IDG at LCAD: from the Mediterranean to the West Coast

Prof. Stefano Gualeni and Prof. Gordon Calleja are invited guests at the Laguna College of Art + Design in California this summer.

Prof. Stefano Gualeni is visiting professor in Game Design in the LCAD MFA in Game Design and this summer he will be joined by Prof. Calleja who will be a special guest speaker in LCAD's 2nd Annual Game Lecture Evening.

The Game Lecture Evening will feature special guest speakers, Alexander Zook, Nele Van de Mosselaer, and Professor Gordon Calleja.

Nele van de Mosselaer also provided a guest lecture on shooting fictional zombies for the Institute of Digital Games this semester.

Attendees will engage with experts in the fields of game development, game design, and game culture. Each speaker will be given 25 minutes plus time for a Q&A.

Professor Gordon Calleja will be covering the topic of Board Game Design Inspired Game Research Theory.

There is a long-standing discussion about the utility of theoretical research in game design in general. As a humanistic researcher trained in critical theory Professor Gordon Calleja long has advocated for the importance of game research theory to inform design practices in the video game context. When it comes to board game design however, the practical application of a theoretical toolkit increases dramatically. In this talk Professor Calleja will outline several areas of board game design that have been greatly enhanced, if not completely informed by, his understanding of game theory both in its relation to formal properties of games and the experiential of players interactions with the game and each other. Professor Calleja will give practical examples from the three boardgames he has designed and published internationally: Posthuman, Vengeance, and Posthuman: Saga.

The Institute of Digital Games and Laguna College of Art + Design are both ranked as top 25 post graduate game design programmes by the Princeton Review in 2018.