How do games work? How do you make them? And how do games make us and our societies and cultures? The minor Game Studies will provide you with both the perspective and practice to give your own answers to these questions.

This thesis manuscript explores the use of video games as tools for conceptual exploration and academic research.

The Game Research Lab uses digital games as a medium for academic research. It considers entertainment games and 'serious’ games as objects of study, develops novel approaches for creating, playing, and analysing games, and studies the interactions between games and AI.

The Game Research Lab (GRL) uses digital games as a medium for academic research, and consider ‘serious’ games and entertainment games equally valuable objects of study.

The Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs of Leiden University in The Hague has developed two Serious Games, 'het Grote Migratiespel' and 'het Schipholspel' to introduce secondary school students to their study and research programmes.

In what way can the qualities of an existing context be used as guiding and enriching principles rather than limiting factors in the process of spatial transformation?

Are you mad about board games? Then we’ve got good news for you: we’ve developed our very own University game, HORA EST! It’s a fun way to learn more about the University. Get your family and friends together for an evening of fun and games!

Having open conversations about diversity and inclusion is an important first step towards change. Yet, such conversation can be emotional and vulnerable, and at times uncomfortable to initiate and sustain. The 'What’s Your Story?' Card Game aims to enable participants to exchange and respond to stories…

Can playing certain games decrease cognitive decline or even enhance cognitive performance in the aging population?

How well children learn depends to a large extent on good teachers and effective learning materials. Wilfried Admiraal investigates such issues as gaming as a modern learning tool. He concludes that this tool has little to offer less talented students.

Promotor: F. Arbab, R. De Nicola, Co-Promotor: M. Tribastone

Over the last decades, aviation safety has improved strongly. As a downside, airline pilots do not have as many opportunities to develop through experience the competencies that they need in critical situations.

The newly opened Culture Arcade exhibition is a place where cultural heritage and video games come together. It is co-organized and curated by the VALUE Foundation of which Faculty staff members Aris Politopoulos and Csilla Ariese-Vandemeulebroucke are part of, together with the Prince Claus Fund.

Combinatorial games are games for two competing players, moving in a turn-by-turn fashion, in which there is no chance nor hidden information⁠. Chess, checkers and the simpler tic tac toe are well-known examples of this class of games, as well as game of go⁠.

How do games help shape our perception of the past? Associate Professor Angus Mol receives a Vidi grant to answer this question.

A defining fixture of our contemporary world, video games offer a rich spectrum of engagements with the past.

While it has traditionally been seen as a means of documenting an external reality or expressing an internal feeling, photography is now capable of actualizing never-existed pasts and never-lived experiences.

Promotores: Prof.dr. J. Zaanen & Prof.dr. K.E. Schalm

In deep reinforcement learning, searching and learning techniques are two important components. They can be used independently and in combination to deal with different problems in AI, and have achieved impressive results in game playing and robotics. These results have inspired research into artificial…

The project aims to develop an escape room-style game to teach students cyber crisis management and prepare them for real-world cybersecurity challenges

Everything you need to know about the minor Game Studies and Cultural Analysis.

This dissertation shows that dialogical logic constitutes a powerful and flexible general framework for the development and study of various logical formalisms and combinations thereof.

Infecting each other with viruses and bacteria while protecting yourself with medicines and vaccinations. Sounds like a fun evening, right? Master students Life Science & Technology Rafael Jezior and Dennis de Beeld certainly think so. Together, they developed ImmunoWars: an exciting card game based…

The Netherlands is embroiled in a complex nitrogen crisis. Berent Baris wants to use his NitroGenius game to demonstrate the complexity of this crisis.

On Thursday 18 December, 170 first-year pupils from Gymnasium Haganum visited Leiden University’s Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs (FGGA) in The Hague. The faculty has developed The Great Migration Game (Het grote Migratiespel) as a fun way to introduce pre-university pupils to its fields of…

Academia and games. One is for serious people who only have time for research, the other is a pastime best avoided if you are or want to be one of these serious people, right? Not at all!