Peter Howell

Biography

I am Associate Professor of Game Design Practice in the School of Film, Media, and Creative Technologies at the University of Portsmouth, and the Course Leader for BA (Hons) Computer Games Design.

I have over 15 years experience teaching game design and development in Further and Higher Education, focusing primarily on game systems design, player experience design and player psychology, 3D asset creation, level design and scripting, and academic games research, with a strong track record of academic leadership, course programme management, innovative curriculum development and delivery, quality enhancement, and development of industrial and educational collaborative partnerships. I have design and development experience in the UK games industry, including in my previous role as Game Designer at The Chinese Room, with games published on major platforms including PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, as well as numerous titles available via popular PC Storefronts including Steam and itch.io. I am also the Director of our in-house commercial games publishing and development studio, Port in the Storm, which was founded in 2025 to support commercialisation of both student and staff-developed games.

I hold a PhD in Game Design, an MSc in Psychology, and I am Graduate Member of the British Psychological Society. I previously led the Advanced Games Research Group from 2017-2024, developing and growing our PhD supervision capacity, supporting multiple PhD completions, and growing the national and international profile of the university through increases in research outputs and public and media engagements. I have provided commentary on topics relating to the games industry, psychology in game design, and adaptation of game properties into television and film for outlets including The Guardian, Gamesindustry.biz, ITV News and BBC’s Watchdog. I am now co-chair of the Faculty Practice-Research Group which is focused on developing and enhancing the practice-research work across the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries alongside improving the faculty-wide research culture, and I serve as Vice-Chair of the Faculty of Creative and Cultural Industries Ethics Committee supporting ethical rigor in the work of research staff and students across the Faculty. Lastly, I am the Departmental Director of Postgraduate Research for the School of Film, Media, and Creative Technologies, overseeing the supervision and organisation of a postgraduate research student population of over 60 PhD students across traditional, practice-based, and PhD by Publication routes.

Beyond Portsmouth, I hold a number of external roles, including external examination for undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in game design and game art, serving as a member of the Education Committee for The Independent Game Developers Association (TIGA), and peer review roles for ACM, Games & Culture Journal, the Creative Industries Journal, Taylor & Francis, and McFarland, among others.

More information can be found at my website and my blog.

Research interests

My research interests lie in the intersection of game design and player psychology, particularly focusing on Disruptive Game Design - an approach to game design developed in my doctoral research that aims to subvert 'typical' game rules and associated player expectations of how games 'should' work. More broadly, I am interested in the application of psychological theory to the practices of game design, game play, and games education.

A key part of the games research activity within our research team is an aim to create commercial games from our research projects to demonstrate the practical uses of the theoretical work that underpins them. This is achieved through our in-house development and production studio, Port in the Storm, which I founded in 2025. This is designed as a mechanism for commercialisation of staff research projects but also for promising undergraduate and postgraduate development work too. Currently, we are developing commercial game titles alongside publishing articles around their design and development. These projects focus on cognitive factors in gameplay and game-based storytelling, ambient and pervasive games, and educational game design, and experimental design and development processes.

Teaching responsibilities

Roles

Departmental Director of Postgraduate Research for Film, Media, and Creative Technologies
Course Leader for BA (Hons) Computer Games Design
Vice-Chair of the CCI Faculty Ethics Committee
Co-chair of the Faculty Practice-Research Group