GDC: 2024!

Earlier this month I was lucky enough to attend GDC in San Francisco. There were so many interesting talks and speakers that it was a very busy few days for me!

The most interesting talks for me were part of the education stream where I got to learn all about how other universities and lecturers across the world are teaching game design and development. I connected with some amazing people and learned some really great ideas that I’m looking forward to trying in our programs here at UniSA.

I came away with some really interesting insights into how people are creating some wonderfully inclusive and diverse game design programs that value the development process and the learnings of this so much more than the final product – it’s the journey that matters!

Thanks for having me GDC!

The Wire: Beyond the TableTop

Last week I was lucky enough to speak with Emma Wotzke from The Wire about the benefits of TTRPGs for social and emotional wellbeing. This year is the 50th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons and it’s really great to see the popularity of the game and TTRPGs in general so high in 2024!

We chatted about the use of TTRPGs for social growth and the research in this space. I also got to talk about how TTRPGs can work towards bridging the “double empathy problem”, allowing neurodivergent and neurotypical people to promote social growth and strengthen cross neurotype communication! Emma also spoke to Michael Keady who is a counsellor using D&D in their work.

You can listen to the full story here: https://www.thewire.org.au/story/beyond-the-tabletop-can-d-and-d-support-social-and-emotional-wellbeing/