For 6 days over the past 3 weeks I’ve been working with Applied Theatre undergrads at the UEL Stratford Campus on a piece of story collection-driven participative art making (that’s a mouthful, I know, but my work with them encompassed participative practices in performance and games, hence; art). I worked with them to devise a series of questions they had about living in and around Stratford, to build their ability to coax stories out of unconfident strangers, to design and build a space we put in Newham Library, and to go out in and around the library asking people to talk to us about how they feel about where they live. With those collected stories I and each of the students have 4 days to make a piece of participative art using those stories as a starting point. This is my offering. A 1-day first iteration of a storytelling game for two people.
A Different Postcode.
Duration: 15-45 minutes
Players: 2
Age rating: 12A – some adult themes.
Equipment: 2 character decks, consisting of 1 Character Card, 20 Action Cards and 20 Story Cards, your imaginations, these instructions.
It’s also possible to play with 2 decks of 52 cards, Jokers discarded, and all J, Q, K discarded apart from the J, Q, K of CLUBS. You will need to print these instructions, and the character cards, and to have a copy of the translator.
About
A Different Postcode is a game about rising living costs, insecure employment, social cleansing, and living somewhere “necessary but tough”. While the characters are fictional, their names, details and the content of the game is all drawn from conversations with strangers in the street around Stratford City, and in Newham Public Library. The name is drawn from a phrase used by several people to describe the effect of the Olympics on the area: “it’s another postcode over there”. There was a new postcode, E20, invented for the Olympic Park and new housing developments, E15, Stratford City, is increasingly being affected by rising house prices and living costs. “In 50 years time” people told me “there will just be rich people living here”.
You can download the full instructions and character cards here:
A Different Postcode (PDF)
And for playing with regular cards, you can access the translator here.
I’m going to be making simple decks out of sticky labels and blank playing cards. If you want to do that too let me know and I’ll send the templates.