Different Games Conference

Registration closes at 6 pm, Wednesday, April 24. Unfortunately, we cannot offer extra tickets once the event has sold out.

Different Games is a two-day conference on diversity and inclusiveness in digital games, hosted April 26-27, 2013 at NYU’s Polytechnic Institute in downtown Brooklyn. Different Games is a space for radical discussions of representation in games and the relationship of the medium to designer and player identity. See our website at: www.differentgames.org.

As game designers, theorists, journalists and players often produce their work in contexts separated by their specialized fields, we see Different Games as an opportunity to share across these professional boundaries. By presenting games, scholarship and hands-on workshops engaged with these topics, we hope to foster a dialogue between artistic, academic and commercial practice unique to how discussions of diversity and representation are able to exist in academic and industry settings. We welcome all individuals, groups and companies invested in games as creative, critical tools, and who are committed to aiding commercial game design, indie games and academic game studies to reflect the complexity, depth and diversity of all involved.

SCHEDULE

Friday, April 26: Dibner Building, Pfizer Auditorium, NYU Polytech, Brooklyn NY

Attendees must check in at our Welcome Table in the lobby of Dibner Building at NYU Polytech. The conference badge we give you will grant you guest access to the campus during the event times. Events start on time. Please come early to avoid congestion and lines; if you have not picked up your badge by 4:30pm, we cannot ensure you will be able to move through registration in time for the start of the conference.

3:00 pm: Doors open, registration
Dibner Building Lobby

5:00 pm: Opening Welcome
Dibner Building, Pfizer Auditorium
Kristen Day | Chair of the Department of Technology, Culture and Society | NYU Polytech

5:15 pm: Paris Plays Along: Curating a Major Exhibition to Put Games in a New Light
Dibner Building, Pfizer Auditorium

Lynn Hughes | Chair of Interactive Design and Games Innovation | Concordia University in Montreal
Heather Kelley | Heather Kelley | Media artist, Curator, and Game Designer | Perfect Plum, Kokoromi
Cindy Poremba | FQRSC Postdoctoral Fellow | School of Image Arts | Ryerson University

6:30 pm: Keynote: "Critical Play: Inclusive Design, Revolutionary Games"
Dibner Building, Pfizer Auditorium

Mary Flanagan | Dartmouth College | Founder of Tiltfactor

7:30 pm: Reception

8:00 pm: Game Arcade
Dibner Building, Game Innovation Lab

Food and drink are not allowed in the Game Innovation Lab.

Saturday, April 27: Dibner Building, Pfizer Auditorium, NYU Polytech, Brooklyn NY

Attendees must check in at our Welcome Table in the lobby of Dibner Building at NYU Polytech. The conference badge we give you will grant you guest access to the campus during the event times. Events start on time. Please come early to avoid congestion and lines; if you have not picked up your badge by 4:30pm, we cannot ensure you will be able to move through registration in time for the start of the conference.

Jacobs Building must be entered from the Jay Street entrance. You must wear your conference badge to move between buildings.

Workshop Ticketing: Workshops B2 (Game Design with Twine) and D2 (Clapping Game Digitized) are ticketed events. Ticketing for these events will begin at 12:00 pm in the Dibner Building Lobby at the Welcome Table, on a first come-first serve basis. Please note the Materials Requirement for Workshop B2.

9:00 am: Doors open, registrations
Dibner Building Lobby

First 100 attendees receive a Different Games Conference tote bag!

Coffee and Pastries provided.

9:45 am: Opening Remarks
Dibner Building, Pfizer Auditorium
Sarah Schoemann | NYU PolyTech | Different Games Creator and Co-Organizer

10:15 am - 11:45 am: Session A

A1: PANEL: Who’s at the Table?: Approaches to Inclusive Play
Dibner Building, Pfizer Auditorium

Start Earlier, Start Different
Colleen Macklin | School of Art, Media and Technology | Parsons The New School for Design
John Sharp | School of Art, Media and Technology | Parsons The New School for Design

What’s in a Name?: The Controversial Case of Jennifer Hepler
Carolyn Jong | Department of Communication Studies | Concordia University

Why Designing Diversity in Games and Play Matters: A Case Study of Latino Gamers’ Experiences Across Gender
Gabriela T. Richard | Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development | New York University

Invisible Difference: Integration, Inclusion, and the Adaptive Play of Children with Disabilities
Alison Harvey | Faculty of Information | University of Toronto
Sara Grimes | Faculty of Information and Associate Director of the Semaphore Lab | University of Toronto

Moderated by Patrick Davison | Media, Culture and Communication | New York University

A2: WORKSHOP: Build Your Own Babycastles
Jacobs Building, Room 474

Babycastles leads a workshop on using large stuffed animals, chef knives, colorful duct tape, assorted blinking electronics, and the virus-writing windows scripting software "AutoHotkey", to turn independent software into resilient public arcades. Aspects such as assembling and acquiring hardware, curation, and why anyone who wants to can and should make their own public arcades will be discussed.

Arthur Ward, Jr. | game programmer | member and curator of Babycastles

A3: BREAKOUT: Queering Games
Jacobs Building, Room 417

This participatory workshop explores what disciplines outside game studies, including queer theory, information studies, and architecture theory, can say toward creating and playing queer games. It will foster a space for discussion where queer gamers, designers, researchers, and their allies can come together to ask what a queer game might look like and to inspire each other to move beyond games with queer subject matter into what could most deeply make a game itself queer. We hope to inspire new ideas for players, designers, and academics for how to bring a queer perspective to games and, ultimately, how to queer games themselves.

