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Pop Up Playground

Coming up – Loads of games and a festival too!

Written by Sayraphim

Ooo!!! So all the cats are out of the bags and we can now share with you what we have coming up from now til the end of the year!

PLAYTESTS (Sept)  We got some Playtests coming up for games for This Is A Door, come along to Richmond and help us try out some brand spankin’ new fun games. More details here.

WIKISNEAKS (Sept)Wikisneaks is a new game being presented for one night only as part of the Freeplay Independent Games Festival in Sept. Check out all the info here.

GENERATIONS (Oct) Generations looks at the decisions you make today and how they can affect your family for generations to come, presented at the Owl and Pussycat in Richmond over three nights. Information and booking deets can be found here.

THIS IS A DOOR (Nov) Our annual indoor festival of games and play, This is a Door, is back in November! We have loads of games and playful events happening, info on the playday weekend can be found here and we’ll release more details soon.

Phew!

Freeplay festival, Generations, playtests, This Is A Door, Wikisneaks, , , ,

Melbourne Fringe 2013

Written by Sayraphim

To prevent confusion, Pop Up Playground wishes to clarify that we are not involved with the 2013 Melbourne Fringe Festival. The “pop-up playgrounds” being set up in City Square and the City of Stonnington as part of the Digital Gardens project are the work of independent game developers and artists not affiliated with or employed by Pop Up Playground. We wish the designers and artists the best with the project, but regret the use of our name without permission or consultation.

Melbourne Fringe Festival

Playtests for This Is A Door festival

Written by Sayraphim

New PlayTests for This Is A Door festival

Zombie Tag

Zombie Tag

We’re heading towards the second annual games festival This Is A Door (through November around St Kilda) and we have some brand spankin’ new games we need to try out, so we have two playtests coming up in the next few months:

 

Saturday 21st September
Saturday 28th September
10 am – 5pm

310-314 Church Street, Richmond

Come play!

email us at rabbithole@popupplayground.com.au to let us know you’re coming

Also, we’ll gladly receive any gold coin donations to help us pay for the space hire.

6b2

Grandma's Ninjas

Grandma’s Ninjas

playtests, This Is A Door,

Focal Point video

Written by Sayraphim

As part of the State Library of Victoria’s Carnival of Curiosity in July, 2013, we presented The Focal Point, a story telling game for all ages in which players help trapped echoes of the library deliver lost messages between each other across the decades.

You can watch it here.

We’d like to thank the ever lovely Elliot Summers, who came along and filmed it for us.

State Library of Victoria, videos, , ,

How players influence our game design

Written by Sayraphim

This weekend is our new game, The Focal Point, for the State Library of Victoria, a story telling game for all ages in which players help trapped echoes of the library deliver lost messages between each other across the decades. When we were designing the characters one of our game runners, Madeline Anderson, who was also in The Whispering Society, came to us with a story that one of the players had told her. She was so moved by his story that she wanted to base her character on it. We asked Madeline to share the story with you…

–Madeline hears a story from a player

At about 1am, after 4 hours of constant stories being told and players trying to prove their worth to join “The Whispering Society”, a man in his seventies stumbled upon Pop Up Playground’s game and decided to play. Part of the game involved players taking photos with their smart phones of spirits that were trapped in objects of habit etc. They would then approach the actor and tell the story the spirit. If they proved their worth to all of the actors, they could become a member of the society. This lovely gentleman approached me and said that he did not have a smart phone to capture the spirit, but whether or not he could he show it to me. He turned my attention to the beautiful gold embellishment on the balcony and pillars of the Queen’s Hall and told me the story of the weeping war widow:Read More

Focal Point, State Library of Victoria, White Night Melbourne, , ,

PAX panel cancelled

Written by Sayraphim
2 Comments

Pop Up Playground regrets to announce that is no longer attending PAX Australia and that the “No Controller, No Board” panel has been cancelled.

We’ve considered this carefully over the last couple of weeks, but with everything that’s happened in that time, there’s a general consensus among panel members that we are no longer comfortable participating in PAX Australia. Pop Up Playground has worked hard to make sure that the events we run and the culture of pervasive gaming we promote is inclusive and non-discriminatory.

While we have read the retractions and apologies regarding the controversial “Why So Serious?” panel and Mike Krahulik’s offensive Twitter comments about transgender people, we unfortunately feel that PAX Australia has not sufficiently distanced itself from the troubled history of Penny Arcade for us to feel comfortable appearing at this year’s event. It’s disappointing, as we love many things about PAX and would love to bring our new games tradition to the PAX audience.

Uncategorized,

Mini Newsletter!

Written by Sayraphim

Ww did a quick mini newsletter today sharing all the news…  http://eepurl.com/BqudL

newsletter

NowPlay Mentorship program now open!

Written by Sayraphim

NowPlaylogoPop Up Playground and FreePlay are pleased to launch the NowPlay Mentorship program.

The NowPlay Mentorship intended to encourage and support the development of emerging designers working in fields of play (games or playful experience).

The NowPlay Mentorship offers a regular mentoring meetings and design feedback with some of the leading designers working in the emerging field of play.

Mentors include:
Harry Lee
Christy Dena
Paul Callaghan
Ben McKenzie
Robert Reid
Sayraphim Lothian
Mark Pritchard

One designer or design team will be chosen by the selection committee and will be announced at 2013 Freeplay conference.

The chosen designers will work to develop a new game or playful experience.

During the development meetings will be arranged with the Mentors to talk about the emerging field and also to discuss and receive design feedback on the game.

At the end of the development period the mentee’s game will be showcased at the Pop Up Playground Fresh Air Festival to be held at Federation Square in March 2014.

To apply send:
One 200 word statement explaining what interests you about Play.
One 200 word outline of the game or experience you intend to build
One page background information about you

Please submit application via email to admin@playspaceaustralia.com by no later than the close of business on Friday August 16.

NowPlay Mentorship

Brand spankin’ new Incorporation and the happiest board you’ll ever see

Written by Sayraphim

This afternoon, all huddled around a heater in a loungeroom in Brunswick, Pop Up Playground officially voted itself into existence. We promptly had a quick existential crisis then created the full entity that shall be know henceforth as Pop Up Playground, Inc.

Once all the official stuff was out the way, we headed down the pub to celebrate.

Our Artistic Director, Robert Reid, had bought our official ties so we could wear them in the first official photo (and subsequently in every AGM from here on in, we learned only AFTER picking which we wanted to wear today)

1ties

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Pop Up Playground business

June Playtest

Written by Sayraphim
Invisible Labrynth

Invisible Labrynth

Yesterday we held a playtest in the beautiful hall in Richmond we’re starting to frequent. We started the day with Grandma’s Footsteps, which quickly morphed into Grandma’s Ninjas, in which all the people creeping up on Grandma have to be doing it ninja style.

Next up, continuing our warm up games, we played Zombie Tag, which is awesome for getting in touch with your inner zombie.

After that we launched into playtesting our new games. We started this by testing out Focal Point, which we’re doing for the State Library of Victoria on 7th July. Players have to pass messages between characters caught in temporal disturbances to help them move on. Read More

Focal Point, Invisible Labyrinth, playtests, State Library of Victoria, The League of Extraordinary Nations, Universe Creation 101, , , , , ,