Decoding the World of Games with Professor Colleen Macklin

Colleen Macklin is a game designer and a Professor in the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons School of Design and author of Iterate: Ten Lessons in Design and Failure. She’s interested in how games model and reveal ideologies through systems. And, incidentally, she reports she was recently diagnosed with ADHD, which makes her doubly cool in our crowd. She joins us today to talk about games and gaming and neurodiversity.

We explore a wide range of topics, from the impact of ADHD on Colleen's life and teaching to her love for games and game design. Colleen shares her thoughts on how games can engage attentional deficits and embrace a broad neurodiversity spectrum. She also shares her journey with the game design collective Local No. 12 and their creations, including the videogame "Dear Reader.”

Playing games helps us to rediscover playfulness in our lives no matter your age. If there’s one thing we hope you’ll walk away from this episode thinking about it’s that you have the opportunity — the gift — that is creating more play in your own life everyday. You don’t have to be a tabletop gamer, or a programmer in the video game field. All you have to do is wake up and decide: today, we play.

Links & Notes

• ColleenMacklin.com
• Dear Reader
• BudgetBall
• Iterate: Ten Lessons in Design and Failure (The MIT Press) by John Sharp and Colleen Macklin
• The Monopolists by Mary Pilon

• (00:00) - Welcome to Taking Control: The ADHD Podcast
• (02:12) - Support the Show • Become a Patron! Patreon.com/theadhdpodcast
• (03:45) - Introducing Colleen Macklin
• (06:07) - Colleen's Road to Diagnosis
• (09:23) - Colleen's Road to Games
• (13:59) - Exciting Game Tech ... and Budgetball
• (21:19) - RSD and Becoming a "Better" Gamer
• (28:43) - Where Poker and RPGs collide
• (32:46) - Using Games to Learn About Ourselves
• (35:36) - "If you want to understand something, make a game about it."