- Event
- Completed
Multiplatform 2025: Rituals of Play – Shaping Alternative Futures with Games and Occulture
Manchester Game Center
The Manchester Game Centre is a research-led initiative based at the Manchester Metropolitan University. It promotes game studies across various disciplines at local, national, and international levels. Through public events, workshops and teaching, it fosters exchanges between researchers, practitioners and players.
Presentation
The Manchester Game Centre and Game in Lab, in collaboration with DVRK – the Dark Arts Research Kollective, are proud to present Multiplatform 2025, a symposium exploring the intersections of games, play, and contemporary occulture. Held at the Burgess Foundation and the MMU Arts and Humanities Building on 12–13 June 2025, this edition focuses on the ritualistic and speculative dimensions of play and how they can help shape alternative social, political, and cultural futures.
Bringing together academics, designers, engineers, and artists, Multiplatform 2025 examines how games are increasingly entangled with mysticism, esotericism, and ritual. From analog role-playing games to immersive digital experiences, the symposium explores how these practices enable forms of worldbuilding that go beyond narratives and offer new perspectives on play and society.
Participants will have the opportunity to experience The Museum of Lost Futures, an immersive game experience, and to attend talks by leading figures such as Jeff Howard, Associate Professor of Games and Occulture at Falmouth University, and Rob Donkin, game designer of Strange Horticulture.
Researchers, designers, educators, artists, students, and all curious minds are invited to register and delve into the mysteries of games and occult play.
