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Fresh Air Festival (Concrete Playground article)

Written by Sayraphim

Fresh Air Festival
When: Friday, 8 February – Sunday, 10 February
Where: Federation Square, Cnr Flinders and Swanston Streets, Melbourne VIC 3000
How much: FREE

Whether it’s being part of a crowd rooting for a football team, an audience laughing in unison at a comedian’s jokes, or maybe flashmobbing a train station, there’s something special about communal experience. Pop Up Playground’s Fresh Air Festival is all about bringing strangers together through fun, games, and complicity.

A series of activities will take place around Federation Square this weekend, all based around the theme of interaction and improvisation. Some are as simple as a tent where an artwork that has been left for a lucky stranger — on the condition that they make something for the next person to come along and discover. Then there are enormous, communal games that might have you carrying out secret missions, putting out fires, or even escaping a curse.

Fresh Air Fest is an anarchic, hilarious, and inclusive festival of pervasive games — you’re guaranteed to leave with a new friend.

Original article here: http://melbourne.concreteplayground.com.au/event/102239/fresh-air-festival.htm

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Drawing Room: Generational games (Radio National interview)

Written by Sayraphim

The podcast for our Artistic Director Robert Reid’s interview on Radio National is now online for your listening pleasure. It also features comedian Dave O’Neil talking about the playful (and slighty unsafe) things he used to do in the name of ‘play’ as a child… http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/drawing-room3a-generational-games/4504606

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Fresh Air Schedule

Written by Sayraphim

Fresh Air offers you a range of awesome things to do.

  • There are big games going on all around Fed Square usually starting a new one every hour.
  • There are little games going on the stage of The Edge and you can go down and play them when ever you like.
  • In the foyer of the Edge we have set up a bunch of Constructive Play activities and you can use them to make whatever you like.
  • If you’ve got kids with you we’ve got kids games running down on River Terrace all afternoon.
  • There’s also a couple of ambient games which start at HQ but might take you all over Fed square, that you can do on your own or in groups and go at your own pace.

Schedule:Read More

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Playtest 4 for Fresh Air

Written by Sayraphim

Sunday the 20th was our last playtest for Fresh Air 2013 games. As a good warm up, we started off with a game of Turtle Wushu from Invisible Playground, but in our case it was Dinosaur Wushu owing to the fact we only have toy dinosaurs. We discovered that toy dinosaurs are way more unstable than toy turtles, at least that’s what we claim.

Next up was our brand new game Tourist Attractors, in which several tour guides take players around Fed Square and make up increasingly bizarre stories to attempt to capture and hold the tourist’s interest.

All through out the day Melbourne company No Show was trialing Outside Line, a tense single person experience which is like nothing else we have at Fresh Air.

Next we playtested The Host, where our players are trapped on a colony on Mars which has been infiltrated by one or more alien. Can they find enough evidence to figure out who it is?

And to round out the day we had another playtest of our slightly-reworked Bury Yer Treasure, where pirates pillage from each other and battle it out on the high seas for loot n’ sailors.

Remember, Fresh Air is on the 8, 9 and 10 of Feb at Federation Square in Melbourne. The whole event is free, so come down and play all of these games and more!

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Playtest 3 for Fresh Air

Written by Sayraphim

We spent the weekend playtesting the last of the games for Fresh Air, we played so many we thought it was best to split the post into two. So Saturday we took loads of boxes and interesting props to Federation Square to try some games out.

First up was Holy Cow, Sacred Udder by Team Hat (UK) where teams of farm animals attempt to fill their udders with the most sacred liquid to avoid the slaughterhouse.

Next we played Gobstopper Job by Zombie LARP (UK), a great cops and robbers game for two teams of conniving thieves.

Then we trialled out Guardians of Hidden Universes by Universe Creation 101 (AUS) which is a single player experience which encourages you to look at the world in a different way, via a web-based phone app.

Last up before lunch we tested out Feed Your Family, one of our brand new games. Each team of three players need to work together using a giant bird puppet to pick up as many worms as possible and run them back to the nest. Confrontations are fought out with loud squarking and posturing.

During lunch we came up with another game to play through the Book Market that Federation Square hosts every weekend. It’s so new it doesn’t have a name yet, but it proved that quickly developed games can work just as well as those with months of work and prop development.

After lunch we played Movie of You, another of our brand spankin’ new games. Teams are let loose on Fed Square and have to make a 30 second trailer for an upcoming movie via their smart phones. One team even found a knight of old to star in their movie.

Last up we played Blind Trust, a game by a new Melbourne games company Killkenny games. Blindfolded teams have to make their way around the play space lead only by the sound of a leader’s voice. But does the person shouting you instructions have your best interests at heart?

Federation Square, Fresh Air, playtests, Team Hat, Universe Creation 101, Zombie LARP, , , , ,

Playtest 2 for Fresh Air

Written by Sayraphim

On Sunday we had our second playtest for Fresh Air.

We started out with Larkin’ About‘s Attack The Block where the Red, Green and Blue Teams attempted to take over each other’s territory. This was made even more interesting by the fact that Fed Square now has 250 Christmas trees scattered around the main playing area.

Next, we played Obscure Games‘ Nashville, where our players were gunslingers from the Wild West, using their best poker hand to win shootouts. You ain’t never had a shootout in the middle of summer in a forest of Xmas trees like this!

Finally, we playtested one of our own games, Tourist Attractor, where three players were Tour Guides who made up increasingly bizarre stories about different aspects of Fed Square.

Thanks to everyone who attended! We’ll have a final playtest in January, so keep an eye out for announcements about that soon…

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The Whispering Society for White Night Melbourne

Written by Sayraphim

Some exciting news, we’ve just been commissioned to develop a brand new game for White Night Melbourne next February!

In the alleys and the echoing dark, in the halls and forgotten corridors, in the haunted places of the city you will find The Whispering Society. Searchers into the paranormal, The Whispering Society listens for the memories of places, gathering to hear the stories of the long forgotten. But lately the spirits have grown agitated, their whispering more urgent, more insistent and much louder. You can click here for more details…

Between Fresh Air and The Whispering Society, February is shaping up to be a busy month! Stay tuned for more details…

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Playtest 1 for Fresh Air

Written by Sayraphim

We all trooped off to Fed Square last weekend for our first playtest of games for Fresh Air, our outdoor games festival in Feb 2013.

We warmed up with a few games of Grandma’s Footsteps (traditional) then we trialed Atmosphere Industries’ Mont Trottoir and finished it off with our own piratey adventure game, Bury Yer Treasure.

Thanks to everyone who came and played! Next Playtest is in the city, Sunday 9th Dec from 11.00 – 4.00. Would you like to come play? Email us at
rabbithole at popupplayground.com.au to let us know if you’re coming and we’ll let you know where to meet us

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