Game-changing Design: Presentation from Creating Conversations 2017

My second talk in as many weeks took place at the Scottish Youth Theatre in Glasgow's Old Sheriff Court. Glasgow Caledonian University's (GCU) Dr Mary Maclachlan put together Creating Conversations 2017. This was the second edition of the Creating Conversations event after last year's success.

The format was a full-day conference for third- and fourth-year students in the programmes of Graphic Design for Digital Media, 3D Animation and Visualisation, and Games Art and Animation at GCU. The student-focused conference invites keynote speakers and final-year students to discuss their work and ideas in order to inspire and support all students' research agendas.

I was invited to the event as a keynote speaker, where I discussed my research and inspiration with games. The informality of the event allowed for a more conversational tone from what I have been used to; it was a welcomed change of pace to take a step back and just talk about my work (while trying to provide a good level of information.)

Discussing Killbox (Biome Collective and Joseph DeLappe) as part of my presentation (Image credit: Lauren Currie)

The presentation was titled Game-changing Design as a (poor) attempt to spin my research in an informal and witty manner. The core of the talk revolved around what makes games an attractive medium of choice when designing for change, and in what way I am using these theories to design experiences in order to achieve awareness. The slides are available from SlideShare.

I would like to extend my thanks to Dr Maclachlan for the invitation and the opportunity to present. I'd also like to thank Lauren Currie, whose inspirational opening keynote gave me a much-needed confidence boost in public speaking (check out #upfront, an initiative on sharing confidence in public speaking among others, and consider using it in the future!) I'd also like to thank the students who attended and were very welcoming to my talk.