Game Designer and Entrepreneur Joe Payne Visits Humanities in the Metaverse Class

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Professor Curtis Maughan (far right) and Humanities in the Metaverse students met with Joe Payne (middle right), game designer and Web3 entrepreneur.

This past Tuesday, March 14, WLLC course Humanities in the Metaverse with professor Curtis Maughan, director of the WLDH Studio and faculty member in the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures, received a visit from Joe Payne, game designer and Web3 entrepreneur.

Payne visited the course to talk about his ongoing development of "Unlimited," an augmented reality game that immerses players in a persistent, virtual world driven by procedural storytelling and Web3 technology. David Fredrick, professor of classics and game design, also joined the conversation, highlighting the potential for player empowerment enabled by persistent metaversal worlds.

Students in the Humanities in the Metaverse course and Payne discussed how to integrate A.I. technology to populate gameworlds with believable, compelling characters. Payne provided key insights into the changing state of the game industry, and he emphasized the necessity of creative storytelling to the long-term value (and success) of the metaverse.

Humanities in the Metaverse is one of the digital humanities courses taught by Maughan as part of the undergraduate certificate in World Cultures, Game Design and Digital Humanities. The undergraduate certificate also includes Game Design I and II, taught by Fredrick.