Hi, I'm Ahmed
- Game Producer
- Game Designer
- Narrative Designer
Based in Tallinn, making games since 2015: mobile titles, PC games, jams and a board game about censorship. I plan the work, design the systems and write the stories that run through them, then build them with whatever fits the game, from Unity, Flutter and the web to cards on a table, and draw much of the art myself.
What I do
Producing, game design and narrative design, across mobile, PC, web and tabletop.
Experience
Knowledge Transfer Advisor
Interactive narratives
Designing interactive presentations and narratives that carry university research to partners and the public. Institute of Cultural Research.
Co-founder, Game Developer
Film: Assistant Director, Cinematographer, VFX
Education
MSc Digital Learning Games
Thesis
Designing humour into a political board game about media censorship: Twist the News.
BSc Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Master's thesis
Integrating Humor Into the Design of a Political Game About Media Censorship
Ahmed Pasha Faisal
Supervisors: Dr Mikhail Fiadotau, Dr Anastasiya Fiadotava
Abstract
Serious games rarely use humour, and few guidelines exist for games that joke about politics. I designed Twist the News, a card-based party game about media censorship, and studied how its humour shaped play.
1. Questions
How to design a political game that incorporates humor to address media censorship?
How does incorporating humor impact player engagement and understanding of a serious message in a political game?
2. The game
Players are news editors under an authoritarian regime. A rotating Propaganda Minister reveals news that would embarrass the regime. Editors use propaganda cards to spin it into headlines that praise it.
The players write the jokes, not the designer.
3. Method
Design-based research. Twelve politically aware Bangladeshis, aged 18 to 35, played online in groups of four. Each session ended with a group interview.
Thematic analysis of the recordings and interviews.
4. Findings
- Players made the humour. The funniest moments came when the cards limited their options.
- Humour raised engagement and discussion.
- For two players it failed: they read the game as teaching propaganda.
- Four guidelines: playtest early and often, let players create the humour, balance the cards, give a setting players trust.