Grand Text Auto

The new book, edited by Réjane Dreifuss / Simon Hagemann / Izabella Pluta (eds.)

Live Performance and Video Games Inspirations, Appropriations and Mutual Transfers 2024.

Narrative strategies, immersion, interaction, participation, identification, multimodality, characters and the connection between physical and fictional or virtual worlds: the fields of inquiry into the complex relationship between live performance and video games are numerous and diverse. For the first time, this collection brings together international researchers and artists to explore this relationship in a variety of essays. The contributors to this volume focus on reciprocal inspirations, appropriations and transfers applied by theatre artists, game designers and researchers. They analyze several artistic forms such as VR performance, immersive theatre, speedrunning or game theatre.

Mary is to keynote the fantastic 20th annual Women in Games on Friday October 11^th, the Day of the Girl, our virtual conference has a focussed theme of PLAY GROUNDED: An Exploration of Play Landscapes, which is curated through the lens of Women in Games.

SHERI GRANER RAY, MARY FLANAGAN & APHRA KERR TO KEYNOTE WIG CONFERENCE

The Strong Museum’s American Journal of Play team interviewed Mary about games, art and critical play! Read the interview here.

Professor Flanagan participated in the Ditchley Foundation’s thinktank on the “Impact of AI on work and education.” Focusing on the large questions of our time, the group debated questions such as, “Should we be adopting a precautionary principle, waiting to see what unwanted effects might emerge? Or does that risk companies being outcompeted, and, in education, students left unprepared for the world of work they will be entering? Should students and teachers be encouraged to embrace AI now to learn through experimentation, or is that premature? and “If work is changing, then how does education need to adapt in response in order to prepare people to enter the world of work?”

Card games are more often associated with family-gatherings or leisurely afternoons than with realizing social change. However, one group of game designers is creating games with an aim to do just that.

Tiltfactor Lab, a Dartmouth College research laboratory with Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor Mary Flanagan at the helm, is dedicated to “creating games for social change.” They designed and produce Buffalo—described by Amazon reviewers as an “extremely simple,” “adaptable” party game—and Awkward Moment—and is “an interesting, family-friendly card game that is worthy of your attention” and “makes you laugh”— provide more than just endless fun at parties. According to a paper to be printed in CyberPsychology’s upcoming issue devoted to the prosocial effects of games, Buffalo and Awkward Moment are also games with a proven purpose. These games have been shown to change players’ implicit biases without them ever knowing!

The Dice Tower Network features Dr. Flanagan in its podcast that explores games, game design, history and culture. This episode is hosted by Gil Hova and Emma Larkins, both tabletop designers. The hour long conversation explores psychology and games, and the meaning of games from a long term humanistic perspective. Happy listening. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ludology/id419046224

NarraScope is just a cool cool event, and this year it’s pay what you can and online. NarraScope 2020: Celebrating Narrative Games May 28 – June 4  2020. On Thursday May 28, we discovered that Matthew Farber is running “Terrifically Awkward: Games To Teach Social Emotional Learning” (link) using our very own Awkward Moment party card game for middle school age kids and older. Hurray! The game is backordered at Uncommon Goods, whah! but is available on Amazon.

We’re excited to announce the release of the report on our large research project on bias and women in STEM! Check out Cutting Through the Bias: Using Games and Interactive Experiences to Transform Bias Against Women in STEM is now available on Amazon! This book is an indispensable document of our innovative research and study findings. The book also outlines interventions and prototypes that can be used by educators to reduce the impact of bias in the classroom.

Years ago we created a board game, POX: Save the People, a gane tgat helped players understand infections diseases, as well as ZOMBIEPOX and POX: Save the Puppies, about vaccinating pets. Watch a video about the project, read an interview, and read one paper about an empirical study, looking at the basic question of whether transferring a public health game from an analog to a digital format would impact players’ perceptions of the game and the efficacy of the game for stimulating changes to beliefs and cognitions; or read paper two which looked at the design process and how we modeled “herd immunity.” We love public health, with or without the undead.

We’ve just completed data collection on our VR study!

Stay tuned for more information as we submit our results for publication…!

Professor Flanagan talks about the future of work and automation on The Exchange. Check out the show!

https://www.nhpr.org/post/exchange-depth-new-hampshire-s-workforce-shortage#stream/0

In February, Tiltfactor director Mary Flanagan was honored to be invited to Dubai by the organizers of the World Government Summit and the creative leadership group THNK for the UN/OECD-based Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) In Action workshop at the annual World Government Summit. Mary presented the group findings on industry goals, along with government ministers from around the world as an invited guest.

