In addition to the weekend of games, we’ve scheduled two nights of talks that take a particular topic and explore them in depth. These nights are separately ticketed at £5.
Games and Poetry on Wednesday 2 September, 7pm-8:30. We look at the intersection of games and poetry, with practitioners from both fields sharing their perspective. Get tickets.
Hannah Nicklin (Games We Have Known And Loved; Equations For A Moving Body)
A Storytelling Game
A brand new piece of spoken word, based on a storytelling game played with over 100 people in 2015; an oral history of the games we played as children: of gathering around gameboys, batteries dwindling; of identities shaped; friends made; and skating across the thin-iced river Trent in 1948.
Tom Betts (In Ruins; Sir, You Are Being Hunted)
I wandered lonely as a function
Using poetry to explain the aesthetics of games.
Ross Sutherland (Comedian Dies in the Middle of Joke; Stand By For Tape Backup)
AUTO-TED
Poet Ross Sutherland auto-generates a brand-new TED talk live onstage, using suggestions from the audience.
Games and Intimacy on Friday 4 September, 7pm-8:30. Three game designers and writers talk about games and intimacy. Get tickets.
Meg Jayanth (80 Days; Samsara)
Games that affected (me) like a disaster
Kafka said “we ought to read only the kinds of books that […] affect us like a disaster”. Meg Jayanth will be talking about the games that affected her personally, and exploring some of the different ways we can design and experience intimacy as makers and players.
Emily Short (Galatea; Blood & Laurels)
Private Games
A tour of games written as letters, gifts, and party activities — and how writing for an intimate audience changes game authorship.
Merritt Kopas (Forest Ambassador; Minkomora)
The Morning After
On love, heartbreak, and putting yourself back together. What’s more intimate than breaking up?