I went looking for a few recent examples of games that deal with architectural themes in some way. I pulled these mostly from a few of the major street games festivals that are out there, such as Come Out & Play, Hide & Seek, Igfest and You Are GO! Just from this small sample size [...]
Tag Archives: urban games
Six games about architecture
Posted in Thoughts Also tagged architecture, cities, game design, games, pervasive games, urbanism Comments closed
New Games for New Cities at FutureEverything
Last week I was in Manchester for FutureEverything. I presented on games and how they can be used to improve city life. Below are my notes and a selection of slides. It’s longish, but hopefully informative. I’ve tried to connect criticism of gamification with the virtues of open-ended play, and show how the latter can [...]
Posted in Talks Also tagged cities, citymagic, executive function, games, gamification, pervasive games, play, self-regulation, strangers, urbanism Comments closed
Drifting through the city with a few bocce balls
On a recent sunny Sunday afternoon I took a walk while boulesing through Utrecht. Together with a group of friends I used a number of streets and squares as a playing field. The water-level walkways along the Old Canal, the fountain behind the city hall, and the usually quiet Seven Alleys. Passersby responded with amusement [...]
Posted in Articles Also tagged Bashers, bocce, Bocce Drift, boules, columns, games, Ludocity, pervasive games, Situationism Comments closed
Assumption is the mother of all…
So game number two. What was this game supposed to be about? What kind of game could we design to take our students to the next level? What was our next role? Looking at game #1, the big pinup board game, one of the main things the students were doing was making assumptions about basically [...]
Posted in Projects Also tagged assumptions, education, Learning Lab, Regulator Rally, River Institute Comments closed
Cheating by the rules in Pirateball and Illuminati
One of the designers of the game Pirateball describes it as “extremely stupid”. I recently ran it at a games festival and discovered that it’s also crafted quite cleverly. Pirate baseball To potential players I always say that it’s baseball as pirates play it. Then you get an idea. That’s the first trick: the name [...]
Posted in Articles Also tagged Bashers, board games, columns, Illuminati, pervasive games, Pirateball Comments closed
Join us for a game of Bocce Drift
So we have five sets of bocce balls lying around (or jeu de boules, as we like to call the game in the Netherlands). They’re left over from our little stint at NU Grounds. We were planning to run Bocce Drift there, but did not get around to it. So let’s play it anyway, in [...]
Games we ran at NU Grounds
On a scorchingly hot Saturday afternoon several agents of Hubbub descended on the Utrecht area of Leidsche Rijn to run a number of physical social games at the NU Grounds festival. We played a mix of games designed by students of the Utrecht School of the Arts and games taken from the excellent Ludocity website. [...]
Posted in Projects Also tagged Cultuur19, events, Leidsche Rijn, NU Grounds, pervasive games Comments closed
Making physical games at Playgrounds Festival
Over the years, I’ve run a variety of game design workshops, both standalone and as part of larger events.1 They’re typically aimed at creating simple, analog games that can be played inside or on the streets. I enjoy doing workshops because I get to see how others deal with the unique challenges of designing physical [...]