Serious Games: Changing The World Through Play!

In 2013, Hobo Theatre Director Jamie Harper was awarded a Winston Churchill Trust Travelling Fellowship to carry out research into Serious Games at the University of Miami. So what are Serious Games? Put simply, they're games that allow players to explore issues that are important to their world.
In the first phase of this research project, Jamie worked with Clay Ewing and Lien Tran, two leading exponents of serious game design who have made game projects on issues like HIV prevention, Dengue Fever, US Immigration Policy and Skin Cancer. Between 2014 and 2020, he exhibited work about economics, climate change, politics, urban renewal programs and digitally mediated 'social credit' systems in a variety of contexts, from Camden's People Theatre to the Serpentine Galleries and community-based settings in Scandinavia. Last year, Jamie co-designed the Home Planet project on sustainable cities at the Oslo Architecture Triennale, and he is currently completing a board game on European forest policy called Green Gold on behalf of Fern (Brussels).
Jamie completed a practice-based PhD in Performance at Newcastle University researching game design as a means of enhancing the creative agency of people who take part in participatory drama.
In the first phase of this research project, Jamie worked with Clay Ewing and Lien Tran, two leading exponents of serious game design who have made game projects on issues like HIV prevention, Dengue Fever, US Immigration Policy and Skin Cancer. Between 2014 and 2020, he exhibited work about economics, climate change, politics, urban renewal programs and digitally mediated 'social credit' systems in a variety of contexts, from Camden's People Theatre to the Serpentine Galleries and community-based settings in Scandinavia. Last year, Jamie co-designed the Home Planet project on sustainable cities at the Oslo Architecture Triennale, and he is currently completing a board game on European forest policy called Green Gold on behalf of Fern (Brussels).
Jamie completed a practice-based PhD in Performance at Newcastle University researching game design as a means of enhancing the creative agency of people who take part in participatory drama.