UCLA Game Lab: cultivating the subversive in game design and game play

November 17, 2015 10:12 AM

"the [UCLA Game Lab] fosters research and development in not only computer or video games, but also physical, tabletop, and other game forms. Known for its annual Game Art Festival at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, California, the lab supports the production and exhibition of student work, but it also curates and promotes vanguard game design from around the world. Through its tripartite mission to push the envelope of game aesthetics, game context, and game genres, the lab nurtures game projects that often adapt contentious, controversial subjects not found (overtly, anyway) in many commercial games: issues of politics, gender and identity, industry and commerce, the environment, experiences of alterity, the silly and the surreal…. In short, all that composes lived experience becomes fair game, so to speak, for adaptation.." -- Playfully Subversive: the Many Roles of Adaptation in Making Games at the UCLA Game Lab by David O'Grady

A sampling of some of the Lab's games include Will I Get Measles At Disneyland, Black Friday, Sneaky Cactus, and Fromage à Trois

The site also has many resources, including lectures, tutorials, and tools.

If you are in the L.A. area, the annual UCLA Game Art Festival takes place this Wednesday, Nov 18 at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, from 7:00PM - 10:30PM. Admission is free.

posted by Room 641-A (4 comments total)

I am here to say that these are good people, and you other good people should support them. That is all.
posted by rokusan at 3:34 PM on November 17, 2015

How could you resist putting "Will I Get Measles At Disneyland" as the post title?

(Although they're probably making a point about anti-vaxxers with that name, I'd be even more inclined to play a game called "Will I Get Dysentery at Disneyland".)
posted by benito.strauss at 7:21 PM on November 17, 2015

I'm walking to this right now - all good stuff from what I remember of last year, but Sneaky Cactus in particular is pretty incredible - you're poking real cacti to race around a track.
posted by Mimir at 7:35 PM on November 18, 2015

How was it? I planned on going but I'm under the weather.
posted by Room 641-A at 2:59 PM on November 19, 2015