About the person
Daniel Heßler teaches and researches in the fields of game design, interactive storytelling, serious games, media and humor theory.
He studied dramaturgy, modern German literature and psychology at the LMU Munich / Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding and worked as a dramaturge, director, author and performer in the independent theater scene, at the municipal theater and at international guest performances from 2002 to 2010.
Since 2005, he has been developing and publishing games in the Action RPG, RTS, VN and TTRPG genres for Kalypso Media and Ulisses Spiele, among others. From 2015 to 2022, he taught Applied Media Studies (B.A.) and Computer Game Studies (M.A./M.Sc.) at the Game Innovation Lab at the University of Bayreuth. He was a lecturer at HMT Leipzig, HS Karlsruhe and HS Darmstadt, Creative Director of the LevelUp project at JLU Gießen and has been a juror at the German Dev Days since 2020.
In June 2024, he took up the professorship for Game Design at Fachhochschule Dortmund.
Publications
Anthology contribution
Journal article
- D. Heßler and S. Lotzow, “„Dagmar’s Digital Day – A Self-Assessment Game“,” Zeitschrift für Hochschulentwicklung, vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 189–208, 2024 [Online]. Available: https://doi.org/10.21240/zfhe/19-01/10
- D. Heßler, “Whose pain is it, anyway?,” Comedy Studies, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 85–103, 2020.
- M. Akkermann and D. Heßler, “Vom Rhythmus zur Regel zum Raum und zurück,” Paidia - Zeitschrift für Computerspielforschung, 2019 [Online]. Available: https://paidia.de/vom-rhythmus-zur-regel-zum-raum/
Scientific lecture
- D. Heßler, Immersion und Agency in digitalen und nicht-digitalen Spielen. 2024.
- D. Heßler, Serious Games: How to Ideate Gameplay Mechanics with a Purpose. 2024.
- D. Heßler, Humor im Unterricht. 2022.
- D. Heßler, Games lehren und prüfen. 2021.
- D. Heßler, Narrative Design: Konfliktgestaltung und Emergenz. 2019.
- D. Heßler, You Lose, You Laugh – On Agency, Loss, and Humour in Computer Games. 2018.
- D. Heßler, Primary Gameplay Mode. Über Gameplay-Elemente in Sucker Punch, Kung Fury und Fist Of Jesus. 2015.
- D. Heßler, Jesus As A Hero. Jesus-Darstellungen im Computerspiel. 2015.