So while I was at NowPlayThis, over the weekend, I made a micro-zine version of a Big Game I have been working on for a while.
It got added to their zine library and I am super happy about that. Especially as it is probably the best iteration of the text I had written. Anyway, I came home full of excitement, and this week I have refined it a little further
I’d love your general thoughts.
Okay… so first things first, the way these images are oriented is making it REALLY hard to engage with the game.
It looks like the game mechanics are on the bottom right two hand written rectangles of the first image. The section labeled “We can win a right to urban spaces the same way.” I couldn’t read all of the text (even after downloading, rotating, and zooming in), but it looks kind of neat. A live action re-enactment of the Ramblers who won the right to roam with modern day technology interaction. I first heard of this from a 99% Invisible episode.
Overall, from what I could tell, it seems like an interesting concept, but I would want clearer rules. Both clearer as in more legible so I can read the text. But also some of the rules are a little vague.
I would like some examples of “Pseudo public spaces” and “Privately owned public spaces” and “Privately Owned Public Open Spaces”. You might also want to discuss and clarify what a “Semi-public” space might be, and where a place like “Starbucks” falls.
I would love to have a simple folk song (with lyrics) as part of the game. Though, to be honest, I’m not sure I personally would be comfortable singing like this in public.
To me, I would definitely want to have a discussion of consent. You will be intentionally doing actions which will be affecting other people not playing your game. How you “score points” is getting interaction (selfies with game participants) from others. There will be others who you will be annoyed with you playing your game in a space they were in. You acknowledge that by having the “end condition” be “when you are asked to leave”. I would also add text about, “when asked to leave, to do so respectfully and peacefully”. While some of the Ramblers were arrested, that might not be a desired goal of playing this game. But it should be made aware, you will likely be “disturbing the peace”, and that could have real world consequences. What those consequences are, is very different depending on how visibly marginalized you are. For example, remember incident where two black men arrested for using a bathroom in a Starbucks while waiting for a colleague.
I personally probably wouldn’t play this game. But I could also see it being an interesting game to play at a convention. Imagine going around Gen Con with a crew of people dressed up as Ramblers singing folk songs. I’m sure you’d get some selfies… though you may never get asked to leave.
It is designed to fold up like so…
That is why the layout is a little weird.
This version is heavily constained by space. I want to be able to fold it up and carry it with me as my business card. I am probably going to need to make one of the last two pages a bitly and a QR with a link to safety and rules, manifestos and info on POPS & POPOS.
As for consent. You are right that there probable need to be more formal rules, like only engage with the public if they ask you what you are doing, but fundimentally, this is an act of civil disobedience, if
a, investment banker gets annoyed that you playing in a space they think of as theirs, but which is in fact public that is really a feature here, not a bug.
