Different Games invites participants for its 2016 edition at NYU’s Polytechnic School of Engineering, located in Brooklyn, NY, on Friday April 8 and Saturday April 9.
Over three years of presenting New York City’s first conference on diversity and inclusivity in games culture, Different Games has drawn more than 700 attendees to NYU’s Downtown Brooklyn campus, in addition to more than 100 arcade games and 150 presenters and speakers! We are thrilled to invite submissions for our fourth annual event which welcomes proposals from all members of the games community — whether designers, students, activists, researchers, journalists and others — to present as part of our two-day program.
Introducing our 2016 Track Chairs
This year, Different Games is thrilled to welcome 8 respected colleagues on board as our first ever DG Track Chairs. This group of artists, game designers and academics have proposed calls for content in areas of interest to the DG community and will join us in reviewing the 2016 submissions. We’re humbled to have them join us by volunteering their vision and expertise to shape the content of this year’s event. While submissions are welcome on all topics related to inclusivity, diversity and other themes of interest to the DG community, we’re pleased to announce the following DG Conference tracks and the chairs who will be presenting them:
- Affective Play – Kara Stone
- Video Games in Latin America – Edgar Serrano
- Video Games & Indigenous Culture- Edgar Serrano
- Accessible Game Design – Rees Shad
- Participatory Game Design – Margarida Romero
- Race and Culture in Games – Chris Algoo
- Player Agency, Mods, and Glitches – Yifat Shaik
For more information about these tracks, please visit our conference website 2016.differentgames.org
Submission Formats
Submissions of Paper Presentations and Talks as well as Workshops and Breakout Groups open on 10/16/15 and will be accepted until 12/15/15.
Paper Presentations and Talks
We invite designers, academics and other creative minds to share recent projects as speakers on our conference panels. Possible topics may include, but are not limited to: post mortems, design methodology, reflections on playtesting, analysis/commentary on games content (theme, gender, sexuality, etc.), game reception, and game culture/communities. If your talk will be presented collaboratively, please include bios and links for both presenters.
Workshop or Breakout Groups
We invite topic-specific or exploratory discussions on challenges and solutions for promoting diversity and inclusion in the broader game community/communities and other pertinent subjects. Hands-on workshop sessions geared towards learning design, development or other creative and professional skills are also invited. Proposals for both workshops and breakout groups include an overview addressing the question of what participants can expect to learn or take away from the session and an explanation of what (if any) equipment participants will need to in order to participate. If your session will be facilitated collaboratively, please include bios and links for all co-facilitators.
Arcade Submissions open on 10/16/15 and will be accepted until 1/22/16.
Arcade Games
Designers interested in showcasing their game in the Different Games arcade should submit a brief project overview (no more than 500 words) that presents their design vision and the concept for the game and explains any special hardware requirements for presenting their game. In addition, please submit the cover art and two screenshots of gameplay. We welcome students’ work and and pieces that will be in (beta) or playtesting phase as well as those further along in the development process. Analog games, non screen-based digital games and other types of media such as short films, installations or interactive art related to the themes of the conference are welcome as well. Please include an explanation of any space and hardware requirements along with your project overview.
For more information or to submit to Different Games 2016, please visit our conference website 2016.differentgames.org. If you’d like to view last year’s conference sessions and arcade titles, visit 2015.differentgames.org. For more information about Different Games Collective, please visit differentgames.org. Send questions to DifferentGamesConference@gmail.com.
