Posted on - Comments Off on Journey into Fear: Horror as a Vehicle for Healing and Transformative Play
 CategoriesBlog, Guest Lectures 

Journey into Fear: Horror as a Vehicle for Healing and Transformative Play

Poster for our next lecture in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series: "Journey into Fear: Horror as a Vehicle for Healing and Transformative Play” by Yeonsoo Julian Kim!

Join us for our next lecture in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series: “Journey into Fear: Horror as a Vehicle for Healing and Transformative Play” by Yeonsoo Julian Kim!

When: March 15, 2022, 7 – 8:30 PM Central European Time (CET)
Where: Online on Zoom
Register here: https://tinyurl.com/kf3y8byr
Link will be provided to registrants on the day of the event.
Make sure to sign in with the same name you used to register.

Description:

People are often attracted to horror as a genre because of the intense emotional and physical responses it can invoke. This lecture will explore ways in which fear-based play can be utilized to create healing experiences, methods for integrating safety and calibration tools to support emotionally intense play, and how horror can look different across cultures. Finally, we will touch on how to respectfully incorporate (or avoid) supernatural elements that may have religious, spiritual, and/or cultural significance to different groups.

Presenter bio:

Yeonsoo Julian Kim is a game designer, writer, and cultural consultant who works in tabletop games, larp, and interactive fiction. They received a Masters in Interactive Telecommunications from New York University in 2015. Some of their games include the interactive horror novel The Fog Knows Your Name published by Choice of Games, and the storytelling game Women are Werewolves published by 9th Level Games. Their best known larps are But Not Tonight, The Long Drive Back from Busan, which won a Golden Cobra Award, and The Truth About Eternity, which debuted at Fastaval 2019.

Hosted by:

The Transformative Play Initiative Event Series is hosted by the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design, Uppsala University Campus Gotland. The series explores the use of analog role-playing games as vehicles for lasting personal and social change.

Learn more about Transformative Play at Uppsala and join the TPI mailing list here.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel here.

Posted on - Comments Off on Freestanding Graduate Courses and Certificate in Transformative Game Design
 CategoriesBlog 

Freestanding Graduate Courses and Certificate in Transformative Game Design

The Transformative Play Initiative at Uppsala University’s Department of Game Design is offering four (4) freestanding graduate-level courses in Autumn 2022-Spring 2023! 

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 (4) courses in order with passing grades are eligible for a Certificate in Transformative Game Design. The courses are:

  1. Introduction to Transformative Game Design
  2. Transformative Game Design 1 (Design Focus)
  3. Transformative Game Design 2 (Implementation Focus)
  4. Cultivating Transformational Communities

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. 

To learn more about the individual courses and the certificate track, click this link.

The application period begins March 15 and closes April 19. This year the application needs to go through the Swedish website. For more information, 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, Stephanie Noroozy at gamedesign@speldesign.uu.se.

Posted on - Comments Off on Beyond the Couch: Psychotherapy and Live Action Role-playing
 CategoriesBlog, Guest Lectures 

Beyond the Couch: Psychotherapy and Live Action Role-playing

Join us for our next lecture in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series: “Beyond the Couch: Psychotherapy and Live Action Role-playing” by Elektra Diakolambrianou!

When: Feb 22, 2022, 7 – 8:30 PM Central European Time (CET)
Where: Online on Zoom
Register here: https://tinyurl.com/5xahkejd

Description:

The transformative potential of live action role-playing allows players to develop holistically (on a physical, mental, emotional, creative, and social level), even when participating in games just for fun. Are the processes and elements at play different, however, when personal development happens informally in a recreational larp, as to when a larp is formally designed for psychotherapeutic purposes? What makes larp a valid and effective methodological tool in the hands of a mental health professional? In this lecture we will attempt to answer these questions by exploring characters and stories in larp as psychotherapeutic material, identifying the connections between larp and some of its most adjacent psychotherapeutic methodologies, and finally discussing how psychotherapy techniques can be used to design and use larps as tools in psychotherapy.

Hosted by:

The Transformative Play Initiative Event Series is hosted by the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design, Uppsala University Campus Gotland. The series explores the use of analog role-playing games as vehicles for lasting personal and social change.

Learn more about Transformative Play at Uppsala and join the TPI mailing list here.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel here.

Posted on - Comments Off on Innovating for Growth: Designing a Culture of Safety in Games
 CategoriesBlog, Guest Lectures 

Innovating for Growth: Designing a Culture of Safety in Games

Join us for our next lecture in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series: “Innovating for Growth: Designing a Culture of Safety in Games” by John Stavropoulos!

When: Feb 8, 2022, 7 – 8:30 PM Central European Time (CET)
Where: Online on Zoom
Register here: https://tinyurl.com/jbncfmke

Description:

Question: At Google, what differentiates their highest performing teams from everyone else?

Answer: Google conducted an in depth data and statistical analysis to find out what special secret supercharged their most innovative teams, and the number one answer was… psychological safety. This lecture explores how we can leverage this truth in our game designs with the goal of creating transformative experiences. John Stavropoulos will provide concrete step by step best practices and use examples from his work in games (Dungeons & Dragons, Critical Role, Gen Con) to illustrate how you can do the same.

For more details, see the event page.

Hosted by:

The Transformative Play Initiative Event Series is hosted by the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design, Uppsala University Campus Gotland. The series explores the use of analog role-playing games as vehicles for lasting personal and social change.

Learn more about Transformative Play at Uppsala and join the TPI mailing list here.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel here.