Naomi Clark | Brooklyn Games Ensemble
Riley MacLeod | Independent Researcher

12:00 pm: Workshop Ticketing
Workshops B2 (Game Design with Twine) and D2 (Clapping Game Digitized) are ticketed events. Ticketing for these events will begin at 12:00 pm in the Dibner Building Lobby at the Welcome Table, on a first come-first serve basis. Please note the Materials Requirement for Workshop B2.

12:00 pm: Lunch Break

1:00 pm - 2:30 pm: Session B

B1: PANEL: Critical Design
Dibner Building, Pfizer Auditorium

Games Colonialism: Cultural Assumptions in Game Design
Mohini Dutta | Co-Founder and Director of Narrative Strategies | Antidote Games

The Oldest Game: The Ethical Challenges of Making a Newsgame About Prostitution
Amanda Feder | Research Assistant | Concordia University

Radical Entertainment Arts: It Needs To Be In The Game
Raiford Guins | Cultural Analysis and Theory | Stony Brook University

Respondent: Nick Fortugno
Co-Founder/CCO | Playmatics

B2: WORKSHOP: Make Your Own Text Adventure Game with Twine
Jacobs Building, Room 475

This is a ticketed event. Ticketing will begin at 12:00 pm at the Welcome Table in Dibner Building on a first come-first serve basis. [20 Person Cap]

Create your own interactive story with Twine, a free tool for designing text-based games. Embraced by artists, indie developers and first-time game designers alike, Twine has been hailed for its simple (code free) interface and the ease with which new games can be quickly shared online. Join game designer Courtney Stanton (whose own collection of daily diaristic Twine games December, 2012 are on view at Different Games) to learn more about how Twine is expanding the possibilities for who online text adventure games can be made by and for, while producing your very first game. Participants must bring a PC or Mac laptop (PC recommended) with Twine already downloaded (http://www.gimcrackd.com/etc/src/)

Courtney Stanton | Game Designer
Merritt Kopas | Game Designer

B3: BREAKOUT: GAME ARCADE
Dibner Building, Game Innovation Lab

2:45 pm - 4:15 pm: Session C

C1: PANEL: Difference in Design: Creating Space Through Personal Perspective
Dibner Building, Pfizer Auditorium

Life is a Game
Mattie Brice | Game Critic

How to Make Games about Being a Dominatrix
Anna Anthropy | Artist and Game Creatrix

First Personal
Robert Yang | Indie Game Developer / Artist

The Fabricated, the Modern, and the Personal
Haitham Ennasr | Game Designer and New Media Artist

Moderated by Leigh Alexander | Editor-at-Large | Gamasutra

C2: WORKSHOP: Different Tools
Jacobs Building, Room 474

This workshop would provide an overview of accessible development tools and invite participants to think outside the box by looking at non-traditional tools that can be used for game development and invite participants to design a game during the second part of the workshop using non-digital tools (such as a board game or a choose your own adventure) and brainstorm ideas about how to expand these games into the digital space.

Ivan Safrin | Interactive artist, programmer and game designer | Designer of Polycode

4:30 pm - 6:00 pm: Session D

D1: PANEL: Queering the Encounters and Querying Representation: The Question of Embodiment in Gaming
Dibner Building, Pfizer Auditorium

Representation Matters?: Players’ Experiences of Game Content and Calls for Game Diversity
Adrienne Shaw | Department of Media Studies and Production | Temple University

Hate Speech and Harassment in Online Games
Staci Tucker | School of Journalism and Communication | University of Oregon

Queering Games
Ben Aslinger | Department of English and Media Studies | Bentley University

Moderated by Jacob Gaboury | Media, Culture and Communication | New York University

D2: WORKSHOP: Clapping Game Digitized
Jacobs Building, Room 414

This is a ticketed event. Ticketing will begin at 12:00 pm at the Welcome Table in Dibner Building on a first come-first serve basis. [16 Person Cap]

Let's digitize a clapping game with special game gloves you'll make with conductive fabric and a pair of work gloves. No soldering involved, but we'll use an iron! Materials provided.

Kaho Abe | Artist in Residence | Game Innovation Lab

D3: BREAKOUT: Until the Revolution Comes: Navigating Sexism in the Industry
Jacobs Building, Room 417

In this breakout session focused on women's experiences of sexism in the games industry, we will mine our personal stories of gender based discrimination for strategies to achieve our goals and take care of ourselves along the way. The open discussion will be a place to articulate that nagging discomfort we feel navigating the crowd of indie game dudes, to finally be warmly congratulated by our peers for confronting some sexist piece of bullshit, and to unabashedly express our ambitions for ourselves and for the games industry as a whole.

Ida C. Benedetto | Co-Founder and Executive Producer | Antidote Games
Chloe Varelidi | Mozilla Foundation | Co-Founder of Athens Playathon

6:45 pm: Keynote: "Kickstarting a Revolution, One Tweet at a Time"
Dibner Building, Pfizer Auditorium

Celia Pearce | School of Literature, Communication and Culture | Georgia Institute of Technology

Introduced by Laine Nooney | Cultural Analysis and Theory | Stony Brook University

8:00 pm: Light Reception