User:Barbs/T2 Assessment

WORK IN PROGRESS!

.✦ BEFORE XPUB

From 2020 until 2024, I studied a bachelor's in Creative Media & Game Technologies at Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht. When I started the course, the industry was booming like never before.
It didn't last: due to the over-expansion and unsustainable business practices of the industry, the latter half of my studies had a dark cloud of constant mass layoffs looming over it, which have yet to stop. Along with the rise of NFT's and generative AI, my original dream of working in games felt increasingly impossible to reach.

I still remember the exact moment I decided to apply for XPUB: A few months before graduating, the company I had interned at the year prior was forced to fire all of its employees.
During a networking event a few days later I voiced my doubts to some of them about entering the games job market and if I should continue studying instead. The office/hiring manager told me, "If you can stay a student for a few years longer, do it. Wait out the waves of layoffs. Things will hopefully get better once Grand Theft Auto VI releases."

Of course, waiting out the release of GTA 6 is a pretty shallow reason to pursue a master's degree, my motivations behind applying to XPUB had been bubbling for a while. My artistic practice had grown to become more experimental, political, critical of technology, and research-based over time, and I found it difficult to find a space for that within the rigid boxes of the games industry.

.✦ TRIMESTER 1

Radio Show 1: Art > Profits

During the first radio show I participated in, I played an excerpt from Le Guin's 2014 speech in which she criticizes capitalist publishing systems and argues profit incentives are inherently against making art. I first heard this speech a year prior and it has stuck with me ever since.

"We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words." - Ursula K. Le Guin

Radio Show 2: Cyberfeminism

Women as Technology exhibition

During the autumn break I visited the Design Museum Den Bosch for their exhibition called "Women as Technology". It showed the history of how technological advancements shaped the role of women as calculators, homemakers, incubators and pleasure machines.

Eliza & Chatbots/AI

Design decisions behind older chatbots Eliza is only designed to talk about you, the user. If you start to ask her questions in return, she constantly deflects.

A story in a story in a story

A Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction

Python

I hadn't coded in Python since a few computer science classes in high school, so it felt quite daunting to take the responsibility of coding the text adventure game onto myself. During my bachelor's I also had some coding classes, but as I specialized in game art those responsibilities quickly fell onto the programmers in group projects. I hadn't been given the chance to pursue the skill since, and I'm really happy XPUB gave me the tools and confidence to try! It felt very liberating to write the code myself.

It also resulted in a completely different game-making experience. Instead of prematurely getting lost in artistic aesthetics and ideas, I really had to make my design choices concrete and functional so that it was understandable enough for me to code by myself.

Graphviz

Prototyping: Raspberry Pi & Pen Plotters

.✦ TRIMESTER 2

Datacenters

Game industry entanglements with big tech

Permacomputing

Laptop maintenance

At the beginning of the special issue, I became very interested in taking better care of my almost 6 years old laptop. For the past few years I've always felt like the time to buy a new laptop was nearing, as my current one wasn't able to run the latest 3D games anymore and was having overheating issues. As a game dev, I felt pressured to own the latest tech possible.

Learning more about permacomputing helped me shift that perspective. I really love this laptop, it still does everything I need it to do (I'm not playing or making AAA realism level games anytime soon), and so I want to maintain it for as long as possible. I ended up upgrading its storage, cleaning the insides, and dual-booting Linux alongside Windows onto it. It runs way smoother now!! I documented everything on the wiki page linked above too.

Comp(h)osting guest class by Marie Verdeil

Workshop "Our Digital Home"

Instead of the technical side, I focused more on the pedagogical aspects of this workshop.

.✦ EXTRACURRICULARS

Webgardener

What if a website were a bit like a garden? Putting effort in making & maintaining connections/community, planting and caring for just like you would for a garden. It takes effort, time and patience, but you get something beautiful for it in return.

Webgardener was made as part of the 1Bit Game Jam together with Dion Peek. The jam theme was "offering".

It was my first time making pixel art, and it felt very freeing. Our goal with this game jam was to keep the scope small and build something that felt polished and fun. We were inspired by bitsy games, the indie web and digital gardening.

Something that has stuck with me since is using game design to plant the seed of an idea inside someone's mind. Instead of literally explaining what the indie web is and teaching how to make a website, I kept it simple and instead just introduced the concept of caring for a web community through the metaphor of gardening.

Suncatcher

Inspired by the SI29 datacenter tour, Suncatcher is an interactive narrative with make-over game mechanics. You play as a hacker in a cyberpunk city trying to evade facial detection algorithms by crafting different kinds of masks. Your goal is to infiltrate and set fire to a hyperscale datacenter.

It was made in collaboration with Dion Peek and Max Kuilman as part of the Global Game Jam 2026 with the theme "mask".

Brewing Permacomputing Collectives

[untitled games event]

"a space for experimental games and playable arts in Amsterdam. We organize a monthly 'book club' for games and conversation around play."

Nintendo 2DS Hacking

.✦ METHODS / PERSONAL READER

Highlights:

• A Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction - Ursula K. Le Guin
• (re)programming Strategies for Self-Renewal – better machines for better humans - Marta Perano & Kate Crawford
• Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective - Donna Haraway
• The Mushroom at the End of the World - Anna Tsing
• Alternative Games From The Fringes Of Cyberspace - Nathalie Lawhead

Currently reading:

• Everything to Play For (How Videogames Are Changing the World) - Marijam Did
• Beyond awareness: Climate games as invitations to care for the future - Carien Moossdorff, Joost M. Vervoort

Want to read:

• So many things..

.✦ REFLECTIONS / INTERESTS / WHAT'S NEXT?...

science-fiction | experimental games | cyber/techno/glitch-feminism | climate/eco games | permacomputing | games as art/poetry | sustainable game-making | retro game console hacking/modding | encountering the "other", more-than-human, patchwork beings, Frankenstein's monster | collective organizing | feminist servers