Ben Kirman
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ben.kirman.org
Ben Kirman
@ben.kirman.org
160 followers 240 following 210 posts
Postdisciplinary games academic: Make/study/teach the playful, weird, wonderful and radical. (he/him)
#criticaldesign #speculativedesign #designfiction #gamedesign

Projects:
https://ben.kirman.org
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ben.kirman.org
Just had to ssh into a pumpkin because it was playing amen break too frequently
October 28, 2025 at 7:39 PM
ben.kirman.org
October 17, 2025 at 8:17 PM
ben.kirman.org
Decolonisers of Catan (with dice that only roll 7s) #boardgames #catan
A photograph of a Settlers of Catan board, showing two d6s that have 3.5 spots on every side.
October 17, 2025 at 6:12 PM
ben.kirman.org
from the Dog Internet archives. WHAT DO THEY KNOW?
A "deep fried" image shows a hand drawn dog sniffing the backside of another. They are labelled as "client" and "server", and an arrow points to the middle noting "knowledge/data/insight". This is surrounded by text asking "What is happening?!", "dog text transfer protocol?" and "what do they know??"
October 9, 2025 at 4:12 PM
ben.kirman.org
bloody eck
The Draw a Fish website except I badly photoshopped the age verification thing from Bluesky into it in a half baked topical gag.
July 25, 2025 at 1:46 PM
ben.kirman.org
Great news from a kickstarter project that's collecting fart noises
screenshot from kickstarter "UPDATE #9 Unlocked: Industrial Pump"
July 8, 2025 at 12:16 PM
ben.kirman.org
"Jessica... what fucking size shoe do you have?!" - best line from the horror film Clown in a Cornfield (2025)
A still from the film showing a foot stepping in a comically large footprint in a muddy field
June 21, 2025 at 8:01 PM
ben.kirman.org
Fun tour of the emerging irreverent voice in UK games magazines in the 80s from Robin Bootes at #BDiGRA25 . Tag urself im a wally/gremlin
A picture of an academic presentation, featuring images from magazines labelled Boffins, Nerds and Whiz Kids
May 21, 2025 at 9:19 AM
ben.kirman.org
Great to hear from Prasad on his great applied game work at #BDiGRA25 good to see some @iggi-phd.bsky.social folks here!
May 20, 2025 at 11:01 AM
ben.kirman.org
A cartoon of a sign instructs: "ABSOLUTELY NO PROJECTILE VOMITING", cropped out of context of the 9/7/92 Far Side comic by Gary Larson.
March 11, 2025 at 2:56 PM
ben.kirman.org
One for the collection. This illustration of a "Direct Drive Extruder" on Wikipedia - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fused_f...
A simple sketch of two round objects either side of some kind of shaft with drops of material emanating from the tip.
February 20, 2025 at 9:10 PM
ben.kirman.org
Steam: "flesh might be the most thought-provoking currency we have" store.steampowered.com/bundle/24095...
A screenshot from a steam page saying "Complete your Collection" "Buy Economic Body Horror Bundle", while noting 1 of 4 items is already in my library
February 17, 2025 at 4:11 PM
ben.kirman.org
Added some details about the BRANNEN interactive theatre/mobile game project with Teatret Vårt in Molde and Ålesund, Norway. Another fantastic project with great collaborators. ben.kirman.org/projects/bra...
A ballroom projected with dramatic flames, with a group of actors in the centre, surrounded by audience members in the distance.
February 7, 2025 at 4:24 PM
ben.kirman.org
Wrote up some technical details of the Utopia Concreta project, that I worked on in Portugal last year. There's a lot more detail but it was a cool and fun mix of complex technologies for an interactive, gamelike, outdoor audio-walk/live theatre experience: ben.kirman.org/projects/uto...
A view over a valley at dusk. In the middle ground there is a path and lit frame that illuminates the hillside and an audience member watching a video
February 6, 2025 at 11:11 AM
ben.kirman.org
Played some Ouija Manor this week (boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/43...). A ghost communicates through a mini ouija board, and by possessing other players' figures to point at clues in this cleverly engineered cardboard house. #boardgames
A man with a delightful wolf head t-shirt reaches pensively into a cardboard constructed manor house to place a character. He is lit from below and looks an ickle bit scared
January 30, 2025 at 9:35 PM
ben.kirman.org
Why yes I do have a PhD. (from www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwYm...)
January 21, 2025 at 4:55 PM
ben.kirman.org
Came across this horrorshow in a review of beige paints...
A modern motorbike painted up in Afrika Korps paint job
January 21, 2025 at 2:52 PM
ben.kirman.org
We're running a game jam this week @iggi-phd.bsky.social and the first activity a researcher suggested is for everyone to make their own name badges. This was a really good idea and I recommend it if you organise jams. Really gets the creative vibe going.
A messy table of craft materials scissors and newspapers with a name badge in creation
January 7, 2025 at 10:57 AM
ben.kirman.org
Got a small resin 3d printer and now need to explain to neighbours that the reason I dress like breaking bad and have a garage full of toxic chemicals, is just to make a tiny pug that is also a dragon. It's a Puggon.
It's a tiny pug that looks like a dragon!
January 4, 2025 at 7:08 PM
ben.kirman.org
Got to wonder who at the University of Lincoln approved their sponsorship of Lincoln City's third kit (the black one - look closely...). Did they get a discount? Doesn't really give a good impression of the uni, but the good news is nobody can tell they are the sponsors anyway.
A football match showing a player in black heading the ball away from a Rotherham player in Red and white. The black shirt extremely faintly says the University of Lincoln, but it is effectively unreadable.
December 5, 2024 at 12:57 PM
ben.kirman.org
"Dad thought he was smart - but little Timmy's Surface-to-Air Missile site just got a lock!" www.wargamevault.com/product/2422...
A stock photo of a family superimposed with graphics of airplanes and missiles flying about, with the caption quoted in the post.
November 29, 2024 at 5:40 PM
ben.kirman.org
Probably since I did the non-league football project, the algorithms have decided that is a good angle to sell me stuff. Now I get ads that think I am interested in drinking 90 cups of beef gravy before it goes off in 2 weeks.
An advert shows a tub of Bovril Beef flavoured drink, at the low price of £5 a tub but an asterisk that notes the best before date is 30th november this year.
November 14, 2024 at 9:21 AM
ben.kirman.org
I recently worked on a project with Nils Zweiling (zweiling.com) and Julian Jungel (julianjungel.de) where we used a ton of smart IKEA light bulbs to interactively animate an outdoor path. It's really got me thinking more about this kind of "display"
A path in the mountainside at Dusk, lit by a series of pink lights that stretch to the distance.
November 12, 2024 at 11:16 AM
ben.kirman.org
I'm building a list of 1-dimensional games, especially those played on LED strings. Have you played/made or seen any that I should know about?

@robinwobbles.bsky.social's Line Wobbler and Alex Johansson's Glow Golf are great examples.

(pic: Line Wobbler from IndieCade flickr.com/photos/indie...)
A dark room at IndieCade 2016 and someone moves the wobbly controller that makes lights shoot up a string of LED lights
November 12, 2024 at 11:08 AM
ben.kirman.org
Further project sneak peeks, this time in 🇵🇹
A view over a countryside valley in Portugal. A picture frame made of mirrors, allows a view through the valley Plastic crates filled with dozens of iot smart bulbs
October 4, 2024 at 4:43 PM