[Commlist] MultiPlay x IGDA CFP: Queer Horror in Videogames

Call for Papers
*Designing Monstrosity, Queering the Monster: Design, Implementation, 
and Experiences of Queer Monstrosity in Horror Gaming*
*May/June 2025*

We are delighted to announce a one-day collaborative conference on 
horror in gaming, hosted by MultiPlay Network and the International Game 
Developers Association (IGDA). Inspired by /It Came from the Closet: 
Queer Reflections on Horror/ (Vallese, 2022), this conference is a 
sister event to the IGDA LGBTQ+ Special Interest Group (SIG) Pride Game 
Jam happening in June 2025, each event exploring the rich entanglements 
between queerness and horror in video games.

Considerations of horror and monstrosity in video games often reveal 
complicated interrelations between various social aspects.  This is seen 
in Švelch (2023), where he argues that interactions between players and 
the in-game monsters that they encounter may indicate normative societal 
boundaries and the various anxieties of an era.

Focussing on queerness, we extend Vallese’s consideration of queer 
experiences of horror in film to consider how relations in games may 
reveal aspects of queer subjectivities (see Harrer et al., 2019; Ruberg, 
2022). Such an approach connects with various areas of scholarship 
related to horror in video games, including the examination of Gothicism 
and gothic elements (Kirkland, 2021; Mukherjee, 2024), gendered 
relations and agency in horror games (Krzywinska, 2017), and 
representations of monstrosity and disability (Carr, 2014). A common 
theme that is considered in such research is the body, its limitations 
and how such limitations are challenged through various threats and 
forms of defilement (Fischer-Hornung and Mueller, 2016; Hamilton and 
Heffernan, 2022).

Engaging with queer gaming communities and emerging scholarship, our 
conference looks to explore such work and more, providing a space for 
the exploration of entanglements between queerness and horror in video 
games. We welcome proposals from:

  *
    Academics presenting scholarly work on queerness and horror in
    games; but also
  *
    Game developers showcasing their work, sharing insights into their
    design and development practices, or reflecting on the intersections
    of queerness, monstrosity, and horror in their creations.


This showcase will take the form of *20 minute presentations (including 
Q&A). *  Suggested topics for proposals include, but are not limited to:

  *
    The processes and experiences of queer game development;
  *
    Recontextualizing horror narratives, mechanics, and aesthetics to
    evoke queerness;
  *
    The role of weirdness, oddity, and monstrosity in game design and
    their impact on ideas of horror and identity;
  *
    Deriving meaning from horror narratives for queer players and
    developers;
  *
    Intersections between nostalgia and retro-aesthetics in modern
    horror games;
  *
    The contribution of community to storytelling in horror games; and
  *
    Exploring queer boundaries and transgressions through horror.


If you are interested in participating, please submit:

  *
    A proposal of 500 words maximum (excluding citations) outlining
    either your scholarly presentation or the game project/practice you
    wish to showcase.
  *
    A short biography of 100 words maximum.


Submissions should be sent to (networkmultiplay /at/ gmail.com) by Friday, 14th 
March 2025 with the subject Queering the Monster.

We encourage creative interpretations of the conference themes and look 
forward to celebrating the intersections of queerness and horror in 
video games!


References

Carr, D., (2014) ‘Ability, Disability and Dead Space,’ /Game Studies/, 
14(2).
Fischer-Hornung, D. and Mueller, M., (2016) /Vampires and Zombies: 
Transcultural Migrations and Transnational Interpretations/. 
Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi.
Hamilton, S. and Heffernan, C., (2022) /Zombies, Deviance and the Right 
to Posthuman Life/. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
Harrer, S., Nielsen, S. and Jarnfelt, P., (2019) Of Mice and Pants: 
Queering the Conventional Gamer Mouse for Cooperative Play. In: 
/Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in 
Computing Systems/, New York, NY, USA, 2019, p. alt15:1-alt15:11. CHI EA 
’19. ACM. Available at: _http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/3290607.3310431 
<http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/3290607.3310431>_ (Accessed 7 July 2019).
Kirkland, E., (2021) /Videogames and the Gothic/. London: Routledge.
Krzywinska, T., (2017) ‘Formations of Player Agency and Gender in Gothic 
Games,’ in: Horner, A. and Zlosnik, S. (eds.), /Women and the Gothic: An 
Edinburgh Companion/. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Mukherjee, H., (2024) ‘“Fear the Old Blood”: The Gothicism of 
/Bloodborne/,’ /Games and Culture/, 19(1), pp. 94–115.
Ruberg, B., (2018) Queerness and Video Games: Queer Game Studies and New 
Perspectives through Play. /GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies/, 
24(4), pp. 543–555.
Švelch, J., (2023) /Player vs. Monster: The Making and Breaking of Video 
Game Monstrosity/. Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Vallese, J., (2022) /It Came from the Closet: Queer Reflections on 
Horror/. Feminist Press

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