Tom Cole
Staff details
I teach games design and development in Computing at Goldsmiths.
Academic qualifications
- PhD in Computing 2021
- MA Digital Games Theory and Design, Brunel University 2013
- BSc Biological Sciences with Industrial Experience, University of Manchester 2002
Teaching and Supervision
On campus I am module leader for:
Games Project 1
Games Project 2
Final Year Projects (Computer Science)
Online (with University of London and Coursera) I am module leader for:
Games Development
Final Year Projects.
I supervise students in the 3rd Year UG who are interested in making a game.
Research interests
My research is situated at the boundary of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Games Studies and focuses on the broadening and deepening of emotional engagement in videogames. In particular I am interested in the eudaimonic experience of playing videogames.
Further profile content
Featured publications
2015:
Emotional and Functional Challenge in Core and Avant-gard Games
Grounded Theory of types of challenge present in videogames, and how they link to emotional experience of gameplay.
2021:
Thinking and Doing: Challenge, Agency, and the Eudaimonic Experience in Videogames.
Grounded Theory on agency, and how this links to design for the mixed-affect emotional experience in videogames.
2015:
The Tragedy of Betrayal: How the design of 'Ico' and 'Shadow of the Colossus' elicits emotion
Close textual analysis of the first two games by Team Ico, and the various ways they use audio-visual, narrative and mechanical properties to elicit emotions that are unusual to videogames.
Other activities
I organise AdventureX - the world's only Narrative Games Convention, which has quadrupled in size in the last four years under my watch, sold out for the past three and takes place at the British Library Conference Centre.
In 2017 and 2018 I worked at the University for the Creative Arts, Rochester, where I was the founder and Programme Leader for the new BA in Games Design.
I previously worked at Supermassive Games where I was a designer on the BAFTA award-winning horror game Until Dawn and artist on Killzone Shadow Fall.
