Schedule

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Friday, October 12, 2018

4 PM- 5 PM: Registration & Arcade Opening

Play games and meet designers in the curated 2018 Different Games Conference Arcade, featuring our first-ever arcade track.

Location: Fuller Labs 222

5 PM – 5:30 PM: Opening Notes

  • Different Games Collective and WPI IMGD

Location: Perrault Hall Upper

5:30 PM – 6:30 PM: Keynote Address

Location: Perrault Hall Upper

6:30 PM – 8 PM: Arcade

Play these the games in our curated arcade and meet the designers!

8 PM – 10 PM: Opening Reception

Higgins House, see this map for reference.


Saturday, October 13, 2018

9 AM – 9:30 AM: Registration & Check-in

9:30 AM – 10:30 AM: Keynote Address

Location: Perrault Hall Upper

11 AM – 12:30 PM: Concurrent Panels

System Driven Procedural Game Design

Moderated by Yifat Shaik

  • Chris Martens, “Towards Social Simulation with Queerness, Consent, and Healthy Relationships”
  • Joel Jordan, “Boss Battle: Using Socially Negotiable Rules in Physical Games to Unionize Your Player-Workers”
  • Alex Zandra Van Chestein, “The Legend of Replayability: What Roguelites Can Learn From The Link to the Past Randomizer”
  • Chris Kerich, “Making Art out of Games”

Location: Perrault Hall Lower

Alternative Play Practices

Moderated by Sarah Shoemann

  • Flan Falacci, “Ambient Systems”
  • Karina Popp, “Bodies at Rest: Feminist Photography in Games”

Location: Fuller Labs 320

Multiculturalism in Video Games

Moderated by Ahmed K. Yousof, track chair

  • Jennifer Olive “Liyla’s Lesson: Games as Witnessing Bodies via Ethical Player Interaction”
  • Wally Simmons-Edler “The Great Chasm of Nonbinary Content”
  • Rebecca Rouse and Amy Corron “Incorporating Intergroup Dialogue to Diversify the Games Classroom”
  • David L. Parrott and Tinukwa Boulder, “Learning Language and Culture in a Multi-player Video-game Environment: A Pilot Study”

Location: Perrault Hall Upper

12:30 PM – 2 PM: Lunch

Higgins House, see this map for reference.

2 PM – 3:30 PM: Concurrent Panels

Representation in & from the Margins

Moderated by Collette Quach, track chair

  • Stephanie Orme, “‘You don’t look like a gamer!’: The body politics of ‘gamer’ identities”
  • Kenton Taylor Howard, “Romance never changes… or does it?: Queer relationship and modding in Fallout 4”
  • Collette Quach, “Knife Ears and Horned Savages: Phantasms and the Lived World”

Location: Perrault Hall Lower

What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Games

Moderated by Jennifer deWinter

  • Gillian Smith, “We Don’t Talk About Responsibility”
  • James Malazita, “We Don’t Talk About Games”
  • Rebecca Rouse, “We Don’t Talk About Rigor and Criticality”

Location: Perrault Hall Upper

Different Tools for Different Game Developers

Moderated by Michael Anthony DeAnda

  • Chris Martens, “Building Ruleset Models with Ceptre”

Location: Fuller Labs 320

3:45 PM – 5:15 PM: Concurrent Panels

Game Collectives

Moderated by Michael Anthony DeAnda

  • Jonah Davidson, “Building Sustainable and Inclusive Game Dev Communities”
  • Enric Llagostera, Carolyn Jong and Sagan Yee, “Reclaiming games, building community and fighting fascism: a recap of Game Curious Montréal”

Location: Perrault Hall Lower

Being Human

Moderated by Kara Stone

  • Geneviève Leblanc, “I Can Be My Worst Enemy – Work-Life Balance for Community Managers”
  • Bahiyya Khan, “When your game makes you want to die: What to consider when making a personal game”
  • Myriame Lachapelle, “Dead Tired: Finishing a Game while Staying Alive”

Location: Perrault Hall Upper

Close Readings

Moderated by Sarah Shoemann

  • Hyacinth Ramsay, “No Higher Court: Alternative Morality in Games”
  • Carol Mertz, “Home on the Range: An Analysis of Gender VAlues in Harvest Moon 3 GBC”
  • Renee Ann Drouin, “You Must Remember This: Gendered Conflicts and Stereotypes within Interactive Dramas”
  • Andrew Martinez, “A Hopeful Vision of the Future? Gender, Meritocracy, and the Limits of Techno-utopian Discourse in Overwatch

Location: Fuller Labs 320

5:30 PM – 6:30 PM: Concluding Thoughts

Moderated by Different Games Collective and WPI IMGD

Location: Perrault Hall Upper

8 PM: Different Games Conference Party

Sahara Restaurant
143 Highland Street, Worcester, MA, 01609. Click here for a Google Map.


Sunday, October 14, 2018

10 AM – 12 PM: Concurrent Workshops

{Craft|Game} Play

  • Gillian Smith, track chair
  • Jayd Matyas, “Play Nice: Diverse Perspectives in Immersive Game Design”
  • Jennifer deWinter and Karen Royer, “Inscribe – A playful craft and crafty game”
  • Carly Kocurek, “Crafting a Game for Grieving”

Location: Fuller Labs 311

Virtual Mechanics in Actual Reality

  • Alenn Predko, track chair.
  • Nadine Lessio, “Playing with Personal Assistants IRL”
  • Tuuli Saarinen, “How UX Design Can Fix Your Game”

Location: Fuller Labs 320

Exploring Weird Unity for Artists and Beginners

  • Sagan Yee, “Exploring Weird Unity for Artists and Beginners”
  • Steffi Shook, “Super-indie games: A historical justification”

Location: Fuller Labs 222