Be gay, make games

Subject is not scheduled Not scheduled

Code Completion Credits Range Language Instruction Semester
307MGMG credit 3 24 hours (45 min) of instruction per semester, 57 to 72 hours of self-study English winter

Subject guarantor

Name of lecturer(s)

Department

The subject provides Department of Photography

Contents

Did you know Tetris and Candy Crush are about capitalism? You probably realized that while dissociate-playing it on your way to work. However, did you know that Animal Crossing is really gay? Maybe. Maybe you don't even know what any of those are. Whatever the answers and whether you like it or not, we live in a progressively gamified world. Your social media, new media old media, it is all relying on the split-second decisions and finger movements you make, not so different from those gamers employ when playing first-person shooters. But you know all of that. The real question is: What do we do with that as artists? And more concretely, what are some transgressive forms of resistance we can employ?

The workshop “Be gay, make games” goes to the source of the current obsession with gamification and is a deep, yet not overwhelming tour into the dungeons of queer game studies which present an alternative to the dominant understanding of success, fun, and happiness. The two blocks consisting of a total of three days will start with a theoretical and practical introduction to the field, followed up by a strictly practical part at the end of which you will have your own little queered story in a playable form. The goal of the workshop is not to engage in game-making or strive for publishing but rather to acquire a deeper discursive knowledge with a hands-on experience that hopefully allows you to make more sense of how to navigate and counter the gamified reality we inhabit.

Block A (24. and 26. October,

  1. Close playing of three video games - from the hyper-popular to the most niche
  2. Collective close reading of three essays thematically relevant to the games
  3. Becoming familiar with strategies of queer game studies
  4. Discussions, sharing of experiences, deconstructing of what skill is and why it is unimportant to be good at a game
  5. Film screening / Collective play

Block for home research and preliminary work

Block B

  1. Introduction to visual novels, their queering potential, and how to make them
  2. Using the acquired research and learned strategies to create a playable visual story
  3. Discussion around results

Learning outcomes

A deeper understanding of gamification as a concept present in contemporary art and theory. Acquisition of operation skills for basic game engines

An introductory knowledge of queer game studies as a field

Applied theory into hands-on praxis with a narrative artwork as a result

Prerequisites and other requirements

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Literature

The course does not require students to prepare any reading beforehand, however there is literature for the possibility of future study in case of interest:

Evaluation methods and criteria

Students will be assessed based on their attendance, activity in discussion, and willingness to engage with the discursive field both in theory and praxis. Their final artworks/games will not be judged nor rated and thus will not make an impact on their grades.

Note

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Further information

No schedule has been prepared for this course

The subject is a part of the following study plans