GLAM Games: Gaps and Glimmers in the Visitor Experience

Earlier this month I was lucky enough to be able to speak together with the wonderful George Martin & Sophia Booij about escape rooms in the classroom at the GLAM Games conference to be held at UniSA on the 25th of September!

George, Sophia and I chatted about “Escaping the classroom” – engaging students with history. In this talk we spoke about our third year game design students who created an escape room designed to engage high school students with Ancient Egypt. Our amazing students then worked together with the Edmund Rice Flexi School to support the high school students to create their own escape room!

We spoke about the benefits of escape rooms for sharing knowledge and how their design connects to existing pedagogical theories. We also chatted about the advantage of escape rooms not only for those playing them, but also to those building them. It was an extremely engaging and interesting project and it was a joy to see our students grow not only as designers but as mentors throughout the experience.

Graphic Horizons Comics Symposium

On the 14th of September I was lucky enough to speak at the Graphic Horizons Comics Symposium. I was able to share some the work I carried out with David Blaiklock from UniSA around our Augmented Reality Comic project. We spoke about our project ‘Alice’, a digital comic incorporating an augmented reality application that depicts a deepening father/daughter relationship whilst on an Australian road trip. In merging the comics format with augmented reality, this comic facilitates deep engagement leveraging the multiple narrative perspectives & multisensory experiences typical of the comics form. However, extending it beyond its physical surface and primary story into multifaceted times and settings through AR, which the reader/viewer is able to choose, involves the reader/viewer even further in generating the narrative order and content. For example, not only is the reader/viewer is able to discover multiple hidden perspectives by seeing 360 degree imagery from the point-of-view of the character and alternate events, handwritten notes on maps, hear recordings of voices and sound and view video in response to their own physical interactions with the comic, they are also able to manipulate these through elements of game play. This paper will introduce this recent intermedial Australian comic to the audience and explain how and why we took the approach to the comics form that they did to tell this story.

The symposium was a really great opportunity to connect with people from the comics space in a friendly and inspiring setting. I saw some really great presentations and it was so nice to explore a new academic area – comic people seem great! 🙂 Thanks so much to those who organised and took part in the symposium, and for being so supportive and welcoming!

AVCON Adelaide Panels!

I was lucky enough to be invited to speak on two panels at AVCon (Adelaide’s Anime and Video Games Festival) this year which ran from July 21-23.

On Saturday I spoke on the Women in Gaming Q&A panel with some wonderful other women doing great things here in SA! A special thanks to AVCON for organising and running this panel – thank you for having me!

On Sunday I was invited to be a part of a Panel run by UniSA about Careers in Gaming. The panel was hosted by Associate Professor Stewart Von Itzstein and I shared the stage with the wonderful Billy Bizilis and Lindsay Talbot – I loved hearing all about their stories and experiences and the different ways in which we’ve each enjoyed careers in games! Thanks so much UniSA for organising this panel, thanks to Stewart for hosting and thank you to Billy and Lindsay for sharing your stories and the stage with me!

Mercury CX Screenmakers Conference 2021

On September 10, I will be a panellist at the Mercury CX Screenmakers Conference on the panel ‘Level up your story’.

Together with James Marshall, Ken Wong and Ella MacIntyre, I’ll be talking about story and narrative in games and discussing how screen makers can consider and utilise elements of interactivity in their own work.

Games is a multi-billion dollar industry and narrative games are rising in popularity and attracting loyal audiences. So what kinds of narratives work well in games and what do you need to consider in translating your story to a game?

Mercury CX

Accelerator for Enterprising Women Adelaide

On the 18th of June, I will be helping to facilitate an idea generation workshop at the Accelerator for Enterprising Women Adelaide event held at the UniSA City West campus.

The Accelerator for Enterprising Women is a national initiative funded by the Australian Government’s Women’s Leadership and Development Program.

The program is designed to support and empower young women aged 18 to 24 years to create self-made Job Maker career paths, pursue entrepreneurship as a viable career choice and to ensure Australia’s next generation of businesswomen have the skills required to run their own businesses and transform the industries in which they work.

Enterprising Women

I’m looking forward to the workshop and to seeing all the great ideas generated during the session!

ANROWS National Research Conference on Violence Against Women

I recently presented a paper on my game Hannah: A Friend in Need and my PhD Research at the 2021 ANROWS Research Conference.

The ANROWS National Research Conference on Violence against Women and their Children explored how policymakers, practice designers and practitioners are using evidence to understand, respond to and prevent violence against women and their children.

Anrows National Conference

Games and Learning Alliance Conference 2020

On the 10th of December, I exhibited my game Hannah: A Friend in Need at the Games and Learning Alliance (GALA)’s 2020 conference.

GALA 2021 is an international conference dedicated to the science and application of serious games… organised by the Serious Games Society.

Serious Games Society

The GALA Conference used a virtual world platform which meant we were able to present our games and posters in real-time through avatars. Whilst this meant a 2am wakeup for me in Australia I think it worked really well!