Dr. Tom Blount
tom@tomblount.co.uk
I am a post-doctoral teaching fellow working in the Web and Internet Science group at the University of Southampton. My research interests cover game design, human-data interaction, narrative systems, gamification, crowdsourcing, and social argumentation.
In my free time I enjoy game development, boardgames, creative writing, and creating Let's Play videos.
Research
Papers
2021
- Blount, T., Chapman, A., Johnson, M., & Ludascher, B., Observed vs Possible Provenance, Theory and Practice of Provenance
- Malinov, YD., Millard, D., & Blount, T., StuckInSpace: Exploring the difference between two mediums of play in a multi-modal virtual reality game, IEEE VR
Thesis
Modelling Eristic and Rhetorical Argumentation on the Social WebMy PhD focused on examining how people argue on the web, particularly on different types of social media. There has been a lot of work done in the areas of formal and logical argumentation in the past; however, it doesn't always take account of the types of informal, social (or anti-social) argument prevalent online.
Projects
Research Projects
Games
Critical Admission
An Operation-like game, made for the Something Awful Game Jam 2015, with Jonathan Scott, David Millard, Priyanka Singh, Devasena Prasad, and Melanie Ehrlich
Late Start
A text-based adventure game, made for the Global Game Jam '22 on the theme of 'Duality', with Meagan Russell
Programming
Yarncraft
A system for creating location-aware narratives in virtual space - in this case, Minecraft
Fractal Narratives
Fractal Narratives are built by inserting story between existing story fragments, creating a potentially infinitely complex narrative
PlanetBot
A Twitter bot that generates descriptions and images of fictional planets (see the code at CheapBotsDoneQuick.com)
RPG Tools
A collection of digital tools such as dice-rollers and name-generators, for playing tabletop RPGs
Steg. Tools
For an undergrad project I developed a set of tools for steganography - the art of hiding messages in plain sight
Video and Presentations
COMP3218
To provide feedback for Game Design & Development students, we play their games and talk about them
My PhD in 20 Minutes
A very brief overview of the work I undertook during my PhD on (anti-)social argumentation on the web
VR/AR Tutorial
A tutorial on virtual and augmented reality I gave, along with some simple exercises you can try
Writing
CV
Experience
Teaching Fellow
I currently teach on a variety of undergraduate courses at the University of Southampton, including Game Design and Development (COMP3218) and have previously taught several others, including Data Visualisation (COMP6234). As a Teaching Fellow, my responsibilities include giving lectures, assisting in practical lab sessions, setting and marking coursework, and giving feedback to students, as well as supervision of PhD students in the Web and Internet Science lab.
Research Fellow
As a Research Fellow in the Web and Internet Science group at the University of Southampton, I have worked on a number of national and international research projects, covering the domains of game design, human-data interaction, narrative systems, gamification, and crowdsourcing. During this time I also elected to take on a number of additional teaching duties.
Global Game Jam
Since 2015, I've been a part of organising the Southampton site of the annual Global Game Jam, an event in which over 150 people from all over the county come together and (in tandem with people all around the world), try to make a physical or digital game in under 48 hours, on a given theme.