welcome to the space of kristen marcinek.

net.artist statement

kristen (she/they) doesn't see the opposition between whimsy and meaning, between serious and play. she could go on a spiel about how other adults lose their sense of wonder, and she's really a kid at heart, but she doesn't actually think that's true. this wonder doesn't seem lost, she believes moreso there just aren't many outlets for adults to feel empowered to play.

that's where her work comes in! from video games to immersive media to museum exhibits to toys, kristen creates for a wide audience to feel this empowerment to play.

kristen works primarily in a domain she dubs "games and interactive media for social impact." this line of work has many names & offshoots under its umbrella: serious games, meaningful games, games for change, educational games, learning through play... no matter what one may call this domain, it is kristen's specialty.

in particular, she focuses on how to properly portray social justice topics through game mechanics and narrative. she is passionate about providing non-traditional educational experiences and accurately representing intersectional and marginalized lenses that are grounded in tangible realities. kristen wants to ensure her games are created with ethics and empathy at the forefront of their design.

kristen generally doesn't see entertainment and education in a hierarchy. her designs do not have to prioritize one over the other; she believes that they can work synergistically. she does this through making narrative and game mechanics consistent. she wants the story to resonate with the player through mechanics just as much as it does through the dialogue. kristen specializes in ludonarrative harmony, narrative mechanic design, worldbuilding, and diegesis.

kristen is currently a student at american university working towards her mfa in games and interactive media with a focus on meaningful games and immersive experiences. she currently interns with the wilson center in washington, dc in their serious games initiative. prior to the wilson center, she interned with the national children’s museum as an exhibits intern. kristen received her ba in information technology and informatics from rutgers university – new brunswick, where she also minored in social justice. during her time at rutgers, she was the president of reproductive health universal taskforce, an organization partnered with the friends of unfpa; the vice president and a founding member of rutgers women’s gaming league; and interned with the new jersey division on women where she performed analysis on legislation surrounding batterer intervention programs and criminal justice reform for incarcerated women in new jersey.

kristen's technical skillset outside of narrative design includes unity engine & c# scripting; p5.js; javascript & other webdev technologies like html, css, bootstrap, and php; wysiwyg game engines like construct 3, stencyl, & twine; python, pygame, & ren'py; and git for version control. she also dabbles in 2d illustration, 3d modeling, ui/ux wireframing, and authoring dialogue.

kristen practices collaboration and co-design, strives to approach her work through a human-centered lens, and is a quick learner who wants to solve every problem. kristen knows, though, that not everyone can do everything - what truly makes one wise is admitting that even the most knowledgeable can still learn from others. she sees the world in a dialectic - everyone is doing the best they can in the moment yet can still seek to improve.

during her free time, kristen likes to spend time with her cat, go to museums, and play video games. over on her blog, you can see her esoteric & eccentric thoughts on games, technology, social informatics, visual art, philosophy, and even outer space sometimes.