Carnegie Mellon University
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Jonathan Walton

Jonathan Walton

Affiliated Faculty
Assistant Teaching Professor, Entertainment Technology Center

  • PTC 3313
Address
Entertainment Technology Center
700 Technology Dr
Pittsburgh, PA 15219

Education

Ph.D., Communication, UC San Diego
M.A., Communication, UC San Diego
M.A., International Studies, JSIS, University of Washington
B.A., East Asian Studies, Oberlin College

Bio

Jonathan Walton is an award-winning indie game designer, a former China policy analyst and a teacher and scholar focused on critical & historical analysis of science, technology and media. A native of North Carolina and Virginia, Dr. Walton spent over a decade studying Chinese language, history and culture, as well as seven years working as an analyst and publications editor at Asia policy think-tanks in Boston & Seattle.

In parallel, Dr. Walton was active in the indie RPGs movement, developing and publishing games around themes of intercultural communication, political injustice and institutional change. Several of his tabletop and live action games have become “cult classics,” including Geiger Counter, The Planarch Codex, Lofty Beacons, Tomb Priestesses and Restless, the latter of which was featured at IndieCade 2015. On the digital side, he is also a composer of retro video game “chiptunes” music and pixel art, as well as a designer of DIY browser games.

His Ph.D. dissertation focused on hands-on, play-based learning in science centers and museums, “edutainment” institutions where visitors engage with STEM topics and design thinking.

  • Fulbright Fellow, Nanjing (2004-2005)
  • (with Gang Liu) CMU Dietrich College Seed Grant, funding research & teaching on the Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s collection of ancient Chinese oracle bones (2024-present)
  • Wimmer Fellow, CMU Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation (2023-24)

(forthcoming) Tacklebox 2E, a revised & expanded edition of a 2-player experimental game about shifting narrative contexts during a fishing trip (Possible Worlds, 2025)

(forthcoming) The Barrier & the Sound, a solo gamebook about our relationship with the ocean, using 1-bit graphics and a chiptunes soundtrack, funded on Kickstarter (2025)

“D&D&D&D&D: Imagining Dungeons & Dragons at 150 and Beyond,” in Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons, edited by Premeet Sidhu, Marcus Carter, and José P. Zagal (MIT Press, 2024)

Contributed to two chapters in José P. Zagal & Sebastian Deterding, eds., The Routledge Handbook of Role-Playing Game Studies (Routledge, 2024)

Nanjing Nights, a Chinese-language tabletop RPG about strange happenings in the old southern capitol after dark (2023)

Department Member Since 2025