In February, Tiltfactor director Mary Flanagan was honored to be invited to Dubai by the organizers of the World Government Summit and the creative leadership group THNK for the UN/OECD-based Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) In Action workshop at the annual World Government Summit. Mary presented the group findings on industry goals, along with government ministers from around the world as an invited guest.

This week we lost a true great philosopher-king of play: Bernie DeKoven, who passed away in Indiana on Sunday. Founder of “The Games Preserve,” a game retreat center in Pennsylvania, he then went on to become involved in the New Games Movement, a 1970s collective that focused on physical and cooperative play to encourage dialogue and move away from competitive conflict resolution. During the Vietnam War, this movement stood out as having underlying political themes, and the games developed reshaped consciousness in a positive way. Bernie became the director of the New Games Foundation which created highly influential training programs as well as The New Games Book. Bernie “Blue” DeKoven brought his unstoppable brightness to his work as an organizer, trainer, thinker, writer, and activist. He impacted so many lives, including mine on both a personal and professional level.

This week we lost a true great philosopher-king of play: Bernie DeKoven, who passed away in Indiana on Sunday. Founder of “The Games Preserve,” a game retreat center in Pennsylvania, he then went on to become involved in the New Games Movement, a 1970s collective that focused on physical and cooperative play to encourage dialogue and move away from competitive conflict resolution. During the Vietnam War, this movement stood out as having underlying political themes, and the games developed reshaped consciousness in a positive way. Bernie became the director of the New Games Foundation which created highly influential training programs as well as The New Games Book. Bernie “Blue” DeKoven brought his unstoppable brightness to his work as an organizer, trainer, thinker, writer, and activist. He impacted so many lives, including mine on both a personal and professional level.

Mary is representing at the World Government Summit this February; it’s an annual event held in Dubai, UAE that brings together governmental and thought leaders across the disciplines for dialogue about government, the environment, and technology. Mary will be contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals aspects of the gathering.

Mary is representing at the World Government Summit this February; it’s an annual event held in Dubai, UAE that brings together governmental and thought leaders across the disciplines for dialogue about government, the environment, and technology. Mary will be contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals aspects of the gathering.

At the  recent annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, from January 23rd and 26th, Mary Flanagan offered her thought leadership on panels, dinners, and gave a presentation on games for impact. The panel “Putting Jobs Out of Work” had an excellent team of business leaders and academics; watch the video of  her solo talk, “Game Changers: Playing Games for Good” and read a (mostly) accurate description of the talk.

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At the  recent annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, from January 23rd and 26th, Mary Flanagan offered her thought leadership on panels, dinners, and gave a presentation on games for impact. The panel “Putting Jobs Out of Work” had an excellent team of business leaders and academics; watch the video of  her solo talk, “Game Changers: Playing Games for Good” and read a (mostly) accurate description of the talk.

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This week our director Mary Flanagan joins leaders from business, government, media,  academia, and the arts in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum’s 48th annual meeting. Read more in the Dartmouth News.

Maanvi Singh has a piece about Buffalo on Code Switch, a race and culture outlet and a weekly podcast from American public radio network NPR. How awesome!  Also listen to her earlier piece for Weekend Edition. Singh plays the game and interviews experts about the possibilities of shifting mental biases through games. When it is not sold out, the game is available through our retail partner Resonym on Amazon!

There’s a new article by Matt Hongoltz-Hetling (@hh_matt) on Iowa farming strategies at the Weather Channel featuring some ideas from Professor Flanagan about motivating sustainable farming! There is other commentary from other faculty here at Dartmouth as well. Enjoy thinking about motivating sustainable behavior!! (Photo by Zach Boyden-Holmes).

Tiltfactor has just started a local game development meet up –the Upper Valley Game Designers Meeting! Yes. First meeting is this Thursday, 6th July 2017, 6:30pkm at the lab, 245 Black Arts in Hanover NH.

Mary will be speaking in Delft next week, held jointly by ISAGA (International Simulation and Gaming Association) and SAGANET and at the Games for Change Festival in July!

Typographers, fashionators, and makers of things most beautiful: Mary Flanagan and the Tiltfactor team are looking for an inventive new partner in design! We just posted an opportunity for an excellent graphic designer in our creative lab for social impact at Dartmouth College.

We do both print and digital projects, as you likely know, so we are looking for someone with a broad range of skills. Apply with your portfolio if you have inventive design chops and care about our mission. Remote work is possible, but for us to consider that, please be both an excellent designer and very organized.   The official posting is here!