DiGRAA 2024 Conference Programme

DiGRAA 2024 will take place in the Glyn Davis (Melbourne School of Design), Building 133, University of Melbourne, Parkville (3010):

The registration desk will be next to the lifts on Level G (ground floor). Look for student volunteers wearing blue UniMelb T-shirts!
All talks will be in The Malaysian Theatre, Level B (basement).
All catering will be in the Basement Foyer, Level B (basement).

To attend online via Zoom: https://unimelb.zoom.us/j/85152486682?pwd=aXZZOTJ2MFI4Z1kyS3RrZTJNeG93Zz09

Zoom Password: 561926

The programme schedule uses Australian Eastern Daylight Time (AEDT/ UTC+11).

Day 0: Sunday 11 February

5:00pm – 9:00pm

Boardgames @ Pause Menu ヾ(о-ω･)ﾉ⌒★
74 Rose Street, Fitzroy (map | directions)

Day 1: Monday 12 February

9:00am	Registration (^-^*)/ Level G, Foyer
	Welcome Breakfast ♨(⋆‿⋆)♨ Level B, Basement Foyer
9:50am	Welcome ٩(`･ω･´)و ☀️ Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Mahli-Ann Butt & Lucy Sparrow
10:00am	✨Keynote✨	Chair: Mahli-Ann Butt
	The power of multiplayer game design: Or why players are not necessarily The Worst	✨Dr Lucy Sparrow✨
	Q&A (15 min)
11:00am	Morning Tea ☕ Level B, Basement Foyer
11:30am	Session 1 – The Games Industry Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Melissa Rogerson
	Modding Video Game Brand Authenticity	Jacqueline Burgess & Jessica Whyman
	The Dream Job Just Doesn’t Exist: Analysing the Current Games Journalism Landscape	Ryan Stanton
	The Lands Before-During-After Times: Reimagining Game Industry Events ‘Post’-COVID-19	Taylor Hardwick & Mahli-Ann Butt
	Precarity and professionalism of Indonesian mobile game e-sports	Haryo Pambuko Jiwandono
	Q&A (20 mins)
12:30pm	Lunch ♨(⋆‿⋆)♨ Level B, Basement Foyer
1:30pm	Session 2 – New Perspectives on Design Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Nellie Seale
	Ambiguities of Game Design and the Challenge of the Walking Simulator	Alexander Muscat
	Hour of the Wolf – An Investigation into Puzzle Design for Live Theatre	David Harris
	Speaking of Time: Time-centric Language in Video Game Marketing and User Reviews on Steam	Thomas Byers
	Cross-platform storytelling in Dungeons & Dragons: How players use technology to explore and create stories in D&D	Ruby Edwards, Martin Gibbs, Lucy Sparrow & Tamara Kohn
	Q&A (20 min)
2:30pm	Session 3 – Game Histories Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Taylor Hardwick
	Preserving and Emulating Australian Made Videogames of the 1990s	Cynde Moya, Helen Stuckey, Melanie Swalwell & Denise de Vries
	Archival Challenges for Inclusive Games History	Stephanie Harkin
	From Mountain Ranges to Markets: Historicising Virtual Worlds	Finn Dawson
	Q&A (15 min)
3:15pm	Afternoon Tea ☕ Level B, Basement Foyer
3:45pm	Session 4 – Design Influences Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: James Manning
	The Legacy of Tabletop Role-Playing Games: Shaping Contemporary Game Design	Marc Wainwright & Adam Ho
	Myth and Misattribution: Comparing Common Conceptions of the Hero’s Journey against Joseph Campbell	Jacqueline Moran
	Workshopping the Play Community: Reflections on the role of pre-LARP workshops in Dance of Ribbons LARP	Josiah Lulham & David Harris
	Exploring the Influence of Game Designers’ Values and Thought-Processes in Practice	Mifrah Ahmad
	Q&A (20 min)
4:45pm	Close	Lucy Sparrow & Mahli-Ann Butt
5:00pm	Student Pizza Social ♡(◕ᗜ◕✿) Danda-Gat-Ith, Level 5, Melbourne Connect, 700 Swanston Street.	Nellie Seale
6:30pm	Drinks @ The Clydeヾ(о-ω･)ﾉ⌒★ (map) 385 Cardigan St, Carlton 3053

