Dan Hett is a digital artist, writer and games designer from
Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...
, UK. He is also a member of the
Algorave
An algorave (from an algorithm and rave) is an event where people dance to music generated from algorithms, often using live coding techniques. Alex McLean of Slub and Nick Collins coined the word "algorave" in 2011, and the first event under su ...
live coding
Live coding, sometimes referred to as on-the-fly programming,Wang G. & Cook P. (2004"On-the-fly Programming: Using Code as an Expressive Musical Instrument" In ''Proceedings of the 2004 International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expr ...
electronic music and visuals movement, performing under the name Rituals.
Career
Hett's writing is influenced by the death of his younger brother Martyn Hett in the 2017
Manchester Arena bombing
On 22 May 2017, an Islamist extremist suicide bomber detonated a shrapnel-laden homemade bomb as people were leaving the Manchester Arena following a concert by American pop singer Ariana Grande.
Twenty-three people were killed, including ...
. He wrote a trilogy of games about the experience: ''
c ya laterrrr'', ''The Loss Levels'' and ''Sorry to Bother You''. Hett is known for short introspective autobiographical narrative games and
interactive fiction
''
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...
, which explore radicalisation, extremism and identity politics in the UK. His work ''The Loss Levels'' has been exhibited at Now Play This festival in London and
Sheffield DocFest
Sheffield DocFest (formerly styled Sheffield Doc/Fest), short for Sheffield International Documentary Festival (SIDF), is an international documentary festival and Marketplace held annually in Sheffield, England.
The Festival includes film sc ...
.
Until 2016 Hett worked in the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
Children's and R&D departments, where he developed apps and digital games across a range of languages and platforms. He was technical lead on the
''Storytime'' app, and also designed and built the core of the BBC's first cross-platform multiplayer games API.
He founded a small independent games studio called PASSENGER GAMES in 2018, which produced the game ''Closed Hands''.
In 2021 Hett became Creative Technologist at the School of Digital Arts,
* 2015 Broadcast Digital Awards Winner of Best Digital Children's Content for CBeebies ''Storytime''
* 2015 British Academy of Film and Television Arts Winner of Children's Interactive award for ''The Dumping Ground''
* 2020
'', 2017
* ''The Loss Levels'', 2018
* ''Sorry To Bother You'', 2018
* ''Closed Hands'', 2021