PAL Game Labs

PAL Game Labs will use contemporary game developers' tools for rapid prototyping of new game genres. Game Labs are centred around themes, bringing together creative and technical experts from different disciplines to find new ways of expanding and extending the potential for computer games as entertainment, education and art.

The framework for each Lab will attract a group of creators from the visual arts, production design, stage and theatre design, writing, choreography, filmmaking and animation. Teamed with experienced game designers and consumer game modification "artists", they will create viable game concepts and software demos. Participants will immerse themselves in games, game culture and structure to develop a deep understanding of the elements that go into the complex process of crafting a game, game world and game community.

The process produces pitch documents and rapid prototyping, to create working demos for a public presentation to game industry representatives, potential investors, art-funding agencies, and others who have a direct business interest in the work.

Each of the PAL Game Labs will focus on one of four different themes:

• Adaptations from films, books and other media
• Family Games
• Physical Games
• Games at Work

PAL's experience of storytelling across all media in education and the arts and sciences will inform Game Labs with a rich mix of talents. PAL also has an overall interest in developing social skills through approaching game design problems from different thematic perspectives. Core team members, including some of the modification artists who will be contributing to the technical production and instruction, will be included in multiple Labs for continuity and to maintain consistent quality and production standards.

The PAL Game Lab programme is planned to take place in the US as well as in Europe, led by Lab Director Celia Pearce, who is the Research and External Relations Manager for the Arts Layer of Cal-(IT)2 (California Institute for Telecommunication and Information Technology), and Associate Director of The Laboratory for Game Culture & Technology, U C, Irvine.

Lab Director
Celia Pearce

Directors

Celia Pearce
Celia is an artist; game, interactive experience, attraction and installation designer; performer; researcher; writer; curator; lecturer, and teacher. For over nineteen years, she has been engaged in the creation and critique of interactive experiences in a variety of media and formats. She is best known for her work in theme park, "location-based entertainment," and museum industries and, more recently, for her extensive theoretical work in the area of narrative, games and spatial storytelling. Her writings include The Interactive Book: A Guide to the Interactive Revolution, and a number of papers on interactive media and game design. She is currently the Research and External Relations Manager, Arts Layer for the UC Irvine division of the CAL(IT)2, and associate director of the UC Game Culture & Technology Lab.