Author Archives: Kars
A few predictions for the future of urban games
On Wednesday 14 April I co-hosted the first Best Scene in Town workshop on invitation of Waag Society’s Ronald Lenz. The other co-host was The Mobile City‘s Martijn de Waal. Best Scene in Town is a design contest wherein participants are asked to create an urban game, narrative experience or tour using 7scenes; Waag Society’s [...]
Posted in Talks Tagged 7scenes, architecture, ARGs, game design, games, play, urbanism, Waag Society, workshops Leave a comment
Shaping the city with urban games at Visible Cities #03
Last week I had the pleasure of being able to speak at Visible Cities, which is a series of events on emerging technologies and the city. The third edition looked at urban gaming and brought together architects, designers and technologists to explore how these games can be used to shape cities. Michiel de Lange kicked [...]
Posted in Talks Tagged architecture, cities, game design, games, play, urbanism, Visible Cities 1 Comment
Talking about game design at Visible Cities #03
Head over to TrouwAmsterdam tomorrow for what is sure to be another interesting Visible Cities. I can’t think of another event in NL at the moment that is more at the forefront of urbanism and interaction design. So I’m pleased to announce I’ll be there to provide a short overview of what we’ve been up [...]
Posted in Upcoming Tagged architecture, cities, game design, interaction design, TrouwAmsterdam, urbanism, Visible Cities Leave a comment
Architects vs. Game Designers – Fight!
If you’re like me and consider the city to be a playground, then I’d love to have you join me in two weeks at the Waag for the first Best Scene in Town workshop. The aim of this event is to explore the potential of location-based media in the city. We’re looking for participants with [...]
Posted in Upcoming Tagged 7scenes, architecture, cities, game design, games, locative, Martijn de Waal, play, Ronald Lenz, The Mobile City, urbanism, Waag Society, workshops 2 Comments
What do you get when you cross a game with an opera?
I’ve just added a write-up to the project section. It’s about Mega Monster Battle Arena; a cross between a game and an opera commissioned by Dario Fo, which we were involved with at the start of last year. I still have fond memories of this project, it was our first foray into theatre, something I’m [...]
Posted in Projects Tagged Daniël Hamburger, Dario Fo, Mega Monster Battle Arena, MMBA, Monster, music, opera, theatre Leave a comment
Kars Alfrink speaking at RaumschiffEr.de in Hamburg
On February 21 I’ll be speaking at RaumschiffEr.de in Hamburg.1 It’s is a little brother of Reboot, a conference in Copenhagen I love for its relaxed atmosphere, eclectic mix of people and slightly countercultural leanings. RaumschiffEr.de aims to help designers and technologists become more aware of the many networks they rely on — people, technologies, [...]
A new website
I’ve just flipped the switch on a new version of the website. This site replaces the placeholder site that was up for a while and should be a big improvement. However, as with everything on the web, it will never be finished. So we plan on making adjustments over the coming weeks and months. Surely, [...]
Posted in Uncategorized 5 Comments
Sketching a paper toy for a conference
At Game in the City 2009 we handed out cards to all participants. Here’s a photo: As you can see, there are nine variants. Each has an illustration of a fox doing, well, something on the front, plus a quote. The quotes all relate to the nature of reality in some way. Part of the [...]
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You’ll find us at Kunstgras 2010