Dudi Pelesדודי פלס

Welcome to the catalog of my creative work…

Books I’ve written, courses I’ve developed, lectures I’ve given, as well as games, apps, short stories, and digital art I’ve created.

01 · BookBOK · one item
BOK · 001

The Gifting Art

Book · 2026

For as long as I can remember I've put a lot into gifts. As I grew up the effort grew with me and turned into something of an obsession.. so in 2023 I decided to start writing a book about creative gifts, and after three years of work it came out. "The Gifting Art" is a collection of 50 gift ideas — some I made myself, some I received, and some whose stories reached me while I was researching the subject.

The book is for anyone who loves to make things and to give them, and in a way it's also my own way of doing both at once.

The book has a site of its own, where you can get a feel for it and find a few surprises (the site itself is a kind of artwork). So go in, play with it, and if creativity and gifts are close to your heart, you're of course welcome to buy it.

Visit the book's site
The Gifting Art by Dudi Peles standing on a wooden table — a grey hardback, the title on the cover and coloured dots sunk into the clothThe book open at the map — coloured rectangles laid out by the rooms of the book, each with its name and the numbers of the gifts inside itA close-up of the introduction, with the headings "Gifts of the Third Kind" and "A Gift Is a Work"The key to the book's symbols — cost, difficulty, age and templates — beside a QR code and the address of the book's site
02 · TeachingEDU · two items
A Game Changers cohort on stage at the Reichman University school of entrepreneurship
EDU · 001

The Game Changers Workshop

Course · Reichman University · since 2023

In 2023 the school of entrepreneurship at Reichman launched Game Changers, a program about the meeting point between entrepreneurship, games and impact. I had never come across an academic setting that drew on my skills, my connections and my experience and on the things I'm passionate about. Happily, I began teaching its capstone workshop, where I work with student teams from the first idea all the way to a working product and a first encounter with the market.

A classroom at Kibbutzim College, students at laptops facing a projected screen
EDU · 002

Games in Learning

Course · Kibbutzim College · since 2013

Computer games and learning are two fields woven into one another, and happily the Technology in Education department at Kibbutzim College thought so too. That thought led to a hands-on course where teachers learn about computer games and about the ways they can be used in a classroom, and where the final exercise has them run a computer game in a lesson themselves — for some of them, for the first time in their lives.

03 · LecturesLEC · seven items
LEC · 001

Gifts and Generative AI

Lecture · 2025

Long before my book came out I started using generative AI heavily to make gifts. In late 2025 I gave a talk about it at a conference on generative AI, where for the first time I spoke about my book in front of an audience.

The opening slide of the talk, a wrapped gift inside a colourful illustration made with generative AI
LEC · 002

The History of Computer Games

Lecture · 2026

For close to 20 years I've been giving talks on the history of computer games, and almost every year I update the talk because I keep being asked to give it again… every year it shifts and renews itself.

The opening slide of the deck, the title above a wall of dozens of glowing game screens
LEC · 003

Video Games in Rehabilitation

Lecture · 2024

As the years went by my work with computer games narrowed more and more onto impact — teaching, politics, entrepreneurship.. so when the National Institute for Neuropsychological Rehabilitation asked me in 2024 to give a talk to therapists on games and rehabilitation, I couldn't pass it up… The talk opens by taking apart the stigmas around computer games and goes on to show the ways they're already being used in rehabilitation.

The opening slide of the deck, a patient in a VR headset in a rehabilitation lab lit in purple
LEC · 004

A MOOC on Games in Learning

Lecture · 2018

In 2015 I was asked to compress my whole course on games in learning into a single lesson in a MOOC that every education student at the college would take. It went well, and in 2018 it was produced again for Campus IL and an even wider audience.

A frame from the lesson, Dudi Peles speaking to camera beside the figure that 28.5 percent of teenagers in Israel play for over four hours a day
LEC · 005

The History of Computer Games, for Kids

Lecture · 2018

When my daughter was in second grade she asked me to come to her class and give a talk. So I adapted one of my talks on the history of computer games for a room full of eight-year-olds. I have to say, it was an amazing experience.

The opening slide of the deck, Mario sitting on a bench playing a Nintendo Switch
LEC · 006

The Story of Games for Peace

Lecture · 2020–2025

Games for Peace, a nonprofit that brings Jewish and Arab teenagers together through computer games, has been part of my life since 2013. In the years since I've told its story in front of an audience dozens of times.

The opening slide of the deck, two Minecraft characters standing together above an open landscape
LEC · 007

Games for Good

Lecture · 2021

A talk I gave at the Kavim VeMachshavot nonprofit in 2021, on the ways computer games can be put to good use.

The opening slide of the deck, Mario and Luigi figurines standing hand in hand on a path
04 · Academic WritingRES · two items
RES · 001

My Doctorate

Academic writing · 2013

Somewhere in 2007 I started writing a doctorate, in Hebrew, about computer games. In 2013, after seven years of work, I submitted it. What I was after was a way to explain how and why computer games developed the way they did, and in the end I proposed a theoretical model that does exactly that.

