For many players, games are entertainment, diversion, relaxation, fantasy. But what if certain games were something more than this, providing not only outlets for entertainment but a means for creative expression, instruments for conceptual thinking, or tools for social change? In Critical Play, artist and game designer Mary Flanagan examines alternative games — games that challenge the accepted norms embedded within the gaming industry — and argues that games designed by artists and activists are reshaping everyday game culture. Arguing that this kind of conscious practice — which now constitutes the avant-garde of the computer game medium — can inspire new working methods for designers, Flanagan offers a model for designing that will encourage the subversion of popular gaming tropes through new styles of game making, and proposes a theory of alternate game design that focuses on the reworking of contemporary popular game practices.

Artgame Sessions takes the position that game designers use game design and its mechanics, player goals and thematic premises are a form of expression in the same way painters use line, color and form to express themselves. The core of games — interactivity — provides an experience and a point of view. Through a series of four short talks, audience members will come to understand some of the motivations and goals of the artgame movement. These presentations will not be made by the developers themselves. Instead, other game-makers and journalists will examine the developers’ approaches to making artgames and the play experiences they provide.

How is indie gaming altering the videogame landscape? What should we be doing more of, and why? If this is a revolution, when will it be co-opted? 10 speakers, 20 slides, 5 minutes and 20 seconds each. If you’ve been to a Microtalk before, you know the thrill of rapid-fire presentations. If you haven’t, then join us and experience the fun as a diverse group of independent game makers and free thinkers present their personal thoughts on the future direction of independent gaming.

The passion, autonomy and creative expression promised by independent game development offers an intoxicating draw to those that yearn to say something through the medium of videogames. But starving artists still gotta eat. This panel discusses the current state of indie game funding, its evolution from the traditional publisher source of funding to include new investment models, and speculates on what might be in the future as the indie game scene continues to grow.

Game culture is often thought of as naive, disposable and operating in a cultural vacuum, isolated from everything other than genre fiction and Japanese pop culture. Tracy Fullerton, Frank Lantz, Richard Lemarchand and John Sharp beg to differ, and offer punk rock as a case in point.  Punk demonstrates the ways in which pop culture can be simultaneously exuberant, naive, primal, critical, disposable and savvy, sophisticated, intellectual, and culturally self-aware, and is therefore a wonderful inspiration for videogames. These four old school punks will talk about the overt and hidden connections between games, punk rock, and the arts.

When you think of story and games, the first things that might come to mind are big-budget AAA titles and their reliance on cinematic conventions, genre and fancy graphics. The indie scene is also quietly working away at the enigmatic story-game problem, but in ways that differ from the mainstream industry. Erik Loyer (Ruben & Lullaby, Blue Velvet) and Dan Pinchbeck of the Chinese Room (Korsakovia, Dear Esther) will discuss their work and opinions about melding game and story, the tensions and connections between the two, and why the indie scene is likely to pave the way for great interactive storytelling.