News & Events from the Games & Society Lab

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.

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

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

• When: November 29, 2022, 7-8:30pm
• Where: Online on Zoom

Registration is now live and the programme is available for the in-person and online tracks for the Transformative Play Initiative 2022!

Where: Cramérgatan 3, Room B51, 621 57, Visby, Sweden
When: October 20-21, 2022
Online: Zoom

Join us for our next roundtable in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series, this time with Lauri Lukka, John Stavropoulos, Elektra Diakolambrianou, Yeonsoo Julian Kim, and Katrin Geneuss!

When: Tuesday, May 10, 2022, 7:00 – 8:30 pm CEST (Central European Summer Time).
Where: Online on Zoom

Announcing the Transformative Play Initiative Seminar at Uppsala University Campus Gotland in Sweden, October 20-21, 2022! Organized by the Games & Society Lab at the Department of Game Design with financial support from the Sustainable Heritage Research Forum (SuHRF), this hybrid online and in-person event will feature short academic presentations by researchers and practitioners in the fields of Role-playing Game Studies and adjacent activities. The theme for this seminar is Role-playing, Culture, and Heritage.

Join us for our next lecture in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series: “To Play or Not to Play: Edu-Larp in Curricular Settings" by Katrin Geneuss!
When: March 29, 2022, 7 – 8:30 PM Central European Time (CET)
Where: Online on Zoom

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

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

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.

Join us for our first roundtable in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series, this time with Whitney “Strix” Beltrán, Johanna Koljonen, Diana J. Leonard, Jaakko Stenros and Allen Turner!

When: Tuesday, November 9, 2021, 7:00 – 8:30 pm Central European Time. 
Where: Online on Zoom

Join us for our next lecture in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series: "Disrupting Monkey, Laughing Raven: The Magic of the Trickster's Dance” by Allen Turner!

When: Tuesday, October 26, 7-8:30pm Central European Time (CEST)
Where: Online on Zoom

Members of The Transformative Play Initiative are presenting at the Edu-larp Conference (4 October 2021) and at the Knutepunkt conference in Oslo (7-10 October 2021).

Join us for our next lecture in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series: "Why Do Humans Play? Exploring the Functions, Benefits, and Meanings of (Dark) Play" by Jaakko Stenros.

When: Tuesday, October 12, 7-8:30pm Central European Time (CEST)
Where: Online on Zoom

Join us for our next lecture in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series: "Playing for Pain: Benefits, Pitfalls, and Strategies for Role-playing Marginalized Characters” by Diana J. Leonard!

When: Sept 21, 2021, 7:00-8:30pm Central European Summer Time (CEST)
Where: Online on Zoom

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

Join us for our first lecture in the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series, "Everything is the Self: Designing Character Ensembles for Player Catharsis" by award-winning game designer and depth psychologist Whitney "Strix" Beltrán!

• Date: Tuesday, July 13
• Time: 19.00-20.30pm Central European Summer Time (CEST)
• Online on Zoom

We are pleased to announce the Transformative Play Initiative Event Series at Uppsala University's Department of Game Design. Starting in July 2021, the series will feature monthly events, including lectures and roundtables, from prominent thinkers and practitioners interested in using role-playing games as vehicles for change. We will also hold Town Hall Meetings for group discussions and lightning talks from community members on topics pertaining to transformative play. These events will take place on Zoom and will be archived in YouTube for posterity. 

The Games & Society Lab speaker series continues! 
The series invites practitioners and researchers in and around game design to present their work, thoughts, and process. In this episode, Cale Passmore talks about discrimination and representation in digital games and gives us a set of best practices they’ve developed.

The Games & Society Lab speaker series continues! 
The series invites practitioners and researchers in and around game design to present their work, thoughts, and process. In this episode, Dr. Marie Jarrell talks about embodied identification, the connection you get from controlling a game character. Can playing games change the way we see ourselves? Can it change how we see the people around us?

The Games & Society Lab is happy to announce the first episode of our new Speaker Series! 
The series invites practitioners and researchers in and around game design to present their work, thoughts, and process. In this first episode, Henrike Lode talks about perseverance, experimental prototyping and some of the joys and challenges of being a game developer.

We're excited to announce new cutting-edge research published by the journal IEEE Transactions on Games by our own Joshua Juvrud and Magnus Johannson, along with Gabriel Ansgariusson and Patrik Selleby! This study measures what happens in the mind when participants watch and play video games.