On 20 May, Nordic Game in collaboration with BoostHbg will present “Change Through Story” – a special program devoted to serious games, and how to combine game mechanisms in storytelling to reach positive change. The Change Through Story Summit offers a talk, a panel and a great workshop, all exploring the power of serious games.
“We’re in the midst of a great shift, with old barriers breaking down. Storytellers, gamers and agents of social change are combining their expertise in a new desire to solve the big and small issues of our times. Joining us at Nordic Game will be a great opportunity to meet and mix with the like-minded and “new-minded.” Come play with us!” says Annika Gustafson at BoostHbg.
Top row in image above from left: Annika Gustafson, Nick Fortugno, Jannike Grut. Bottom row from left: Neil Bell, Simon Hultgren, Cecilia Dolk and Åsa Egnér.
Meet game design leader Nick Fortugno, COO of Playmatics, who’ll talk about the field of impact-based games – games designed to deliver messages and make social change. Fortugno shows how techniques used to create game aesthetics can also be used to adapt games to educational or transformative ends. This talk provides a framework for thinking about how games can be effectively used as a part of social change, activism and public policy – and made fun too! All on 20 May 20 at 15:00 in the Reykjavik room at Slagthuset.
Later in the afternoon, BoostHbg presents a panel discussing the new zone where games, storytelling and “doing-good” meet. How do you best go about navigating this new space? What are the pitfalls and the possibilities of serious games? In this panel, game design leader and Playmatics COO Nick Fortugno together with innovative storytelling expert and BoostHbg executive director Annika Gustafson give constructive feedback to three serious games projects – an interactive documentary, an Oculus Rift title and an adaptation of a critically acclaimed LARP for US audiences – directly on stage. Not to be missed, on 20 May at 16:00 in the Reykjavik room at Slagthuset.
About the Change Through Story Summit projects
BoostHbg-supported project Migrant Journeys, by architect and filmmaker Neil Bell and game developer Simon Hultgren, is an interactive documentary and a game focusing on the route of refugees to Europe.
Fresh from BoostHbg’s latest four-month lab, actor Jannike Grut and priest Åsa Egnér will present an empathy game for the Oculus Rift platform, aimed at teenagers.
Cecilia Dolk successfully produced the LARP (Live Action Role-Playing) experience The Monitor Celestra, based on the Battlestar Galactica TV series, and now wants to take the live show to LA.
The Change Through Story Summit ends with a Nordic Game meet-up with the speakers and participants at 17:00, which you can register for here.
Bonus: Workshop at Filmcentrum Syd
Nick Fortugno will expand on his Change Through Story/Nordic Game lecture with a special workshop on impact-based games at Film Centrum Syd on 21 May from 13:00-17:00. Bring your own project and hear what Nick has to say!
For more information and location, visit syd.filmcentrum.se.
