Who We Are

Video games are no longer just entertainment. They are tools for change. The Bristol Digital Game Lab, based at the Bristol Digital Futures Institute, is pioneering this shift. From public health to cultural heritage and policy, games are shaping how we learn, connect and solve complex challenges. The Game Lab asks not just what games are, but what they can do for society, for our future. We act as a connective infrastructure – bridging academia, industry, and the public sector. Our mission is to unlock the power of play for cultural, educational, and civic transformation. The Game Lab is one of four dynamic labs within the Centre for Creative Technologies and is co-directed by Dr Richard Cole (Digital Futures) and Dr Michael Samuel (Film and TV).

What We Do

The Game Lab supports the development of games as a public service. We act as a catalyst for thinking about and with games in the creative City of Bristol. Since 2022, we have designed games for museums and to support mental health, conducted large-scale player studies as part of industry-led collaborative R&D projects, and developed a methodology that uses game jams to critically examine the past, present, and future. This practice-led, research-informed approach underpins our consultancy service for academics, industry, and the third sector. We also developed the MA Games Design (Narrative), the first programme of its kind globally to focus on narrative design for games.

For more details about the founding principles of the Bristol Digital Game Lab you can read our first blog post, which was also published as a LinkedIn article.