Upcoming: Women in Games Meet the Winners Series

Happy to be interviewed in the Women in Games Global Games Awards Meet the Winners Series, coming up tomorrow! July 1st at 1 PM EST. Find out when the stream is starting on the Women in Games Twitch channel at www.twitch.tv/wigj

Last week, I spoke at the Serious Play Conference on Design Principles for Early Education Apps.  In addition to new recommendations, I echoed what I've been saying in "What's Wrong with Pre-K Game Apps."

When asked for apps that I've been excited about, I praised Dragonbox Big Numbers and Bedtime Math.  

Instead of a bedtime story, why not a bedtime math problem? What do you think?

Upcoming CIMFest Keynote: Flavored by Authenticity

Hi!  If you missed our SXSW panel, you can catch it here on the SXSW 2021 YouTube channel.  It's completely different from the LudoNarraCon one even though the topic is the same.  There was just so much more to talk about emotional touchstones in emergent narrative!

If you want to know more about touchstones (Touchstones! Touchstones! Touchstones!), this Saturday June 12, 2021, we are headlining the Georgia Game Developers Association CIMFest and I also will be moderating IGDA GDSIG's skipped (due to the cancellation of GDC last year) roundtable, Creating Non-Toxic Gamer Communities.

Watch it for free on www.youtube.com/GeorgiaGameDevs 

Here's the deets!

Roundtable: Creating Non-Toxic Gamer Communities (1 PM Eastern)

What game design principles can be used to promote friendlier and harassment-free communities? Join us for a discussion on what strategies game designers can use to create safe virtual spaces that are enjoyable for all players. In particular, we focus on game mechanics that encourage community-oriented behaviors, the pros and cons of automated reporting, and how to minimize griefing.

 

Keynote Panel: Flavored by Authenticity: How Personal Experiences Amplify Narrative (3 PM Eastern)

Digital storytelling is a currently evolving medium and the push-and-pull nature of player interaction in video games provides an opportunity for the inclusion of personal touchstones in order to more deeply connect with and engage a broad audience. Over the past decade, there has been an increase in the examination of personal narrative elements as methods of engagement in teaching and community building, most notably by contributing a level of accessible authenticity. 

This keynote examines how personal narratives inform narrative and character design as a whole in a game or virtual setting, Join us for a look at moments in popular games informed by personal narrative, from the indie to the AAA level, and reflect on steps that might be taken in order to retain authenticity while avoiding the pitfalls that naturally come with the wholesale creation of fantastic and fictional spaces. 

Sande Chen

Profiled as one of the Game Industry's Top 100 Most Influential Women and a 2020 Women in Games Global Hall of Fame winner, Sande Chen is a writer and game designer with over 15 years of experience in the industry. Her writing credits include 1999 Independent Games Festival winner Terminus and the PC RPG of the Year, The Witcher, for which she was nominated for a 2007 Writers Guild Award in Videogame Writing. She is the co-author of Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform and was a contributor to Secrets of the Game Business, Writing For Video Game Genres, and Professional Techniques for Videogame Writing. She has been a speaker at numerous game-related conferences, including the Game Developers Conference, NY Comic Con, PAX East, and SXSW. She has been invited to the White House and represented the USA at the World Conference on Science Literacy. She also has a Grammy nomination.

Matthew Farber

Matthew Farber, Ed.D. is an assistant professor at the University of Northern Colorado, where he founded the Gaming SEL Lab. He has been invited to the White House, authored several books and papers, and is a frequent collaborator with UNESCO and Games for Change. His latest book is Gaming SEL: Games as Transformational to Social and Emotional Learning (bit.ly/GamingSEL). For more, please visit MatthewFarber.com.

Juliana Loh

Juliana Loh is an independent Producer/Artist whose background includes branded entertainment, UX and art direction. In addition to developing educational/gaming experiences, she has honed her artistic skills as a concept and gallery-showing artist while pioneering, empowering and supporting grassroots tech meetups and communities. Currently working as an instructor and immersive artist, she is keenly aware of how emerging technology is changing the way we relate to each other. She is currently designing story-based Pro-Kindness Workshops using VR360 based on user-centered design thinking.

Kimberly Unger 

Kimberly made her first videogame back when the 80-column card was the new hot thing and after 20+ years as a pro in that industry, the magic still hasn’t faded. Now she sources leading-edge content for Oculus, lectures on the intersection of art and code for UCSC in Games and Playable Media, wrangles a monthly column on science-fiction in videogames over at Amazing Stories and writes science fiction about how all these app-driven superpowers are going to change the human race. Her debut sci-fi novel, NUCLEATION is available now on Amazon and her next novel The Extractionist will be available in November of 2021. You can find her on Twitter at @Ing3nu or on her blog at www.ungerink.com.