The Bristol Digital Game Lab is a research group based in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Bristol. Founded in September 2022 by Dr Xiaochun Zhang and Dr Richard Cole, the Lab brings together researchers and practitioners from a radically diverse range of perspectives. This includes history, film and tv, translation, music, theatre, comparative literature, law, computer science, immersive technology, AI, game design, and beyond. The Lab is currently co-directed by Dr Richard Cole (Classics) and Dr Michael Samuel (Film and TV).
The aim of the Lab is to chart new possibilities for collaboration, both across disciplines and between Higher Education and the gaming industry, with digital games as a shared object of interest. By exploring crosscutting themes in a collaborative environment, we aim to contribute to ongoing debates about the nature and impact of games, while also co-creating new ways to develop, play, and test ideas using games. To this end, the Lab offers researchers and practitioners a range of knowledge-exchange opportunities, from talks, workshops, and participation in research projects to hands-on prototyping during ‘concept’ game jams.
For more details about the founding principles of the Lab, you can read our first blog post, which was also published as a LinkedIn article.