MENTORS & PROGRAM

ROMI MIKULINSKY​

Playable Futures: Speculative Storytelling Through Game Design
It is a two-part, hands-on workshop for practitioners interested in exploring how scenes and story worlds can be translated into embodied, playable experiences. Drawing on speculative design, immersive design, and game mechanics, the workshop takes place in a shared environment that supports experimentation beyond the written page.
The workshop begins with a simple, low-tech role-play game set in a near-future setting. Participants will take on both human and non-human roles to explore how space, relationships, and play shape narrative experience. This shared experiment serves as a foundation for discussing key principles of game and immersive design.
Participants will then be invited to reimagine an existing project (such as a film, play, performance, VR piece, or narrative concept) as a playable, immersive experience. Between sessions, participants will develop a short playable scene based on their existing creative work.
The second session is dedicated to playtesting, discussion, and feedback, with a focus on designing meaningful, participatory story worlds.

Dr. Romi Mikulinsky is a design strategist, researcher, and game designer working at the intersection of emerging technology, ethics, and societal transformation. With over 20 years of experience across academia and the international IT and media industries, she develops participatory tools, game environments, and gamified foresight formats for municipalities, foundations, and research consortia across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Formerly Head of the Master's Program in Industrial Design at Bezalel Academy, she holds a PhD from the University of Toronto's Department of English and is currently a researcher at Tampere University's Game Research Lab, exploring how AI, spatial computing, and immersive environments reshape cities, workplaces, decision-making, and collective imaginaries.​

HARTMUT KOENITZ​

AI and the Future of Storytelling: AI is Here - What Does it Mean for (Interactive) Storytellers?
AI is here and will impact the way we create and communicate stories. Reactions amongst creators and audiences run the gamut from enthusiastic endorsement to full-on rejection. In this situation, it is crucial to distinguish hype from reality to inform creative decisions if, when, and how to use AI. The session will provide orientation, through a critical evaluation of the deeply intertwined histories of AI and storytelling, the current status of generative AI as a creative tool in the form of concrete examples and an outlook to future developments.

Dr. Hartmut Koenitz is a scholar, designer, and artist. He is a Professor in Media Technology at Södertörn University, and his research is concerned with the theory, practice, education, and societal impact of interactive narratives. He describes these works as means to represent and better understand the complex world of the 21st century, a theme explored in his latest book, Understanding Interactive Digital Narratives: Immersive Expressions for a Complex Time (Routledge 2023). Recently, he has investigated the impact and application of generative AI tools and explored interactive narratives for mental health. 
In 2024, he was named a HEVGA Fellow (Higher Education Video Game Alliance) and recognized among the top 2% of scholars worldwide. Koenitz is the president of the Association for Research in Digital Interactive Narratives (ARDIN), which organizes the International Conference on Interactive Digital Storytelling (ICIDS). He is also a visual artist, and his works have been shown in Atlanta, Paris, Istanbul, Seoul, Copenhagen, and Porto.

DIMITAR UZUNOV​

Creative Storytelling & Worldbuilding
This workshop will introduce participants to fundamental storytelling elements and models through the lens of successful examples from popular culture and insight from neurology and cognitive psychology.
Using games, interactive exercises, LEGO bricks, and other creative methods, participants will develop their own stories and design their own storyworlds.
The workshop will complement the other sessions from the Play That Story! programme, giving participants a multifaceted approach to storycrafting.

Dimitar Uzunov is a director, producer, and scriptwriter. In 2008 he founded Famille Mundi theatre company in Paris, with which he won the Young Talent of Paris prize twice. 
Dimitar is a co-founder of Sofia-based Arte Urbana Collectif and Summer Scriptwriting Base, an immersive international summer school for the storytellers of today and tomorrow.
He is also the founder and director of the platform Theatre & Science and the interdisciplinary art and science festival Theatre of Wonder in Bulgaria. More recently, he is the coordinator of the European project Please ASK! - Art Science Kick for the creation of stage productions in collaboration with scientists and science institutions.
Dimitar has lectured, given keynote talks and held workshops in over 20 countries around the world. His workshop Creative Storytelling: How to Create and Tell a Good Story was included by ERIC magazine in the 10 best creative events in London in September 2018.

Frances Vieras Blanc​

Step Into the Story!
This workshop is an immersive design lab where storytelling unfolds in 360° through spatial narrative, emotional design, and collective participation. Participants learn how to design story worlds that surround and engage—where meaning is layered across space, time, and interaction. The focus is on creating narratives that respond to human presence, choice, and connection, transforming audiences into active contributors and stories into lived experiences.
Over two intensive days, participants put storytelling into action. The workshop explores narrative as an experience shaped by space, interaction, and progression. Participants move beyond observation to actively design how stories unfold, testing ideas in real time and translating concepts into intentional moments, scenes, and interconnected narrative systems.
Working in small teams, participants design and prototype a series of immersive micro-experiences. Each micro-experience contributes to a larger narrative structure, culminating in a co-created experiential journey where individual moments interlock to reveal a single overarching story. The process demonstrates how immersive storytelling is built through interaction, connection, and collective creation.

Frances Vieras Blanc is a creative director and immersive strategist with over 30 years of experience.
Founder of Eat the Cake Studio, an immersive entertainment studio based in France, she crafts and curates immersive experiences—from bold brand activations to original narrative worlds—helping audiences connect deeply while making brands impossible to ignore.
A recognized leader in the immersive space, Frances is a founding member of the World Experience Organization (WXO) and its Global Experience Council, a contributing alumna of The College of Extraordinary Experiences, and a co-founder of JeDI Immersive, a non-profit advancing the immersive industry in France, and Les Journées de l'Immersif, France's largest immersive industry gathering.
​Rooted in a lifelong love of storytelling—spanning stage, film, screenwriting, and video games—she brings human-centered stories to life, transforming messages into emotions and brands into living worlds. Her mission: to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary through emotion, story, and creative impact.

ALESSANDRO GIOVANNUCCI​

Embodied Storytelling
Stories often live in the realm of words. But what if we set these stories in the physical world? In this workshop, we will explore together the mechanisms that allow us to experience stories first-hand with our bodies and senses. We will design and play LARPs, immersive experiences, and participatory formats that make storytelling co-created and embodied.

Alessandro Giovannucci is an Italian award-winning game designer, lecturer, and TED speaker. He works at the intersection of immersive experience, interactive storytelling, and role-play.
He is co-founder of the LARP collective Chaos League, with which he designed some of the most influential LARPs on the international scene, such as Bunker 101, Expedition Sahara, and Miskatonic University.
Alessandro has also worked in tabletop games and mixed/augmented reality, collaborating with museums, institutions, universities, and European-funded projects.

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