16 May 2025
I am pleased to announce that the projects my graduate students created from the last two semesters are now available on the TUBBA Games Manufacturing Concern Itch page.
The games can be found here: https://tubba-games.itch.io/. Most of the games are available for Windows and are FREE to download. However, there is one board game project that includes a fabrication package so that players can build their own version at home.
Below are sample gameplay videos for each game:
26 April 2025
I was surprised, but quite thankful, to be invited to the Transformer AI 2025 Symposium at Kennesaw State University. I am far from an expert in AI but I was happy to share my thoughts on AI use in game design education. To help me out, I enlisted the help of two of my graduate students, Audrey Chung and Xinmeng (Melody) Ren.
The full video of the talk and the question period can be seen here:
20 February 2025
I’m very excited to announce that my new video game lab, the Game Philosophy and Design Lab (GamePaD Lab) is now open at Georgia Tech!
Our first official event was today. We hosted judges for the Peabody Awards, who used are space to review submissions for the Interactive Narrative Category of this year’s awards. Moving forward the space will focus on graduate student game-based research and game-centric public events.
Our collection currently consists of numerous retro consoles and video games, VR equipment, and board games. Come drop by and see us in the TSRB building at Georgia Tech or send us a message at gamepadlab[at]gatech[dot]edu.
9 September 2024
I am in the early phases of a new game design project! As of this writing, it is still untitled, however I have been using the codename Conclusion/Clarity. Based on my historical research, it will be a ghost game where the player controls a detective character. I hope to blend historical research with supernatural elements to create a unique and informative game.
This research talk, which was part of my department’s DM Talk series, outlines the research that I have completed and some of the early design and development work that I have been working on. I plan for this to be a long-term, iterative project, so it is nebulous at this point in development but I plan to start full-scale work on the project shortly.
In terms of next steps, I plan to start creating formal design documents which I can use to help better define the project.
30 August 2024
I am pleased to announce that some of the student projects from my Project Studio: Game Design class from last semester are now available on the TUBBA Games Manufacturing Concern Itch page. The students were challenged to make small prototypes over the course of a 16-week course. The prompt that they were given was to make postcolonial games that incorporated ghosts or monsters. They were allowed to use any tools of their choice, but they were required to use Godot as their engine.
The games can be found here: https://tubba-games.itch.io/. Each game is available for Windows and is FREE to download.
Below are sample gameplay videos for each game:
17 April 2024
It was amazing to have my teaching and game design featured on the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts website. I gave a brief interview which was turned into an article and a video. Check them out!
You can read the article here -> https://iac.gatech.edu/feature-news/2024/03/video-game-design-nagasaki-kitty
25 March 2024
I have always been a huge fan of Godzilla, but I have not had the opportunity to incorporate that love into my research until now. I have started to pursue a long-term, multi-media project centered on Godzilla and anti-nuclear representation. As a first step, I was happy to present my early findings in the DM Talk series at Georgia Tech.
My talk examines the origins of Godzilla from a collective memory perspective with a focus on the anti-nuclear representation of the early Godzilla films and novelizations. From here, I briefly discuss 5 selected Godzilla video games and their connections (or disconnections) from that original narrative. I conclude with a short look at how I wish to pursue these ideas through a multi-media project.
I’m excited to continue on with this project. The next step will be to refine my observations of the video games for my conference presentation at RePlaying Japan 2024!
9 August 2023
I am very pleased to announce that the final version of Nagasaki Kitty is now available. Nagasaki Kitty: Enhanced Edition can be downloaded for free on Itch.io! The Enhanced Edition adds new gameplay content, new original art, expands the map, and includes a new musical score written and recorded specifically for the game.
I was excited to add more content to the game for this edition and was exceedingly lucky to work with Mimi Okabe (Translation), Marc Lajeunesse (Music), and Robyn Hope (Art). While I was happy with the first two RPG Maker MV versions of the game, I was happy to upgrade the game through some key editions. Marc’s soundtrack replaces the licensed tracks from the original. Having musical pieces written specifically for the game certainly improves upon the atmosphere and the mood of the game. Robyn’s art helps to improve the player’s experience. Her art, based on artifacts from the Nagasaki atomic bomb museum, helps to add more authenticity to the side quests that the player completes in the game. As always, Mimi provided her translation skills. The download includes the English version, the Japanese version, and an updated workbook.
Here is the announcement trailer for the game:
I started the early work on the Nagasaki Kitty project in 2016. This eventually led to multiple iterations, both in Twine and RPG Maker MV. This project has been one of the most rewarding of my career and I am exceedingly proud of all of the completed versions. I hope that you will take the time to play it!
Nagasaki Kitty Enhanced Edition is available for download on PC here.
9 June 2023
This year for the Canadian Game Studies Association Annual Conference I was able to work with my good friend and colleague, Scott DeJong. Scott does some really amazing work on disinformation while also designing board games (find his game, Lizards and Lies here: https://www.lizardsandlies.ca/). Naturally, as educational game designers, there are overlaps in our research and development activities. In particular, we have found that many educational games do not take full advantage of the unique affordances of board games and/or video games as a medium. As a result, we made a short video about our design experiences and how we deal with this (and similar) issues.
Discussing these ideas and later making the video with Scott was an amazing experience. At this point we consider the ideas to be in their early stages, but we hope to revisit this project soon and make a more polished version. Hopefully we will put something more together soon because these are ideas that I am interested in pursuing further.
13 December 2021
After many months of working with Mimi Okabe, I am happy to announce that the Japanese Language Edition of Nagasaki Kitty is now officially released on Itch.io!
Remote development of a game was a new and (mostly) exciting experience for me, however, I am hoping that my next game project can be developed under more normal circumstances. Regardless, I was extremely grateful to be working with Mimi who was meticulous in her work, respectful of the content of the game, and added many excellent ideas to the project (especially the workbook that comes with the game). I am very proud of the work that we did and believe that we have created a unique and meaningful game.
Here is the original announcement trailer for the game:
Nagasaki Kitty Japanese Language Edition is available for PC and MAC here.