Kaludoscope: The CGL Journal of Game Studies

Kaludoscope is a student-led journal of game studies that offers a welcoming space for students and emerging scholars of the Cologne Game Lab to share their research and gain experience in the editorial and peer-review process. We aim to promote the interdisciplinary kaleidoscope of groundbreaking work around games and play stemming from the CGL community.

Editorial Team for Issue 1

Marie Taeger
M.A. Student of Digital Games at CGL

Rafael Pankov
M.A. Student of Digital Games at CGL

Illustrated and set by Rafael Pankov

Editorial Mentor

Prof. Dr. Sonia Fizek
Media & Game Studies Professor & Executive Board Member for Research at CGL

What are we looking for?

We are looking for unique perspectives on games and play — both digital and analog — that foster critical discussions and interpretations of games, play, and games culture. We encourage our authors to use a light, essayistic style capable of translating complex ideas into engaging written work. In other words, we would like Kaludoscope to promote games prose that takes a middle ground between traditional academic writing and critical journalism.

How to submit?

You can submit anytime throughout the academic year. Your contributions will be published in one of the two issues, depending on the date of submission. Kaludoscope will come out twice a year, in the Summer Semester and in the Winter Semester. Each submission will go through an editorial review to make it the best it can be. 

We are planning three sections per issue: 

  1. a) Game Studies Open-Air — work submitted in response to an open Call for Papers curated by the editorial team and the CGL students;
  2. b) Game Studies Best-Of — the best student essays written for the Media & Game Studies modules in the preceding semester, selected by the editorial mentor;
  3. c) Game Studies All-Star — work based on outstanding Bachelor’s, Master’s or PhD projects pursued at CGL.

We also welcome reviews of books written by CGL staff and games made by CGL students and/or CGL alumni. 

You can e-mail your submissions and questions at kaludoscope@colognegamelab.de. 

Submission format

  • An editable document format: odt., doc., docx.
  • Font: Times New Roman, size 12
  • Spacing: 1,5
  • Length of articles: 2500 – 3500 words including bibliography
  • Referencing style: Harvard
  • Length of reviews: 600 – 800 words
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