written by Angel Macías, Cláudia Coelho and Magdalena Kurowska
Last week we DID it! We created five games from scratches! With a help of Karolina, trainer from Polish NGO: Laboratorium Zmiany, we made 3 questings about Bologna and two other games connected with social issues like digital addiction and environmental degradation. We had a lot of fun, but also doubts when we did many things for a first time. So let us compare preparing a game to cooking and read carefully how we made five delicious games in one week.
Often when we think about games as a tool for our work, we focus in elements like age and number of players, materials, space, time, and rules. If we think twice and take our time for making a kind of systematization (that was the opportunity we had last week in ASITI Bootcamp in Bologna with Karolina, a game maker), we were able to discover another game elements or as we want to call it “Essential Ingredients” for “Cooking” our own “Menu”. As cooks we need some theory (the factors presented in a game) and a lot of practices (process of experimentation and testing that games, sometimes... many times). Cooking should be also fun because the Fun is a crucial for games. No fun, no game.
Some of us prefer a sweet flavour, other wants to add more pepper, even chilli. One of the biggest challenge was managing an intercultural group like ours, with different backgrounds, experiences, points of view and thoughts. Which is the best way to cook ingredients for a well balanced and tasty plates? Time pressure and frustration caused by creative process were sometimes our worst enemies. Feelings and emotions were like herbs and spices for our recipes. This mixture could be reason for success or ruin of all that previous hard work.
Testing the game/final taste with our colleagues was the only way to know, if we did “URBAN GAMES FOR SOCIAL CHANGEMENT” - our the best balanced and tasty menu or not. As you already know, we succeed. Feel free to taste it/ join us at 27th of April in the centre of Bologna. We will have a delicious game for you to play.
