Design x Technology Lecture: Monica Evans

Join Lawrence Technological University’s College of Architecture and Design on Tuesday, November 7th at 12:30pm ET for another innovative Fall 2023 Design x Technology lecture with Monica Evans, Associate Game Design Professor at The University of Texas at Dallas.

This lecture examines how the lived experiences of female and non-binary solo and small-team game developers affects their game design practices and creative process, particularly when making games about historically marginalized characters, cultures, and narratives. Solo and small-team game developers often have similar approaches to organization, collaboration, prototyping, public appearances, and social media strategies when foregrounding underrepresented perspectives as a core part of the development process.

Additionally, these developers use similar strategies when researching, writing, and presenting marginalized characters and cultures, regardless of whether they are themselves part of those groups. Looking both at Adrienne Shaw’s argument for diversity as an expected norm and Emily Short’s writing on the “cost of being female and visible on the internet,” this talk presents best practices and strategies for solo and small-team game development, as well as practical suggestions for how female, BIPOC, queer, gender non-conforming, and other historically marginalized groups can center their lived experiences in the creative practice and development processes of digital games. This talk includes the results of interviews with solo and small team developers that were undertaken as part of the ASPIRE-2 grant program at UT Dallas, including the developers of In Other Waters (2020), Citizen Sleeper (2022), Before I Forget (2020), and Unpacking (2021)

Participants in this talk will learn best practices for solo and small team game development in terms of scoping, staging, launching, and maintaining a digital game from prototype to post-release, which requires a different practice, structure, and mindset than games developed with larger collaborative teams. Participants will also gain insight into foregrounding lived experiences into their own creative practice; navigating the digital games industry as a female or non-binary developer, especially LGBTQ women and women of color; and creating safer, more diverse, and more welcoming development practices for game developers of all kinds.

This lecture is free and open to the public. As part of CoAD’s Design x Technology Lecture Series, guests may watch online or on campus. Register for the location/viewing details.

About Monica

“Dr. Monica Evans is an Associate Professor of Game Design, Development, and Studies in the Bass School of Arts, Humanities, and Technology at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her work sits at the intersection of game studies and game production, narrative systems, serious and educational games, interactive fiction, and science fiction studies. Many of Dr. Evans’ former students hold design and development positions in the digital games industry at studios including Blizzard, Bethesda, Valve, iD, Gearbox, and others. Dr. Evans directs the Narrative Systems Research Lab at UT Dallas, which pursues models of understanding, structural research, and the creation of new work in the fields of narrative, interactive media, and digital and analog games. Some of Dr. Evans’ recent publications include:

“You Are The Library: Players as Custodians of Information in In Other Waters and The Return of the Obra Dinn.” Vector: The Critical Journal of the British Science Fiction Association, forthcoming Fall 2023

“Should My Best Prove Insufficient, We Will Find Another Way: Time Loop Mechanics as Expressions of Hope in Digital Games.” International Conference on Human Computer Interaction, July 2023

“”Science Compels Us To Explode The Sun! Toward A New Taxonomy For Science Fiction Video Games.”” International Conference on Narrative, March 2023

“Video Games Make Time Travel Real (No, Really).” The Astounding Analog Companion, November 2021

“The Needle And The Wedge: Digital Games as Speculative Art.” Vector: The Critical Journal of the British Science Fiction Association, Summer 2020″