This talk will draw on two current game design projects that Hamish is engaged with as a scholar-practitioner: a board game about the Romano-Parthian borderland and a roleplaying game that combines the second century Roman empire with Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.

Visiting scholar Tonia San Nicolas-Rocca will introduce the design of an extended reality (XR) immersive training game that integrates foundational cybersecurity concepts. The proposed system is aligned with the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE) Workforce Framework for Cybersecurity and the National Centers of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (NCAE-C) guidelines. By leveraging XR technologies, the training game seeks to enhance cybersecurity awareness, strengthen workforce readiness, and foster broader interest in careers within the cybersecurity field.

Modal is delighted to invite you to the Private View of Animoted, a collection of immersive artworks and projects led by SODA and Manchester Game Centre researcher, Adinda van ’t Klooster, investigating how emotion can be tracked and assessed by machines - and used aesthetically in mapping decisions in interactive artworks and interfaces.  

When? 16 March 2026, 5 - 7pm
Where? Modal Gallery, Ground floor, School of Digital Arts (SODA), Manchester Metropolitan University. 

In this meet-up we will hear about the work of the “Play for the Planet” network at the University of York, in the UK. The Play for the Planet Network is a collaborative initiative, bringing together game designers, researchers, and educators who are passionate about addressing planetary crises through the power of play. Their mission is to explore a diverse range of playful materials—such as digital games, interactive narratives, simulations, and more—as tools for modelling, stimulating discussion, fostering learning, and building connections. We delve into various forms of play, including digital, tabletop (board, card, and role-playing games), physical, and hybrid play, to discover how these mediums can create pleasure, enhance learning, aid decision-making, and deepen empathy towards people, places, and our planet.

Join us for a session where we will play and discuss the new board game Billionaires & Guillotines with designer and Canada Research Chair in the Radical Imagination (Lakehead University) Max Haiven.

Billionaires & Guillotines is the billionaire simulator you and your friends have been waiting for! In this board game, 2-5 players will take on the roles of rival plutocrats, competing to accumulate the wealth of the world before their actions trigger a revolution and they all lose… a lot more than their assets.

Will you play the media baron or the property speculator? The aristocrat or the tech overlord? Whoever you play, the aim is to acquire five extravagant assets prized by the super-rich (a mega yacht, a celebrity spouse, art masterpieces and more!) and prevent your opponents from achieving their dreams.

But watch out! As you compete to gobble up ever more resources, crises cascade out of control: wildfires and floods, pandemics and doomsday cults… At the final moment, will you collaborate to put down the rebellions, or escape into your luxury bunker?

Join us for an interactive session on creating games for dementia care. The session is led by Dr Marlene Rosa, an adjunct professor in the Physiotherapy program/Master's Degree in Physiotherapy and Palliative Care at the School of Health Sciences from the Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, with a particular interest in developing and validating game-based strategies. The session will including playtesting of existing games before stepping through the design process of creating a new approach for the future. 

At Manchester Blackwell's on 2nd March, Keza Macdonald will be discussing Super Nintendo; a joyous exploration of the cultural phenomenon that created Mario, Zelda and Pokémon. Keza will be in conversation with the Manchester Game Centre's Reuben Martens.

Doors: 6.30pm, starts: 6.45pm

Tickets are £4. Admission is free when purchasing a copy of the book in advance. Get your tickets from Eventbrite.

Join researchers from the STRATEGIES (Sustainable Transition for Europe’s Game Industries) project for an afternoon of playing and analysing “green board games” and contribute to our growing ecogame ludography project, in collaboration with Utrecht University and the Green Mediography

Elisa Saggioro’s talk reconceptualizes Madeleine de Scudéry’s map “Carte de Tendre” as more than an allegorical map of love and friendship: it functions as a rule-based, (pervasive) role-playing system that operated across salon practices and narrative fiction.

Florian Wagner’s talk will explore the generative and transformative potential of eco-board and tabletop games in shaping ecological thought and practices, reflecting on human and more-than-human entanglements, and promoting critical engagement with visions and questions of planetary habitability and futurity.

In this meetup, MGC researcher, Chloé Germaine, will represent the Sustainable Games Alliance and the STRATEGIES project. We present the findings of two research projects on the impact of AI on sustainability goals, aiming to equip developers with the knowledge that can help align the use of these technologies with sustainability.

Chloe Germaine, co-lead of the Manchester Game Centre will be delivering a workshop on their card game Happy Shoppers at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz this February.

The workshop forms part of the international symposium, “Is this still play? Ethnographic perspectives on deep, dark or serious play,” taking place in the Department of Anthropology and African Studies, JGU Mainz, 6–7 February 2026. The event is organised by Jan Beek and Konstanze N’Guessan and brings together international scholars to explore dark, deep, and serious forms of play as lenses for understanding power, politics, and contemporary life.

Join researchers from the STRATEGIES (Sustainable Transition for Europe’s Game Industries) project for an afternoon of playing and analysing “green board games” and contribute to our growing ecogame ludography project, in collaboration with Utrecht University and the Green Mediography

Venue: Room 2.01, SEE Building, University of Salford

This one-day symposium will occur in person at Abertay University in Dundee hosted by Abertay Game Lab and the Manchester Game Centre. Hybrid attendance will be supported.

Join us to help playtest Death occurs abroad, an archive-building roleplaying game set during World War Two.

We are pleased to announce that our second annual Games Workshop Research Day is taking place on Saturday 11th October 2025!

For its second outing the event will run all day from 9:30 until 20:30 and has three parts. The morning will be dedicated to talks about Games Workshop’s games, the afternoon will be a ‘playable exhibition’ in which we pair gaming with presentations, and the day will conclude with a social evening of sporting mayhem as we come together to watch Blood Bowl played live.

Join us at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester for a day of talks and gaming. This event is free and is open to everyone.  Places are limited. Please book your ticket by clicking the link below:

The Manchester School of Art presents a talk from Alex Kelly, theatre & games maker, writer, performer and mentor. Alex creates performance and participatory projects that connect the territories of theatre, games, conversation, installation and digital media. Since 2023 he has been making projects under the name Voyager 3.

The investigate.games research group based at YSJ is pleased to be organising the Interactive Games PGR Conference again for 2025. The event will feature keynote speakers from leading experts in the field, including Manchester Game Centre co-lead, Dr Chloé Germaine, who will be talking about her creative research, ‘Playing, Making and Breaking - Research with Games’, as a keynote address. The event also features the Manchester Game Centre research assistant, Samuel Ethan Jolly, who will be presenting his work on ‘Historical Ludo-Narratives: Turning the Past into Play’.