programmers. Beyond the practical skills acquired, participation in these sessions provides a sense of permission and empowerment to create games.
This Girl Codes project One example of a successful collabora- tive project I’ve been involved in is “This Girl Codes”, an artist-led programme by Junction Arts. This programme ran in 2022 at UK heritage sites, including Creswell Crags in Derbyshire, and aimed to “empower women of all ages through art, science, history & technology.” I worked with the lead artist and Junction Arts to introduce the participants to game development using retro style game-mak- ing software, Bitsy. The objective was to encourage participants to create a game based on the folklore, history, and land- scape of Creswell Crags, incorporating elements such as witch marks found in the caves and the local legend of Mother Grundy, a witch.
Rather than pressuring participants to create a full-fledged game each, we en- couraged them to express their creativity by contributing small game characters, dialogues, or scenery to a single game. The result was the collaborative creation of Mother Grundy’s Protection, a pixelated journey into the historical and mystical aspects of Creswell Crags. The success of this project highlighted the potential for collaborative co-creation around engaging and culturally significant themes, and how attendees at the workshop, game makers, artists, and storytellers could all work together to provide their own input into a successful project.
Creation of Mother Grundy’s Protection game The process involved various stages, starting with a discussion between myself and the lead artist, Cora, around what the game content might involve. I wasn’t able to get to Creswell Crags, so I created a video to introduce the participants to Bitsy, myself and the potential themes for the game. Cora, then took the workshop participants into Mother Grundy’s cave and discussed the game theme further. Doing this on-site was a great way to spark their imagination. Discussions revolved around the game’s potential involvement with the landscape of Cre- swell Crags and the backstory of Mother Grundy. Participants then hand-drew characters on paper, providing them with a few sentences of dialogue that would be triggered in the game when players inter- acted with them.
Using the Bitsy game-making tool, add- ing these hand drawn characters, collect- ible items, and scenery to the game was as simple as clicking on pixels, and typing a few lines of character dialog into a text
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box. About 15 rooms in the game were eventually created, each representing a unique aspect of Creswell Crags. I supported the game creators by giving them advice on how the story could develop within the technical limitations of Bitsy, as well as hands-on tinkering using the game-making tool itself. This collaborative approach not only eased the technical aspects for participants, but also allowed for a diverse range of creative contributions. It was great to see how inspired the participants were. This project highlighted the potential of collaborative co-creation around engag- ing themes, as well as demonstrating the power of storytelling through game development. Key factors to its success included the importance of reducing pressure on participants, while enabling a sense of community, collaboration and creativity.
Character transferred to Bitsy. Picture © This Girl Codes participant 2022
in another side of my identity as well, and has a strong inclusion and diversity aspect.
This LGBTQ+ Positive Voices @ Gold- smiths project focuses on positive rep- resentation and experiences of LGBTQ+ and queer individuals. It developed from an online exhibition I’d curated before I started working at Goldsmiths, which used the same theme. You can find out more about it at
www.lgbtqposi-
tivevoices.org/exhibition-entrance.html. As a follow up to this online exhibition, I wanted to discover positive representation within the Library and Special Collec- tions and Archives, and also engage with the University community around this theme. So the physical exhibition within the Library, which is due to go live in May, will contain items from the collection and contributions from artists and members of the Goldsmiths community.
Bitsy character drawn on paper. Picture © This Girl Codes participant 2022
You can find out more about the project, and play the game at:
https://thisgirl.codes/moth- er-grundys-protection-bitsy-game/
Current Project: LGBTQ+ Positive Voices Project @ Goldsmiths Currently I’m the Systems Technician at Goldsmith’s University Library, and my responsibilities span supporting the man- agement of the Library’s systems, self-service machines, and discovery services. But I’ve still been fortunate enough to continue my crossover work with games, via a project focused on LGBTQ+ identities. As a member of the CILIP LGBTQ+ Network Committee, this project has also helped bring
As part of this wider exhibition, I’m leading on creating another retro style game using Bitsy once again. This time participants have been asked to create small characters representing positive, joyful, and affirming queer experiences. We want people to participate and share their experiences, even though they may not feel they can contribute by making a whole game themselves. An added bonus of this part of the exhibition is that it further illustrates the impact of inclusive storytelling in the context of making games, and that game-making is for everyone.
Both This Girl Codes and the Goldsmiths project are great examples of how through shared experiences, storytell- ing, and the power of digital literacy via game-making, we can help create inclusive spaces that enable individuals to share their unique narratives. And as a someone working in a library or GLAM organisation, you too can empower your users to creatively share their stories, and connect with others through game-making by building on ideas highlighted in this article. IP
March 2024
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