Ben Kirman

.plan

This page is an intermittently updated summary of what I'm currently up to, and where my efforts are currently directed. It is based on Now pages, and the .plan files from back in the day. It is not meant to be a complete summary, just a little note.

Last updated 1/7/26

Research

  • Been a busy few months, organising the Museum of Manky Tea Towels with Oliver for the Electromagnetic Field festival. This is a really nice alternative way to have an "output" for the background research we've been doing in tea towels as critical media.
  • I'm also running a workshop at Electromagnetic Field for people interested in making games with 1-dimensional LED strips. It should be fun, and is a good opportunity for me to do more experimental game design with these things. I love them and it just seems there is more to explore.
  • Again with Oliver, and also Marcia and David, I recently published a paper about Research through Game Design at the Design Research Society conference in Edinburgh. It was nice to get this out as an expression of doing more "silly" and unfinished things, and me and Oliver have been talking about writing something on the topic for years. It has also had some really nice feedback from students which is great. DRS is still a bit of an odd venue for game design research but there were a handful of game papers there.

Teaching

  • I am Training Coordinator in York for the IGGI doctoral training centre.
  • In undergraduate, I was teaching parts of Mobile Interaction, and supervising students in the Individual Project module for year 3 Interactive Media students for Semester 2, 2025/26. For 26/27 it looks like I will teach Mobile again.

Other

  • Still playing a lot of boardgames and setting myself challenges each year. The 10x10 (10 games played 10 times each) for 2025 were: Aeon's End, Dorfromantik, Down in Flams: Locked On, Flash Point: Legacy of Flame, Forgotten Ruin, Imperium, Sea Wolves Solitaire, Stuka Leader, Tiger Leader, Warfighter.
  • 10x10 years (10 Games from 2015) were 7 Wonders Duel(*), Baseball Highlights: 2045(*), Deep Space D6, Hostage Negotiator, Monikers(*), Potion Explosion, Spinderella, Tiger Leader(*), Tiny Epic Galaxies(*), and Viticulture Essential Edition(*). Asterisks are ones that aged well. 2015 was another good year for games!
  • In 2025 also learned 90 new board/card games, and played 193 different games, with 45 different people, a total of 400 times.