1.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
Rethinking
Game Design
through Feminist
Methodologies:
a Case Study

2.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
Context: Game Design & Gender
REPRESENTATION PRODUCTION USAGE
Introducing a
critical
perspective
- Analysis
- Critical Games
- Pedagogies

3.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
Some Reflections about Methods
Knowledge of reality is a light that always
casts a shadow
(Bachelard, 1974)
--> DEFINING A CRITICAL POSITION
Feminist Methods?
- Recting positivism and reductionism
- Subjectivity, challenging objetivity, empowerment, social change
(Harding, 1989)
R.Q.: What a feminist perspective can bring to
game design?

4.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
Some Reflections about Methods
Opening the code
Methods as generative and
procedural instruments

5.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
The Case Study:
Game Design
Workshop

6.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
The Game Design Workshop
• Action research (2 researchers / facilitators)
• GOALS: collective creation of prototypes
of minigames about identity in the Internet
• CONTEXT: Seminar “Digital Industry and
Gender” (Sevilla, 2014)
• 17 participants, 4 hours

7.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
The Game Design Workshop: Hypothesis
R.Q.: What a feminist perspective can bring to
game design?
The use of feminist tactics would facilitate the participants’s
interest in game design, enabling the creation of new imageries
and generating a sense of competence and empowerment

8.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
The Game Design Workshop: Overview
Feminist
practices
(Performance, research
methods)
+
Theatrical
exercises (Forum
theatre)
+
Mistake, Irony,
Parody, Play
KEY CONCEPTS:
• Embodied experience
• Synesthetic thinking
• Intersubjectivity

9.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
The Game Design Workshop: the
Structure
1. Warm-up: Body-in-motion
2. Feminist performance practices
3. Embodied political meanings
4. Transduction & synesthetic thinking
5. Examples and mirrors
6. Inter-subjective experience
7. Prototyping: trial and error
Progressive
Structure:
• reducing difficulties with
game design
• creating a path
• facilitating creative
process

10.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
The Game Design Workshop: the
Structure
Warm- up:
Body-in-motion
-->
- Familiarity
- Error
- Laugh
1

11.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
The Game Design Workshop: the
Structure
Feminist
performance’s
practices: Repetition,
Exaggeration, Decontextualization..
-->
- Playfulness
- Subvert meanings
2

12.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
The Game Design Workshop: the
Structure
Embodied political
meanings
-->
- Example/ Experience
- Games’ elements as
mediatiors of meanings
3

13.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
The Game Design Workshop: the
Structure
Transduction &
Synesthetic
thinking
-->
- Introducing topics
- Analysis and
creation: shift
perspective
4

14.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
The Game Design Workshop: the
Structure
Examples
and mirrors
5

15.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
The Game Design Workshop: the
Structure
Inter-subjective
experience as raw
material for game design
-->
- Ground concepts in
concrete experience
- Transforming it
6

16.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
The Game Design Workshop: the
Structure
Prototyping:
trial and
error
7

17.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
Discussion & Conclusion
EMBODIED
EXPERIENCE
SYNESTHETIC
THINKING
INTERSUBJECTIVITY
- Use the body as a
mediator of meaning making
- Learning and reflecting
through concrete, “hands-on”
experiences
- Transduction: remaking
meaning across modes
(Kress, 1997)
- Explore the value of
materials (form as meaning)
- The personal is political
- The others as mirrors
1. Warm-up: Body-in-motion
2. Feminist performance practices
3. Embodied political meanings
4. Transduction & synesthetic
thinking
6. Inter-subjective experience
2. Feminist performance practices
4. Transduction & synesthetic
thinking
6. Inter-subjective experience
7. Prototyping: trial and error
2. Feminist performance practices
3. Embodied political meanings
6. Inter-subjective experience

18.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
Discussion & Conclusion
• EMPOWERMENT: Participants reported that now they feel that
it was possible and easy to start designing games.
• PRODUCTION: Different games were prototyped proposing new
imaginaries.
OPPORTUNITIES: The use of this methodology allowed
new subjectivities to be brought into game design and thus it opened
paths for generating new ways of designing games.
CHALLENGES: What if we apply this approach in other contexts?

19.
Manuela Acereda & Laura Malinverni
Thanks!
Questions?