In This Story
For Boris Willis, the future of games has always been bigger than pixels and code. Long before the rise of virtual production and interactive storytelling, Willis was blending technology, dance, and design into new forms of creative expression.
Now, as an Associate Professor at George Mason University, he's helping students rethink what a career in game design and creativity can look like.
For a long time, those interests lived separately. But over the years, Willis began weaving them together, exploring how technology and the body could speak to each other. Today, as an Associate Professor in George Mason University's Computer Game Design Program, Willis helps students see game design as something much larger than entertainment or technology. It becomes a way to tell stories, build worlds, and imagine futures.
"I've always been drawn to the intersection of the physical and the imaginative," Willis says.
That intersection defines everything Willis brings into the classroom. Before arriving at George Mason, Willis spent years pushing creative boundaries: collaborating on projects that translated dance notation into computer animation, developing live performances enhanced by motion capture, and designing interactive experiences where audiences shaped the outcome of a story. This was long before the words "interactive media" became commonplace.
The thread running through it all is clear. Willis understands that movement, whether physical or digital, is at the heart of every great interactive experience. It's not enough to learn how to program a character. Students need to understand how players feel moving through a space and how story and tension build through choice and motion.
This approach stands apart from many traditional game design programs, where the focus often stays narrowly on coding, engineering, or entertainment. At George Mason, students are encouraged to see the field through a broader, more creative lens, and faculty like Willis make that difference tangible by opening up new horizons and possibilities.
"The artistic process and the design process are the same," Willis explains. "You have an idea. You test it. You iterate. You revise. Whether you're making a dance, a play, or a game, you're shaping an experience."
In Willis' classes, concepts like "up, down, over, under, around, and through"—terms drawn from choreography—become part of the vocabulary of level design. Students learn that building a world isn't just about filling empty spaces. It's about creating an emotional journey, guiding players the way a choreographer leads an audience through a performance.
Assignments often push students well beyond what they expect. Rather than duplicating popular games, students are tasked with reimagining how games can work: remixing storylines, combining dissimilar concepts, and creating entirely new kinds of experiences.
"I try to get students to move beyond what they know," Willis says. "There are thousands of games made every year. Why not create something no one's seen before?" This emphasis on creative risk-taking is not just academic. It's essential for future careers and can inspire students to push the boundaries of game design.
That creative risk-taking isn't just academic. It's essential for future careers. The industry is evolving fast. Today, game engines are used not only to build entertainment but also to produce films, train healthcare workers, develop educational tools, design virtual museums, and simulate real-world experiences.
Students trained purely in technical skills may find themselves boxed into narrower roles. Like Willis encourages, students trained to think like creators, collaborators, and innovators are prepared for opportunities across industries that barely exist today.
This bigger-picture thinking is part of what makes George Mason's program distinct. The school doesn't just teach students how to make games. It teaches them to think like artists, designers, and problem-solvers ready to adapt, imagine, and lead.
Willis' own work models that future. His projects range from interactive poetry games to virtual museums of student dance films. He sees games not as isolated products but as evolving conversations between technology, culture, and human experience.
"Games are a text," Willis says. "They're not just about winning. They're about experiencing, connecting, imagining. They're about possibility."
For students at George Mason, learning from faculty like Willis means more than building technical portfolios. It means leaving with a mindset. One that sees connections where others see limits, one that understands that creativity is a skill as critical as coding.
Willis believes that the future of games will belong to those who can blend disciplines, think across fields, and imagine more. And at George Mason University, that future is already being built.