News from the Department

The Nordic DiGRA Conference returns this spring 2023, this time in Uppsala. This will be a fully in-person two-day event on 27–28 April 2023. Almost half of our staff from the Department of Game Design will be attending and presenting.

Game Developers Conference, GDC, was held in San Francisco, California in May 2023 connecting the Global Game Development Community in one place. One of the speakers was Associate Professor Patrick Prax from the Department of Game Design, together with other colleagues.

Come listen to one or all of the seminars that the Department of Game Design is participating in during Almedalen Week 2022. 

The Department of Game Design and the Department of Women's and Children's Health at Uppsala University co-created a serious game for children undergoing radiotherapy for cancer treatment. The project has received quite a bit of attention in Swedish and local media (available in Swedish only).

Meet former game design students and hear how their careers have developed after they left us. They have a lot of good advice for you and are always interested in hearing about your own projects and goals and expectations.

The installation of new professors at Uppsala University is taking place in Uppsala this week. And among them is our very own first professor in Game Design, Professor Doris Rusch--Congratulations!

Doris Rusch, researcher and senior university lecturer at the Department of Game Design on Campus Gotland, describes how we can create games that evoke thoughts and deep, meaningful experiences.

Patrick Prax from the Department of Game Design was one of the seven speakers selected for the latest TEDx Uppsala University. His talk 'The Players make the Game – Co-creative Game Design' discusses how games are co-created by players and the possibilities and potential risks involved.

HEVGA teams up with Uppsala University and Gotland Game Conference to expand international goals.

A two week course will be arranged this summer in Visby within the framework of EIT Health, an EU health research consortium where Uppsala University plays a leading role. The course allows students from a variety of fields to develop game concepts with the specific aim of encouraging a healthy lifestyle.

The Transformative Play Initiative has three new publications to share:

• Elektra Diakolambrianou and Sarah Lynne Bowman, "Dual Consciousness: What Psychology and Counseling Theories Can Teach and Learn Regarding Identity and the Role-Playing Game Experience." 
• Josefin Westborg and Sarah Lynne Bowman, "GM Screen: The Didactic Potential of RPGs" and "Cheat Sheet: What We Can Learn from Edu-Larp and Other (Non-TT) RPGs." 

Announcing the launch of Empowering Game Design Education with Transformative Role-playing Games (EDGE) — An Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership in Higher Education! The EDGE consortium consists of Uppsala University (Sweden), Turku University of Applied Sciences (Finland), Dragons Nest (Greece), Chaos League (Italy), and Avalon Larp Studio (Norway).

Join us for our next lecture in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series: "Ritual: The Importance of Framing Transformational Experiences” by Caro Murphy!

When: Tuesday, October 3, 7-8:30PM Central European Summer Time (CEST)
Where: Online on Zoom

Register here: https://tinyurl.com/eh3462e5

Link will be provided to registrants on the day of the event. 

The Department of Game Design is starting a Master's in Transformative Game Design (60 cr.) with an emphasis on the use of analog role-playing games as a vehicle for personal and social change!

At the Department of Game Design, we are building upon our Certificate Track by offering a Master's programme of 60 credits. The courses are taught entirely online at half-speed (50% or 20 hrs per week), mostly asynchronously with video calls for playtesting.

The Master's is intended for professionals who want to integrate RPGs into their leisure, educational, or therapeutic games, e.g. teachers, counselors, youth workers, spiritual directors, coaches, business trainers, etc.
 

The Nordic DiGRA Conference returns this spring 2023, this time in Uppsala. This will be a fully in-person two-day event on 27–28 April 2023. Almost half of our staff from the Department of Game Design will be attending and presenting.

Game Developers Conference, GDC, was held in San Francisco, California in May 2023 connecting the Global Game Development Community in one place. One of the speakers was Associate Professor Patrick Prax from the Department of Game Design, together with other colleagues.

The Transformative Play Initiative at Uppsala University’s Department of Game Design is offering four (4) freestanding Master's level courses 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.