Roots and Routes
Place, Belonging, and Game Worlds

This theme explores how games are shaped by — and in turn shape — the places, histories, and communities that produce them. Roots and Routes speaks to the dual nature of connection and movement: to being grounded in a landscape, culture, or whakapapa, while also tracing the routes that ideas, people, and technologies travel through the world of play.

It invites dialogue on how place- based storytelling, indigenous design philosophies, and local cultural memory can expand our understanding of what game worlds are and whom they serve. From the grounding of gameplay in environmental storytelling to the ways digital worlds reimagine belonging and displacement, this theme connects geography, identity, and narrative across disciplines.

In Aotearoa New Zealand, where creative practice is deeply informed by whenua (land), whakapapa (genealogy), and kaitiakitanga (guardianship), the theme offers an opportunity to foreground indigenous and regional perspectives on games and play.

It encourages critical and creative engagement with the land — not just as backdrop or setting, but as an active participant in how games are made, experienced, and remembered.