Jack designs games and interactive stories that connect with lived experiences. 

With an academic background in cultural geography, Jack specialises in designing interaction and content that creates a sense of place or incorporates physical locations and actions. 

Jack is the creator of Pin the Tale, an online, map-based game about uncovering the stories that shape the world around us. In Pin the Tale, players share stories about places in the UK, and discover those written by other players, via a unique digital map that uses the what3words grid. This project was funded by ESRC/AHRC SHAPE Catalyst, AHRC Impact Acceleration Account and UKRI Higher Education Innovation Funding. 

Jack was also part of the team who developed Interment, a short narrative puzzle game about deciphering family connections from the crumbling headstones of an old graveyard. Interment won the Grand Prize at the Bristol Games Hub Global Game Jam 2023.

Other creative works have included:    

  • The Timekeeper's Return: A story-based treasure hunt for all ages using QR codes and live role-playing. Help time-travelling researcher Dr. Mia Augustina return to the present and discover hidden histories of locations in Canterbury's Cathedral Quarter. Commission by Canterbury Cathedral Quarter business association.
  • Street2Boardroom: A collaborative board game where you play characters caught up in a life of street crime and attempt to apply their hustling skills to make it in the business world. Commission by Street2Boardroom CIC.
  • Interrobang?!: a genre-busting theatre-meets-online gaming experience that draws you into a real-time thriller, where you become the investigator in a shadowy murder case. Collaboration with Gideon Reeling, the commercial sister company to Punchdrunk, funded by StoryFutures.
  • The Gates to Dreamland: A locative audiowalk about Italian scientist Galileo Galilei’s journey towards publishing his final book: the obstacles he faced, his eyesight and bodily health failing, and the changes in perspective that entailed. Part of A Different LENS, funded by Arts Council England, Margate NOW and Kent County Council.

Many of these works build on Jack's practice-based PhD project, Engaging with Place through Location-Based Games (completed in 2022), which explored how the design and play of location-based games can influence how people navigate and make sense of the places they inhabit.

Jack is part of UWE Bristol's Digital Cultures Research Centre.

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