I am a Professor of Game Studies based in the Department of English at Manchester Metropolitan University. I am co-director, with Chloe Germaine and Jenny Cromwell, of the Manchester Game Centre, a cross-faculty research group that brings together work on games from the Arts, Humanities, Social Science, Business and Management, Environmental Sciences and Computer Science. As a researcher at Utrecht University, I work with colleagues in the Green Media group on the Horizon-UKRI funded STRATEGIES project. 

My research brings together my interests in literary studies (in particular narrative theory and historical fictions), game studies and game making. My current work focuses on the ways in which games and game making might provide a means through which to explore and respond to societal challenges, with an emphasis on the climate crisis. Alongside this work I have a keen interest in fantasy games, with a particular focus on Games Workshop’s tabletop games, and I am currently completing a monograph on the fantasy football board game Blood Bowl.

I am also a game maker, and have made a number of games that aim to start conversations about the environment including the card game Carbon City Zero for the climate action charity Possible, and the (unofficial) Catan: Global Warming scenario. I am also one half of game-making duo, Frank and Alex.