This Valentine’s Day, AADHum, NarraSpaceXR, Soft Souls Foundry, and MITH partnered to host heart.exe – a love-themed video game and crafting arcade celebrating connection, creativity, and play.

The event transformed our space into an interactive celebration of love in its many forms.

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A Curated Arcade of Love

Curated by Himadri Agarwal, doctoral candidate in English, the interactive game exhibit featured titles both classic and contemporary, intimate and expansive. Each game was playable and accompanied by a curatorial note inviting deeper reflection on how games depict love and relationships.

The lineup included:

• Girl’s Garden
• Dragon Quest V
• Passage
• Queers in Love at the End of the World
• Gone Home
• Florence
• It Takes Two
• ValiDate: Struggling Singles in Your Area
• Date Everything!

Together, these works traced a wide arc exploring of love, partnership, memory, and emotional labor. Attendees moved between stations, discovering how games can hold tenderness, complexity, humor, and heartbreak.

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Coding Romance: Interactive Poetry with Twine

Alongside the gaming arcade, Dr. Marisa Parham and Lisa Osei led a hands-on workshop on creating interactive love poetry using Twine, the open-source platform for building nonlinear, text-based stories.

Participants learned the fundamentals of Twine before exploring more advanced techniques for layering narrative and experimenting with poetic interactivity. By the end of the workshop, attendees had not only built their own interactive pieces but also gained new insight into how digital tools can expand poetic expression.

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Crafting Care

Beyond the screens, a lively craft corner offered opportunities for bookmaking, collaging, and embroidery. A sticker machine allowed participants to print custom designs, creating small keepsakes to take home.

The combination of play, code, and craft reflected our shared commitment to blending digital humanities with hands-on creative practice.

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A Celebration of Play and Connection

heart.exe was a joyful gathering filled with fun, food, art, and conversation. It reminded us that games are not only systems and mechanics but in fact spaces for feeling, storytelling, and connection.

Thank you to everyone who joined us and helped make the event such a warm and vibrant celebration. Sign up for our newsletter for more events that explore the intersections of play, storytelling, and creative technology!