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Fresh Air 2015!

Fresh-Air-15-Postcard-FinalMelbourne’s International Games Festival, Fresh Air, is back for 2015, hosted by Pop Up Playground and commissioned and presented by Federation Square’s Creative Program.

Headlining Fresh Air this year are Fire Hazard Games from the UK, who are running the enormously popular street game City Dash and a brand new story telling game Flashpoint Fairytale. Escape Room Melbourne, Australia’s leading escape room designers, premiering a brand new boutique work on site. And for one night only, Folly, a new city wide urban role playing game by the team who bring you Woodfordia, the woodford folk festival game.

We’ll also be showcasing new works by local designers Christy Dena, Georgia Symons, Kilkenny Games and Snapstone games, alongside some old favourites and some new games by Pop Up Playground and by our old friends at Coney, Hide and Seek and Slingshot.

We’ll be playing street games in St Pauls Court and the Amphitheatre at Federation Square from 11 am to 4pm friday to monday. The Night time program starts at 6 – and runs til 9.00.

Tickets for head line games are essential and can only be booked online.


citydashCity Dash (Firehazard Games, UK)
Fri and Sat nights, 7:30pm
$15

An exciting and intense hour in the city.

Run for checkpoints, replan on the fly as the map changes, and duck for cover as our patrolling guards close in. Or take it more strategically, rack your brains to solve our cryptic clues, and keep your eyes open for bonus points.

However you play, you can watch the live scoreboard for updates and battle it out with nearby teams. With a huge range of strategies, approaches, and levels, you can take this as casually or competitively as you want.

Friday night: https://citydash.fire-hazard.net/events/44/tickets
Saturday night: https://citydash.fire-hazard.net/events/45/tickets


follyFolly: The Game (Woodfordia, AUS)
Sunday night 6pm
$20

Folly is an UrbanRPG with an absurdist bent. Expect ridiculous challenges, dares, an interactive and hilarious narrative and a spectacular finale.

Developed by Tim Monley, creator of Woodfordia: The Game, a spectacular six day long game played every year by thousands of participants at the Woodford Folk Festival. For Fresh Air Festival this experience has been condensed into three hours of silliness and adventure for one hundred lucky people.

Booking: http://www.trybooking.com/GZGJ


FlashpointFairytale

Flashpoint Fairytale (Amy Strike, UK)
Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon 3pm, extra game Sunday 8pm
Free

Flashpoint Fairytale is a storytelling tabletop game filled with old maps, evil overlords, witches, trolls and, despite being a game played over a table, lots of running around and shouting. Players choose a character (whether inventor, doctor, wizard, hero or diplomat) and then work together to help that character escape the enemy, survive the story and find out what on earth is going on and how they can (oh yes) save the land. Created by Fire Hazard Games. Requires 4 to 5 players.

Bookings: http://www.trybooking.com/GZIL


anarchy

Bakers of Anarchy (Universe Creation 101, AUS)
Fri, Sat, Sun nights 6pm

Free

You are a contestant in the finale of the 9th Annual Cake Decorating Championship. One of the hosts has been embroiled in a bitter buttercream scandal, and so you arrive to find an Anarchist is now running the competition. In this hands-on live game, you do whatever you can to impress the revolutionary philosopher with your anarchic cake decorating to ultimately win the championship, or the good fight.

A game by Christy Dena of Universe Creation 101

Bookings:  http://www.trybooking.com/GZGE


alienAlien Meteorites of Federation Square (That Probably Won’t Kill Us All)

Fri, Sat, Sun nights, 6pm, 7pm, 8pm
Free

Three meteorites from outer space have crash-landed in Federation Square. How convenient! But also mysterious, and maybe even dangerous. We can’t figure out what they are, where they came from, or why they’re here. Maybe you can help us? Come and lend your expert opinion as we try to unlock the secrets of the Alien Meteorites of Federation Square (That Probably Won’t Kill Us All)!

Created by: Georgia Symons
Designed by: Daniel Moulds

Bookings: http://www.trybooking.com/GZGA


escaperoom Escape Van

Hourly 11am to 3pm Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon during the day
6pm to 8pm Fri, Sat, Sun evenings
Tickets are $20 each, or $70 for a full team of four.

A new puzzle room experience from the team at Escape Room Melbourne! Melbourne in the 1950s. Government spies have caught word of a planned assassination, and you’re on the suspect list. To prove your innocence, you will need to break into a surveillance van and piece together the mystery. Expect mind-boggling gadgets, espionage, intrigue, and a healthy serve of good old-fashioned code-cracking.

Bookings:http://www.trybooking.com/HBYL

Fresh Air international games announcement 1!

Today we’re announcing one of the international games we’ll be playing at #FreshAir15 – the Soho Stag Hunt! Designed by Minkette, Alex Fleetwood, Holly Gramazio and Tassos Stevens, and first played as part of The Soho Project alternate reality game, it involves players hunting a mythical stag around a suburban landscape and attaching balloons to its antlers to score points. It’s very easy to startle the stag, though – players can only approach in very small groups, cannot use mobile phones (the stag can sense them) and must not make too much noise! In the video below, from the game’s second outing at Hide and Seek 2008 in London, a large group of players are flattering the stag while they attach their balloons to make sure he doesn’t run away…

Stag Hunt from nikkipugh on Vimeo.

The Soho Stag Hunt has been played in a number of cities in different versions, including a creepier version called Black Stag in Pittsburgh; we’re excited to work on a version that will suit the particular needs of Fresh Air!

You can help us bring more international games like this to Melbourne by supporting our Pozible campaign for Fresh Air in 2015; find out more at: http://pozible.com/freshair15

Fresh Air 15 and our very first crowdfunding campaign!

FreshAir15_pozible

Fresh Air 2015 is crowdfunding on Pozible!

For two years we’ve worked hard on Fresh Air, our annual international games festival at Federation Square, and we’re proud of what we’ve managed to achieve on a tight budget – a fraction of what other similarly sized festivals spend. For 2015 we want to really go all out and make it the biggest and best Fresh Air yet – but to do that, we’re gonna need more money! So Pop Up Playground are launching their first ever crowdfunding campaign with the good folk at Pozible.Read More