless attempts to distinguish player types. He is also a respected and appreciated member of the game research community.

The man is no stranger to the department – he’s been an inspiration and a friend to many of us at the department since at least 2010 when he was the examiner for our colleague Mirjam Eladhari as she was finishing her PhD studies at Teesside. He’s regularly taken the time to come and share his expertise with us and our students; guest lectures on human rights in virtual worlds, strategic overviews of our education and research agenda, as well as providing our students with tons of insight at the Gotland Game Conference.

As part of his first tour of duty this autumn, Professor Bartle will share his perspectives in a guest lecture called ‘You – 40 years from now’, where shares his views on what it means to be a games student, game industry or games researcher today – in 40 years. The lecture is open to all students and the general public, but primarily geared toward first years GAME students.

Where: the Almedalen Library (room: E22),
When: Wed 26th of September, 13:15

Update: the lecture is now available on our YouTube-channel!