User:Barbs/T2 Assessment

WORK IN PROGRESS!

.✦ BEFORE XPUB

This part makes me sad idk I want to rewrite it to be more about ME

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 as narrative

Eliza is only designed to talk about you, the user. If you start to ask her questions in return, she constantly deflects. Her response "What answer would please you the most?" felt most telling about how AI chatbots are designed even to this day.

Comparison to AI characters in science-fiction, like Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

A story in a story in a story

A Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction

Python

I had coding classes in high school and during my bachelor's, but they never went further than the basics. In my bachelor's group projects, as I specialized in game art, the coding responsibilities quickly fell onto the actual programmers. 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 of the text adventure 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

Mixed-media project, not just a game. Interactive element was part of something bigger. Different technologies coming together.

Reflection

Event was so engaging, so many people were gathering around our table to watch others play. It felt way different than any other games showcase I had participated in during my bachelor's, where our tables were usually peaceful and more commercial-looking games were favored. I rly feel like I found a space in XPUB where my work is appreciated and can flourish.

.✦ TRIMESTER 2

Peer 2 Peer prototype

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. Most interested in communal aspect of sharing a server/website. Sad we skipped the kitchen section due to time.

Reflection

.✦ 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."

Going here felt so refreshing!! Everyone was so excited and open to talk to each other, I spoke to a lot of game makers with very diverse backgrounds. I’m thinking of maybe hosting a talk here sometime.. once I think of something interesting to say.

Nintendo 2DS Hacking

Eleni's radio show at WORM

.✦ 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:

• Glitch-Feminism - A Manifesto - Legacy Russell
• 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?...

Reflecting on the first two special issues I'm proud of myself for immediately stepping out of my comfort zone, even if it felt scary at times. The radio shows during SI28 were something I would usually shy away from, and I was super anxious during them, but it went really well! Same went for working with python, raspberry pi, servers,

A word cloud of things that interest me:
science-fiction | worldbuilding | 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 | indie comic books | situated science-fiction/utopia's

I feel sooo scattered and am having a bit of a career/identity crisis.