This project focuses on research impact as the main goal of practice-based research in the fields of games design and game studies. The pilot project was developed throughout 2018-2019, developing three digital games based on individual research projects from across CBASS, with the support of the Research Centre for Global Lives.
The participants included academics from Sociology and Theatre, as well as 13 Games Design students (including BAs, MAs and graduates) who participated in the production of the games. The students thus gained a unique experience of practice-based research in serious games development. The three games developed – March for Science, Cultured Meat and An Invitation in Gold – were developed in stages including quick prototyping sessions and longer development as part of the Games Design Octopus 8 Summer Project.
This pilot demonstrated the viability of the research, and the resulting games were also played as part of the College of Business, Arts, and Social Sciences Education Forum in 2019.
Meet the Principal Investigator(s) for the project
Dr Andra Ivanescu - Andra is a Lecturer in Game Studies and a ludomusicologist.
Andra’s research interests are broad, going beyond her primary focus of music in videogames, and including appropriation and nostalgia, genre, gender studies, and film studies. Her research has been published in journals like The Soundtrack (2015) and she has presented papers at a variety of conferences including Myth, Fantasy and Fairy Tales in Literature and the Arts (Cambridge, 2013) and the Ludomusicology Conference (Chichester, 2014; Utrecht, 2015; Southampton, 2016). She is also co-editor of the academic journal Book 2.0. Andra has also led (and co-led) two Global Lives-funded research clusters focusing on creative processes in poetry and games, as well as the dissemination of academic research through digital games.
Andra's first monograph - Popular Music in the Nostalgia Video Game: The Way It Never Sounded - is now available from Palgrave Macmillan.
Andra teaches a number of game studies modules at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, including Game Studies 1: Introduction to Game Studies, Game Genre, and Socio-Cultural Studies.
Related Research Group(s)
Global Lives - Research conducted in the Centre addresses the challenges facing society, helping to change the lives of people around the world by bringing economic, social and cultural benefits.
Partnering with confidence
Organisations interested in our research can partner with us with confidence backed by an external and independent benchmark: The Knowledge Exchange Framework. Read more.
Project last modified 13/07/2021