05 · The PlaygroundGME, APP, SHR, ART, BOK · six items
The game's progress map, two numbered tracks lined with task squares over a summer illustration
GME · 001

The Great Summer Game

Game · 2025

Every year, as the summer holiday comes closer, the kids ask whether there will be a Great Summer Game again. For several years now the answer has been yes. The game gets more elaborate each summer, but the base stays the same: the kids do tasks through the holiday, make progress, and collect points or prizes.

The logo of the Great Summer Game — Trip Edition, a burst of colour holding a skyline, a moon, a castle and palm trees, with the game's name beneath it
APP · 001

The Great Summer Game — Trip Edition

App · 2026

In the summer of 2026 the whole family went away on a long trip and we couldn't play the Great Summer Game. The kids wanted a game anyway, so I decided to build one that fits travelling.

An illustration for the story — a worker at a screen inside a hall of glowing sleep pods, an enormous clock above him
SHR · 001

Frozen Sleep

Short story · 2022

Lately there has been a lot of talk at work about work-life balance. They don't want us putting in fifteen-hour days the way they used to. They have worked out that there are people, people like me, for whom work is not the most important thing in life — for me it is mainly a living, and my real life is what happens after work. It matters far more to me that my son does well on tomorrow's English spelling test than whether the company makes one more million or one less. I have no trouble saying I'd take the company earning a million less this month if he came home with 100 instead of 90. A sense of proportion never hurt anyone.

An illustration for the story — two people reaching towards an open present bursting with clocks and colour
SHR · 002

The Gift

Short story · 2024

I want to tell you a story. It's a story about me, and about how I managed to give every one of my close friends the best present in the world: more time. I have quite a few friends — friends from school, from the army, from university and from work, and of course friends I've stayed in touch with from my previous job, and friends of friends we met and took to. I have quite a few friends, and I'm rather good at keeping in touch.

A work from the collection, made with Midjourney
ART · 001

A Midjourney Collection

Digital art · since 2023

I've been working with Midjourney since 2023, and along the way I've made a few things I think are pretty enough to share. So if AI-generated digital art is your sort of thing, come have a look…

The book cover — a slice of cake on a plate, a blossoming almond tree above it and roots below, drawn on a tablecloth
BOK · 002

Grandma Esther's Recipes for a Long Life

Book · 2024

For my grandmother's 100th birthday I decided to make her a special gift, and it became one of the gifts I'm proudest of. Together with the whole family I put together a cookbook that is also a book of memories, and, surprisingly, it holds quite a few genuinely useful recipes. So why keep it in the family?

06 · ArchiveEDU, LEC · nine items
EDU · 003

The InGame Workshop, Reichman

Course · Reichman University · 2014–2020

InGame was one of the more unusual workshops in the country: students from a range of departments at Reichman — mostly computer science, communications and business — teamed up with students from Bezalel and spent a full year building games together, closely mentored by people from the local industry. The theory in the workshop barely touched software or design; it focused on what students actually need in order to work on a game for the first time.

The opening slide of the InGame IDC Game Lab workshop, with a painted red bird in the sky
EDU · 004

Game Entrepreneurship Workshop, Recanati, Tel Aviv University

Course · Recanati, Tel Aviv University · 2012–2017

In 2012 I started teaching a master class in the entrepreneurship and innovation program at Recanati. It was a hands-on five-hour workshop: in the first half the students learned about the computer games industry and the openings it offers entrepreneurs, and in the second they put together new concepts and "fought" one another in a battle of ideas where only the strongest survived.

The opening slide of the Innovation Workshop, Games and Reality, with an illustrated dinosaur at an arcade cabinet
EDU · 005

Introduction to Computer Games, Visual Communication, Shenkar

Course · Shenkar · 2008–2011

In 2008 I was asked to teach in academia for the first time. I was writing the opening chapter of my doctorate at the time — a kind of general introduction to computer games — and it became the backbone of this course. Over the years I taught it, the chapter shaped the course and the course shaped the chapter.

The opening slide of the Introduction to Computer Games course, with a three-dimensional Space Invaders alien
EDU · 006

Game Development in AS3, Beit Berl

Course · Beit Berl · 2009–2012

In 2009 I started teaching game programming in the game design and development program at Beit Berl. I built the course over two years, with one aim: that students would learn programming principles by making games. It was taught in Action Script, a language that has all but vanished, though the principles have held up. For the second cohort, which started in 2010, I decided to gamify the course itself, and the decks attached here are from that gamified version. The course also had more advanced lessons taught by Uri Golan and Peleg Tuchman; only the lessons I created entirely myself appear here.

The opening slide of the Action Script 3.0 game development course, above a painted platform-game landscape