Game studies have increasingly incorporated aspects of practice, from non-normative forms of playing or Let’s Playing to making and re-making games, as modes of knowledge production and outreach. An early attempt at codifying and reflecting upon these practices is the “The Georgia Tech Approach to Game Research and Education” (Bogost et al. 2005) and its “Experimental Game Lab” (66). With the Utrecht Game Lab, we understand game-making as a form of rhetoric, of participating in public discourse through the ‘language of games’, and co-designing existing games and game franchises as a form of ‘response’ to the ideas and ideologies put forth in commercial games.
What We Do
- (Bi)weekly design and playtesting workshops (offline, online, hybrid)
Work on and playtest design projects for research projects, societal partners, student projects or simply for fun. - Contribute design expertise to ongoing research projects (Horizon, Comenius, USO)
- Advise and collaborate on projects of our partners
Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development (UU), Wageningen Games Hub, Manchester Game Centre, Cologne Game Lab - Organize digital and analogue play sessions
Both for fun and as a critical, collective practice
Guiding Principles
Our use of game design as part of research, teaching and public communication is informed by the following three core ideas.
Discursive Game Design
Learning how games ‘work’ as a medium ‘by design’.
* From game-as-text to game design as ongoing discourse
* Games as a medium of multidirectional social comment.
Codesigning Games and Game Franchises
Learning how games ‘work’ as a medium ‘by design’.
* Co-designing and modding as ‘speaking back’ through games
* Re-imagining analogue and digital games as material
* Playful (re)use of accessible tools and materials.
Creative Metagaming Practices
Experimenting with non-normative, transformative forms of play.
* Paratextual practice like streaming or Let’s Playing
* Metagaming practices like in-game photography
* Developing game literacy ‘by doing’, i.e. through personal, social and/or mediatized play.
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Making data playable: A game co-creation method to promote creative data literacy