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Critical Hit Speaker Series: Manveer Heir

Posted by Jess

On August 14th, join us for the final evening of Critical Hit’s Distinguished Speaker Series along with the best games party of the summer, the Critical Hit Final Showcase! This speaker series has featured game creators and researchers of all stripes who have shared their experiences in the field and in the community. It’s our way of bringing GDC to Montreal! Join us for the final talk with gameplay designer Manveer Heir, who will be keynoting the final showcase.

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Manveer Heir is a Senior Gameplay Designer at BioWare Montréal who has worked on games such as Mass Effect 3 and Wolfenstein. He regularly speaks about diversity in games, designing ethical dilemmas, and a variety of other design topics that he finds interesting. He is interested in systemic game design and finding new ways to create emotional depth and engagement in games systemically. His favorite game of all time is Fallout.

Manveer’s talk will focus on taking a close look at the games we create and examine them with a different perspective than normal: how do video games hold up when we examine their contents for potential racism, misogyny and homophobia? This session will look at a number of recent games from this perspective, and talk about the positives and negatives that are found within our games. The talk will examine narrative representation, narrative depiction and the game dynamics to see how race, gender and sexuality are treated. Finally, the session will give some tips for how to avoid falling into easy traps when dealing with these issues, and discuss how this can improve the quality of the game.

For this event, as it takes place at our final showcase, attendees must RSVP on our eventbrite page which can be found here:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/critical-hit-2014-showcase-tickets-12474440387

WHO: Manveer Heir, Our Keynote Speaker for the Final Showcase
WHAT: A talk about representation in games and how we can improve the quality of our games by improving the quality of our representations of people.
WHEN: Thursday, August 14th, 5PM
WHERE: Google Montreal, 1253 McGill College Ave #150, Montreal, QC H3B 2Y5