Here begins the varied ministrations of David J. Tree,  as he embarks upon the next step in trying to understand the world of stories, games in the quest of otherworldly experiences.

For those who don’t know me, I will give you a little introduction, son of an design engineer an d secretary who later became an accountant. I grew up in a small and diverse market town where such inspirational figures as John Bunyan and Paula Radcliffe call home.  Educated At local state schools and later the local Catholic upper, I was fortunate enough to have some inspirational teachers who guided me and helped me along the way who I will be ever grateful.  I enjoyed nothing more than taking part in the school choir and school council where I enjoyed being respected and treated as an adult.  You see I was not popular, I enjoyed the company of machines more than people and found my peers dull.  Seen by some of my teachers as someone with great potential if only I could stop getting into arguments and focus on my studies.

However there was one thing that was missed,   It wasn’t all me, it wasn’t just my lack of attention that was holding me back.  During my bachelors degree in animation I was identified as being  neurodivergent (my preferred term) this was initially a weight lifted from my shoulders, no I wasn’t just slow at reading because of lack of practice.

so long long long story short, I stand here now, neurodivergent and proud of it, I may be a slow reader but good luck at keeping up with me when I’m in flow.  These things shouldn’t hold us back and i would encourage anyone who follows me not to carry their “disability” as a burden but instead embrace your diversity, we can do things that others may only dream of.

So here goes a lot of something, let’s get this PhD started and see if by the end of it we can better understand the meaning of dynamic adaptive story words and players presence and agency within them.

As a certain mr willy Wonka once said “come with me and you will be in a word of pure imagination”  welcome to my journey

David J Tree MA FHEA