How to design political games with a broken heart

Can games seep into life's political, social, and cultural realms? Across projects that fuse game development, filmmaking within game engines, LARP (live-action role play), and more, Mario Mu interrogates this question. The Croatian-born artist now lives in Berlin, where he researches games, labor, and memory. After a career illustrating for commercial brands such as Doodle Jump and publishing with Gestalten, Mario continues his independent creative practice, with all projects he thinks of as ‘extended gaming platforms.’

In this talk, we spoke with Mario about his design process of games and live-action role-play experiences, how he incorporates research on politics and labor into his creative practice, and how he is shifting from commercial work to personal practice in the fine-art world.

This episode was hosted by Jamin Warren, founder of Killscreen. Music by Nick Sylvester.