News from the Department
Event: The Personal and the Political: Playing and Designing for Transformation in Nordic Larp
2021-09-01
Join us for our next lecture in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series: "The Personal and the Political: Playing and Designing for Transformation in Nordic Larp” by Johanna Koljonen!
- When: September 7, 2021, 7-8:30pm Central European Summer Time (CEST)
- Where: Online on Zoom
Nordic larp is a collaborative artform structured around exploration of situations and structures and around narratives of personal change. Players even of larps created only for entertainment, with no transformative agenda, report personally meaningful or even life-changing experiences. Other larps expressly attempt to educate, inform, affect or transform – and succeed to varying degrees. In this talk, Johanna Koljonen gives an introduction to the form and sketches out some ways of thinking about transformation in Nordic larp. She argues that while the artform is inherently and perhaps inevitably transformative, it has many limitations as a tool for social change; and explores some of the ethical tensions inherent both in participants playing towards and larpmakers designing for transformation as a goal.
Presenter bio: Johanna Koljonen (co-founder, Participation Design Agency) is an experience designer, theorist and strategic consultant, and an expert in designing for safe and enthusiastic participation. She lectures internationally on participatory storytelling and on the future of the audiovisual industries, as well as advising cultural institutions as well as public and private sector clients on participation and immersive experiences. An occasional writer of drama, comics, and digital games, she serves on the board of the Swedish Film Institute. In 2011, she received the Swedish Grand Journalism Award in the Innovator category. Her latest book is the edited anthology Larp Design: Creating Role-Play Experiences (2019).
This 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.
Register here
RSVP to the event here
Learn more about Transformative Play at Uppsala and join the TPI mailing list.
Learn more about the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design.
Like Transformative Play Initiative and the Games and Society Lab on FB.
Graphic design by Liliia Chorna
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Three Teams Nominated at Swedish Game Awards
Swedish Game Awards will be held 8-9 September 2023 in Stockholm. Among the nominated games are three teams from the Department of Game Design!
www.gameawards.se/nominees-2023
Fail Fail Succeed
Ball Bash
Haunted Heist -
Nordic DiGRA (Digital Game Research Association)
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.
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Presentation at GDC in San Francisco
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.
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SkillMill is presented in international conferences
SkillMill is an app that helps students identify, understand, and verbalize their soft skills development. The app was developed in collaboration with representatives from several different Nordic universities together with game design students and project managers from the Department of Game Design with EU funding from Erasmus+ Programme.
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Game Design at Almedalen Week
Come listen to one or all of the seminars that the Department of Game Design is participating in during Almedalen Week 2022.
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Co-creation of a Serious Game About Radiotherapy
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).
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Alumni Days December 9-10
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.
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Congratulations, Professor Doris Rusch!
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!
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Game Devs of Color Expo: Kayode Shonibare-Lewis speaks on September 25, 2021
One of the speakers at the Game Devs of Color Expo, teaches at the Department of Game Design, Kayode Shonibare-Lewis.
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Upptalk with Professor Doris Rusch
Listen to Uppsala University's first professor in Game Design, Professor Doris Rusch, in Upptalk Weekly, 16 november, kl 12-12.30: "Game Design, Witches and Transformation".
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Games that create meaning - interview with researcher and Senior Lecturer, Doris Rusch
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.
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Co-creative game design at TEDx Uppsala University
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.
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Game Educators Summit 2017
HEVGA teams up with Uppsala University and Gotland Game Conference to expand international goals.
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Summer school 2016 to focus on improving health through game design
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.
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Ritual: The Importance of Framing Transformational Experiences
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 ZoomRegister here: https://tinyurl.com/eh3462e5
Link will be provided to registrants on the day of the event.
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Introducing the Master's in Transformative Game Design (60 cr.)
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.
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Three Teams Nominated at Swedish Game Awards
Swedish Game Awards will be held 8-9 September 2023 in Stockholm. Among the nominated games are three teams from the Department of Game Design!
www.gameawards.se/nominees-2023
Fail Fail Succeed
Ball Bash
Haunted Heist -
Nordic DiGRA (Digital Game Research Association)
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.
-
Presentation at GDC in San Francisco
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.
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Transformative Game Design: Freestanding Graduate Courses and Certificate 2023-2024
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.
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Lecture: "Playing with Perspective: Metareflection and Immersion in Embodied Role-playing” by Hilda Levin
Join us for our next lecture in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series: "Playing with Perspective: Metareflection and Immersion in Embodied Role-playing” by Hilda Levin!
- When: Tuesday, February 21, 7-8:30PM Central European Summer Time (CEST)
- Where: Online on Zoom
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Event: "Forgotten Gems: Early Role-playing Game Theory" by J. Tuomas Harviainen
Join us for our next lecture in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series: "Forgotten Gems: Early Role-playing Game Theory” by J. Tuomas Harviainen!
When: Tuesday, January 24, 7-8:30pm Central European Time (CET)
Where: Online on Zoom