In 2011, I started a creative research project called Play [Station], which investigated the real-world value of playing a video game. As a closeted former gamer, I ‘came out’ to Glasgow’s performance art community by installing a wide range of playable games in the Arches cave-like basement room.

The reaction to the space I created surprised me, in terms of how active the audience were in the room, how sociable and energetic the installation allowed them to be.

The next experiments in the Play [Station] series continued this same investigation from different angles.

 

Lost World was an experiment into how dedicated an audience could be to the challenge of completing an infuriatingly difficult game. 

 

In Sleep Is Death, I created a game in which the player had ten minutes to save a crumbling relationship with a fictitious partner.

By the end of the Play [Station] series, I found myself having made the surprising transition from curious performance artist to being a game-designer at heart. However, the games I wanted to make were not digital works of fiction, but games for real-life. There is a young but quickly growing global movement of games which engage with and enhance our real lives, from the Games For Change Conference (Global), to the Come Out and Play Festival (NYC), to the huge success of Bristol-based Slingshot in their UK tour of zombie-chase game 2.8 Hours Later. 

Inspired by this movement, I have spent the past year creating works which merge my passion for drama with my passion for games. These range from projects for children which invite them into fictional worlds, to a series of talks about how to apply gaming structures to artistic or educational contexts. In March 2013, I launched my Cold-War inspired transmedia/street game These Lonely Victories, where players raced to claim territory within Glasgow’s city centre. 

In May 2013, I acted as a consultant for Kilmarnock College as part of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, during which we collaborated on a street game for a staff development day.

The Under Construction Residency
As we head into 2014, my aim is to build on these first steps into game design, and increase the stylistic-range and output of games I am creating. I am in the research phase of making an immersive game inspired by the world of Cyberpunk, as well as exploring democratic technologies such as Twine as a way for artists and non-artists to express themselves through games. These are the main ideas I would be keen to explore through the 'Under Construction' residency. In the spirit of the work I'm making, I would also hope to incorporate interactivity into the presentation on November 20th.

What Others Have Said 
"Your contribution greatly improved the planning of the event and the success of the whole idea on the day [...] this event greatly benefited from your creative ideas. Thanks again for your help."
(Greg Cassidy, Curriculum Leader for Essential Skills, Kilmarnock College)

"It’s not entirely unfair to ask what the hell Thom Scullion thinks he is doing."

(Gareth Vile on Lost World - full review here)