Day 2: Tuesday 13 Feb

9:20am	Announcements ٩(`･ω･´)و ☀️ Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Lucy Sparrow & Mahli-Ann Butt
9:30am	Session 5 – Mechanics and Narrative Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Cass Barkman
	The Connection Between Mechanics and Narrative: How Are Fantasy Card Games Reflecting Their Stories	Chase Profaca
	Strategic Dialogue within Narrative Games as a Mechanic – Moving from branching Narratives to Branching Perspectives	Oneeb Bin Nauman
	In Defence of Alignment Systems	Antranig Sarian
	Monsters and Marauders: RPGs, Race, and the Sovereign Player	Sebastian Morrison
	Q&A (20 min)
10:30am	Morning Tea ☕ Level B, Basement Foyer
11:00am	Session 6 – Nature and Built Environments Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Andrea Andiloro
	Capitalocene Horizons: Producing, Exploiting and Mourning Nature in Animal Crossing: New Horizons	Lawrence May and Ben Hall
	Easing into Play: Creating invitations for urban play and games	Uyên Nguyen & Matthew Riley
	Architecture in Play: Architectonics of Atmosphere	Dorsa Kafili
	The Playable Campus: Game Design & Creative Placemaking for the “New Campus Urbanism”	Aramiha Harwood, Troy Innocent, Dale Leorke & Danielle Wyatt
	Q&A (20 min)
12:00pm	Session 7 – Children and Play Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Dan Golding
	Surveying Childrens Gameplay during the Pandemic: Australian and Chinese approaches	Hugh Davies
	Levelling Up or Cashing In? Privacy Implications for the Data Profiling of Children in Video Games	Caiti Galwey
	Game-centred school learning: It’s (not) in the game	Alexander Bacalja
	Q&A (15 min)
12:45pm	Lunch ♨(⋆‿⋆)♨ & Researcher AMA Level B, Basement Foyer
1:45pm	Session 8 – Narrative and Storytelling Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Timothy Williams
	The Gamelike Nature of Narrative Complexity	Cass Barkman
	“Storytelling […] is […] not merely a simulacrum of iterative colonial categorization”: engaging Indigenous futurism for queer Indigenous futures in video games	Leandro Wallace
	The Ludo-Narrative distinction in the Immersive Multimedia Environments of the Postwar Predigital era	Jonathan Lovell
	Character Creation and Digital Storytelling using Generative AI	Matthew Stephenson, Lauren Woolbright, & Nicol Cabe
	Q&A (20 min)
2:45pm	Session 9 – Games and Health Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Kate Clarke
	Mental Jam: Co-Creating Video Games with Participants About Their Lived Experiences of Depression and Anxiety	Hsiao Wei Chen
	Game on With Motor Neurone Disease (MND): Challenges and Opportunities	Ben O’Mara, Matthew Harrison, Kirsten Harley, & Natasha Dwyer
	Encouraging Empathy of Neurodivergence: Towards a framework for design of persuasive and discursive games	Nadine Garland
	Q&A (15 min)
3:30pm	Afternoon Tea ☕ Level B, Basement Foyer
4:00pm	Session 10 – Close Readings Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Brendan Keogh
	Playing Bastion as a solastalgic game: a case study of Supergiant Games’ avant-garde era	Heather Blakey
	Playing the Ecocentric Apocalypse	Matthew Allan
	I Love My Undead Family: Prosthetic Limbs and Homecoming in Resident Evil 7: Biohazard (2017)	Max Coombes
	Immortality and The Parasite	Tania Marlowe
	Q&A (20 min)
5:00pm	April Tyack’s Distinguished Scholar Awards ╭( ･ㅂ･)و Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Mahli-Ann Butt, Stephanie Harkin & Madeleine Antonellos
5:15pm	Close	Mahli-Ann Butt & Lucy Sparrow

Day 3: Wednesday 14 February

9:20am	Announcements ٩(`･ω･´)و ☀️ Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Lucy Sparrow & Mahli-Ann Butt
9:30am	Session 11 – Games for Museums and Cultural Heritage Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Xavier Ho
	Narrative-Based Games for learning in GLAMS: Overcoming professional hesitancies through an introductory guide	Sophia Booij
	LORE-Drop: Museum Game Design	Nellie Seale, Wally Smith, & Melissa Rogerson
	Augmented Reality Game Design for Cultural Heritage	Yifan Kong [Online]
	Bioshock Infinite and Indigenous Tales: The Potential of Game Media in Expressing Australian Aboriginal Culture	Neo Xia
	Q&A (20 min)
10:30am	Morning Tea ☕ Level B, Basement Foyer
11:00am	Session 12 – Making Sense of and in Games Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Larry May
	The Ghost in the Machine: Legend-Tripping, Hypermodern Ostension and Ontological Bleed in the Grand Theft Auto Series	Andrea Andiloro
	Action Paths: A Typology of Strategy Selection	Sidney Icarus [Online]
	Synthesising the Real: How Players Navigate the Representation of Reality in Video Games	Benn Van Den Ende, & Sian Tomkinson [Online]
	The analyst’s videogame: On psychoanalytic formalism	Benjamin Nicoll
	Q&A (20 min)
12:00pm	Session 13 – Politics and Identity Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Lee Cope
	‘A political statement, whether you understand that or not’: Inclusive Gender Expression in Avatar Customization	Yisong Han & Xavier Ho
	Beyond “Representation”: Shooter Videogames and Mediated Feminisms in New Discourse	Erin Maclean [Online]
	Alt-right in gaming spaces in Italy and in Australia. A comparative analysis	Giulio Pitroso [Online]
	Playing with Integrity: Videogame Involvement and Moral Identity	Thomas Coghlan
	Q&A (20 min)
1:00pm	Lunch ♨(⋆‿⋆)♨ Level B, Basement Foyer
2:00pm	Session 14 – Relating to Others Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Steph Harkin
	NPC Empathy: A Philosophical Paradox	Paul Scriven
	Parasocial Relations in the Gaming Landscape	Lee Cope
	Romance as the “real challenge”?: The implications of absent dialogue icons in Baldur’s Gate 3	Amy Brierley-Beare
	“Where there is trash talk, there is a story and excitement” – A symbolic convergence approach towards understanding trash talk, narratives and spectator perspectives in FPS esports	Sidney Irwin, Anjum Naweed & Michele Lastella
	Q&A (20 min)
3:00	Session 15 – Multiverse Research Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Chair: Lucy Sparrow
	Everything Ethnography All At Once: Reflecting on a Team Ethnography of SXSW Sydney	Fraser Allison, Mahli-Ann Butt, Marcus Carter, Kate Clark, Finn Dawson,Taylor Hardwick, Mark Johnson, Brendan Keogh, Mads Mackenzie, Ryan Stanton & Frank Meixiao Wang
	Q&A (15 min)
3:25pm	DiGRAA Best Paper Award °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖° Level B, The Malaysian Theater	Melissa Rogerson
3:30pm	Close	Mahli-Ann Butt & Lucy Sparrow
3:45pm	CAKE TIME (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ヽ(⌐■_■)ノ♪♬ Level B, Basement Foyer