{"id":1128,"date":"2026-01-14T23:38:04","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T23:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mycours.es\/postgaming\/?page_id=1128"},"modified":"2026-04-17T14:11:58","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T14:11:58","slug":"play-the-world","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mycours.es\/postgaming\/play-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Play the World"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We are going to start the course by looking at game design as a diffuse cultural practice, outside of dedicated digital media and commercial circulation.
\nGames can exist anywhere and be designed by everyone.<\/p>\n

The first assignment is to create 7 non digital games. Try to create one every day.
\nThey have to be playable with no props or few commonly available object.
\nThey must be described by a concise ruleset (100 words or less).
\nThey must have a title.<\/span><\/p>\n

Try to make at least:
\n<\/span>One game that can be played in class in a couple of minutes (it will be critiqued).
\n<\/span>One game that must be played every day or for a long time.
\n<\/span>One game that uses an existing technological system (phone, app, messaging, social media).
\n<\/span>One game that plays with a specific element of the environment.
\n<\/span>One game that is (almost?) impossible to play but interesting to think about.<\/span><\/p>\n

Post them on discord as individual posts. React and comment on your classmates\u2019 games.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let’s introduce each other and break the ice with the handshake game from Agusto Boal.<\/p>\n

Micro games?<\/h3>\n

Zine from 2017, illustrated by Everest Pipkin<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/molleindustria.org\/files\/63_microgames.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Casual Games for casual hikers \/ city walkers \/ protesters<\/h3>\n

\"Screen<\/p>\n

Casual Games for casual hikers site<\/a><\/p>\n

\"casual<\/h3>\n

protestgames.org<\/a><\/p>\n

Instruction pieces \/ scores<\/h3>\n

Artists from the Fluxus movement had a keen interest in games and procedural pieces. Yoko Ono wrote several poems that sometimes read like absurdist game rules or impossible performances.<\/p>\n

Draw a Straight Line and Follow It -La Monte Young<\/p>\n

Draw a map to get lost -Yoko Ono<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/h3>\n

Unfortunately there’s no digital version of Grapefruit but you can find most of the pieces as scans<\/a><\/p>\n

“The floor is lava” is a popular game\/instruction piece.<\/p>\n

The Game<\/a> is another conceptual one – but is it even a game?<\/em><\/p>\n

Parlor Games<\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Popular among British and American upper classes during the Victorian era, often involved language, logic, dramatic skills and light physical action.
\nCharades, 20 Questions, Telephone, Truth or Dare, Who am I? all originated as parlour games.<\/p>\n

Pictionary, Taboo, Mafia \/ Werewolf are modern, commercialized parlor games.
\n
\nConsequences:<\/strong> A paper-and-pencil game where players write a story in parts, without seeing the previous lines, leading to amusing outcomes.<\/p>\n

The surrealists would later turn it into a visual game – the Exquisite Corpse<\/a><\/p>\n

THREESOME (VOYEURS ALLOWED!)<\/strong>
\nby Jane McGonigal
\nA game about uncommon things in common.
\nYou have three minutes to figure out the strangest thing you all three have in common. It might be a place you\u2019ve been, a feat you\u2019ve accomplished, a person you\u2019ve met, an experience you\u2019ve survived, a job you\u2019ve performed, a talent you\u2019ve cultivated. Anything that\u2019s true of all three of you technically counts as a win. But to make it a truly freaky threesome, try to come up with one fact that\u2019s true for all three of you that you think is pretty unusual, awesome, or fun. Three minutes goes fast\u2026 so don\u2019t hold back. Let the freaky facts fly!<\/p>\n

THIS IS YOUR LAUGH<\/strong>
\nby Bennett Foddy
\nThe more assertive player moves first. Say: \u201cThis is your laugh: \u201c, and then do an impersonation of the way that the other person laughs. Then it is their turn.
\nYou lose the game if you laugh for real, whether it\u2019s your turn or the other person\u2019s turn. Snorts are allowed. Titters are fair game. But anything from a chuckle up to a full roaring, crying, peeing belly-laugh is game over.
\nYour impersonation doesn\u2019t need to be accurate or realistic, but you are more likely to win if it has at least a grain of truth to it. Do not play this game if your friend is easily offended and has a stupid-sounding laugh!<\/p>\n

Games for Actors and non actors<\/h3>\n

Columbian hypnosis
\n<\/strong>by Augusto Boal<\/p>\n

Divide into pairs.<\/p>\n

Each pair decides who is Player A and Player B in their small group.<\/p>\n

Then, ask Player A to hold the palm of his or her hand about six inches from Player B\u2019s face.<\/p>\n

Ask Player B to imagine that her or his partner\u2019s hand has hypnotized him\/her and that s\/he has to follow it anywhere it goes, keeping the same distance between her\/his face and the palm at all times.<\/p>\n

After a set time, switch and let B\u2019s lead.<\/p>\n

The machine of rhythms<\/strong>
\nby Augusto Boal<\/p>\n

An actor goes into the middle and imagines that he is a moving part in a complex
\nmachine. He starts doing a movement with his body, a mechanical, rhythmic
\nmovement, and vocalising a sound to go with it.<\/p>\n

Everyone else watches and listens, in a circle around the machine. Another person goes up and adds another part (her own body) to this mechanical apparatus, with another movement and another sound.<\/p>\n

A third, watching the first two, goes in and does the same, so that eventually all the participants are integrated into this one machine, which is a synchronised, multiple machine.<\/p>\n

When everyone is part of the machine, the Joker asks the first person to accelerate his rhythm \u2013 everyone else must follow this modification, since the machine is one entity. When the machine is near to explosion, the Joker asks the first person to ease up, gradually to slow down, till in their own time the whole group ends together. It is not easy to end together, but it is possible.
\nFor everything to work well, each participant really does have to try and listen
\nto everything he hears.<\/p>\n

Love and hate. The same exercise, with the following modification: all the partici-
\npants must imagine a love machine, then a hate machine.<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Today improv comedy<\/strong> often uses games and game-like activities for warm-up<\/a> or to structure the improvisation.<\/p>\n

New games movement<\/h3>\n

“In building New Games, the young adults of the late 1960s and early 1970s hoped to create a new set of rules and with them, a new way to live. If the games of the Cold War had presumed competition and enmity, New Games would foster cooperation and empathy”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>Earthball
\n<\/strong>In late 1966, as the American commitment to the Vietnam War was ramping up, \u00a0the War Resisters League at San Francisco State College asked multimedia artist Stewart Brand to stage an event.
\nHe gathered a hundred or so pacifists into an open field and with their help, inflated a 6-foot-diameter ball that had been painted with continents, waterscapes, and clouds.
\nHe then took up a megaphone and announced:
\n\u201cThere are two kinds of people in the world: those who want to push the Earth over the row of flags at that end of the field, and those who want to push it over the fence at the other end. Go to it.”<\/p>\n

The crowd on the field charged the ball from all sides. The ball began to roll toward one end of the field\u2014yet as it did, members of the pushing team defected, rushing around to the other side of the ball and pushing it back the way they had just driven it. When they reached the other end of the field, they turned around again.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The lap game and the human knot game, and parachute games are “new games” that are commonly played in summer camps, and for team building purposes.
\nNew Games – an historical perspective<\/a><\/p>\n

Modern Playground Games<\/h3>\n

Ninja<\/strong><\/p>\n