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The 2019 Whaaat!? festival is almost here, and like last year's inaugural event, it promises something for every game aficionado: weird new games, old dusty games, overlooked gems, games with bizarre controllers, games that live in art museums and even games that may start arguments over what the game actually is. The event will also feature the ever-popular, all-you-can-eat cereal bar.

The Oct. 5 festival includes the  where you can sample all of the above, and a conference for serious game developers.

-goers will learn about the art form of game design during panel discussions, workshops and from this year's keynote speakers, including well-known game designers Colleen Macklin and Jason Rohrer.

Rohrer's work comprised the first full-scale museum show devoted to videogames of a single artist at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College in 2016; his 2007 game Passage is included in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art. Macklin is an associate professor of media design at Parsons The New School for Design and founder and co-director of PETLab, which focuses on games for experimental learning and social engagement. Her work has been shown with Come Out & Play, Creative Time and the Whitney Museum, and she鈥檚 co-authored two books: "Games, Design and Play" and "Iterate: Ten Lessons in Design and Failure."

The arcade, a free event which runs from 11 a.m. - 3 p.m., features specially curated tabletop and digital games to play "until your fingers are numb and your brain is inspired."鈥�

Whaaat's up!?

Overall the event is geared towards games that don't fit in traditional boxes and highlights experiences that make you say "Whaaat!?

That's not "What?," but "Whaaat!?," defined in urban slang dictionaries as an expression of amazement and disbelief, combined with delight. Conference organizers Matt Bethancourt, director of the program and the ATLAS Whaaat!? Lab, which specializes in experimental game development, and Danny Rankin, ATLAS instructor and recent graduate of the institute鈥檚 Creative, Technology and Design (CTD) program, created the festival, to leave people 鈥渟urprised, maybe confused and hopefully delighted.鈥�

for the Whaaat!? conference is now open; attendance is limited to 175, and the price is $30.

Whaaat!? is sponsored by the ATLAS Institute and 蜜桃传媒破解版下载's Engineering Excellence Fund. 
 

Who: Expert gamers to aspiring developers to those who know little about games. 

What: 2019 Whaaat!? Festival, a one-day festival for games and experimental interactions. Conference track includes talks, a curated arcade of experimental games, workshops, panels and more!

When: Oct. 5, 2019, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Where: Roser ATLAS Center, ATLAS Institute, University of Colorado Boulder, 1125 18th St, Boulder, CO

Cost: The $30 conference price includes access to panel discussions, workshops and keynote speaker presentations, as well as full access to the . The arcade track is free, but is required.

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The Unstable Design Lab welcomes Finland-based , a recently graduated Designer from Aalto University, as a practice-based researcher-in-residence for the summer.

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Ellen Yi-Luen Do is a professor at the ATLAS Institute and the director of the A Creativity Machine Environment (ACME) Lab, where her research interests include design, tangible interaction and happy and healthy living. Do was on the steering and organizing committees for the C&C conference, on the DIS'19 organizing committee, and chaired the Design Methods and Progress track for DIS. She also chaired sessions on virtual reality and education.

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Peter Gyory and Clement Zheng, PhD students and lecturers at the ATLAS Institute, both do research for the ACME and THING laboratories. Their HOT SWAP game was showcased during the Provocations and Work-in-Progress session at the Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS '19) held in San Diego, June 23-28. Gyory's interests include games, XR and tangible interaction; Zheng's interests include computational design and tangible interaction.  

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"MorphIO: Entirely Soft Sensing and Actuation Modules for Programming Shape Changes through Tangible Interaction," authored by Ryo Suzuki and researchers from Keio University and The University of Tokyo in Japan, won a "Best Paper" award at the 2019 Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS '19) held in San Diego June 23-28. Suzuki, an ATLAS affiliated PhD student who does research for the ACME and THING laboratories, presented the research during the DIS '19 Shape Changes Interfaces Track.

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"Envisioning Reflective, Relaxing, and Restorative Design with ASMR," authored by Josephine Klefeker and Laura Devendorf, was presented by lead author, Klefeker, during the works-in-progress track of the 2019 Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS '19). Klefeker is an undergraduate researcher in the Unstable Design Lab, where her research interests include using technology to provoke introspection as well as to develop meditative forms of interaction. 

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