An interview with Dr. Kristina R. Llewellyn about the Digital Oral Histories for Reconciliation project
A Spotlight on Games Institute Executive Director, Dr. Neil Randall
From October 10th to October 13th, 2023, CHI PLAY took place at the Stratford School of Business and Interaction Design. In this retrospective, we sit down with GI faculty Drs. Cayley MacArthur, Jen Whitson and Leah Zhang-Kennedy who recount their experiences at CHI PLAY, including what makes it so unique, what they took away from the 2023 conference, and what advice they would give to those looking to attend in the future.
Dr. Cayley MacArthur is a long-standing name in the Games Institute (GI) ever since the GI opened its physical doors to researchers and students. She’s spent time here working on her undergraduate and Master’s theses, her Doctoral research, and has officially joined the GI as a faculty member. As Assistant Professor, Dr. MacArthur teaches out of UWaterloo’s Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business. But how did she get here? Well, luckily, Dr. MacArthur took the time to answer questions we had for her about her time at the GI and her hopes of continuing on with her research.
From May 15 – 19, 2023, the Games Institute (GI) hosted the second International Conference on Games and Narrative (ICGaN). It focused on the theme Isolation and Return: The Making of Narrative Worlds. Speakers from 40 universities joined from around the world explained how, societally, we have all been forced to consider and rethink personal and communal lives necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The final turnout of the 2023 conference resulted in 17 sessions, 47 unique presentations, 5 keynotes, 3 workshops, 4 academic game streams, and a game jam.
Dr. Cayley MacArthur (Stratford) delivered the keynote address at the inaugural Jeux & Accessibilité / Game Accessibility conference took place on August 17 – 18, 2023 in Montreal, Québec. Her address - “Can Making Games Inclusively Help to Make More Inclusive Games?” – responded to the conference themes of video game accessibility.
On August 9, 2023, Dr. Ifi Mavridou and Dr. John E. Muñoz (J&F Alliance, Adjunct) spoke at a panel on the use of physiological monitoring, biofeedback equipment, and tools for VR applications and research. Both researchers are experts in this field, with Mavridou talking about the creation and design of hardware and Muñoz about design and the use of software, they presented their experiences on what these tools can offer for research in games and more. The applications that both Mavridou and Muñoz work with are cutting edge and provide researchers with a toolkit on how they can design and approach their studies. This approach personalizes and tailors the study design not only to make it easier for researchers but also for study participants to jointly design and study immersive experiences.
On September 27th, the Ken Seiling Waterloo Region Museum unveiled a new exhibit to the public—”Dibaajimowin | Stories From this Land.” The exhibit was assembled by Anishinaabe curator Emma Rain Smith, an MA student from Waterloo. The exhibit highlights Indigenous contributions to the region’s history with an emphasis on Urban Indigeneity. GI members Dr. Aynur Kadir (University of British Columbia) and PhD student Sid Heeg (Environment, Enterprise, and Development) took part in the design, curation, and research associated with the exhibition. The entire project is the result of the collaborative work between researchers, activists, and community members from the region, including the University of Waterloo and Wilfred Laurier University.
If you have spent more than an hour at the Games Institute, you have probably found yourself drawn into a conversation about Lord of the Rings (LOTR) in some capacity, even if it’s not your cup of tea! Executive Director, Dr. Neil Randall has been writing and teaching about Tolkien since the late 80s as part of his Fantasy Literature classes, and his enthusiasm for LOTR is infectious, leading many students to pursue research in this area and many more LOTRs debates to play out during lunch at the GI.
On Wednesday, October 5th the Games Institute opened its doors to the public for its annual Open House. Guests were able to explore the entire 9000-square-foot GI space, including lab spaces, to discover the interactive and immersive technologies research conducted in the GI’s collaborative interdisciplinary environment.