Fictional Topographies and the Spatialisation of Narrative

I've pasted in the abstract from my keynote talk at the Image Conference in Córdoba last year below, but to cut a long story short it was about interaction design and environmental storytelling in digital games, and how these can inform ELT pedagogy.

Abstract:

Game spaces are meticulously designed environments. The tennis court, the football pitch and the sumo wrestler’s dohyo are spatially and visually organised to embody the rules that inform the interactions taking place within their boundaries. 

Virtual spaces are sculpted with even more painstaking care, as the digital architect can distort, subvert or completely rewrite the laws of physics and define the capabilities of the players and characters that inhabit these fictional worlds. In this talk, I will discuss how game design can inform ELT pedagogy by examining what games do well.