game design – Hannah Nicklin

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.

a screenshot of games of each of the makers I'm walking with

So a week or so ago I launched a brand new project A Psychogeography of Games. I’ve very excitingly been invited to be the new resident speaker at VideoBrains, starting in June and as I have 6 months to play with I thought it would be great to use the time to develop a series/idea/take some fun risks. This lead me to propose THIS PATREON for the project, inviting people to support me building 6 brand new 20 minute performances/talks born out of walks across hills, cities, and beaches with great game designers. Thinking about where we come from, how we live, and how that affects what we make.

And here they are! Here are the brilliant people who have consented to walk with me. They are (in order of how nicely screencaps of their games fitted together, not in the order I will be walking with them)…

Kerry Turner – @reallyfancy – therabbitclub.com

Kerry Turner is a programmer, game designer and digital artist who spent much of the last decade working as a programmer in the games and tech industry. In 2010 she began making experimental games and digital art. Since then, her work has been featured all over the place, including The Guardian, Edge, PC Gamer and Rock Paper Shotgun.

Ed Key – @edclef – visitproteus.com

Ed Key is a game developer who lives and works in Cumbria. He made Proteus, with David Kanaga, a meditative game about spending time immersed in a mysterious place without people. He is a regular conservation volunteer and an irregular hill-wanderer.

Jake Elliott – @jakevsrobots – dai5ychain.net

Jake makes games, music & artware. He’s currently working on the game Kentucky Route Zero with his friends Tamas Kemenczy and Ben Babbitt. With his friend jonCates, he runs the internet radio station NUMBERS.FM.

George Buckenham – @v21 – v21.io

George makes weird stuff. Things like iPad games you play by stacking pieces up in a careful pile, pianos you can play Doom on, or bowls of custard designed to be punched. And some things that aren’t games, like Twitter bots that tweet quotes from the Library of Babel. He helps put on events like the Wild Rumpus, too.

Holly Gramazio – @severalbees – hollygramazio.net

Holly makes games that usually have some sort of physical element: events and installations and that kind of thing. She curates stuff too. She likes writing and talking about games, making work for public spaces, and exploring the intersection of game design and other cultural forms.

Llaura Dreamfeel – @dreamfeeel – dreamfeeel.com

Llaura is a queer games author and fiction writer living in Dublin Ireland. She’s interested in strange, poetic and punk game-like things, and being involved in small creative communities outside traditional digital spaces.

I’ll be doing the first walk in April, with Jake Elliott – it’ll be the only walk that will happen by correspondence (as he lives far far away beyond the dreams of my budget), but with his current project being all about wandering into different times and spaces, folds of maps and bits of reality eroded by static, that feels really appropriate. There’s a lovely little idea we’re working on, and I’ll let you know about it closer to the time.

I’m so glad to have these excellent folk on board to walk with me and talk with me about how their surrounding affect who they are and what they make. I hope you are too!

If you like the sound of this idea, then it would be amazing if you’d consider putting in $5 or so a month to support it – you can stop supporting or change your pledge at any time! Every bit helps me not make a massive loss, and means I’ll make and send you a zine out of all the walks and the finished texts and pictures and whatnot. Rad. Thanks.

Tag: game design

A Different Postcode

Announcing: the game designers