Yesterday I joyfully headed down to the first of the new BARG Meets at the MAC with a bulging pocket full of old train tickets. Why, well I was keen to to get some help in testing out a game based around those orange and yellow cards we all cram our wallets full of.

The idea for a game based around train tickets came after realising I, like others, spend approx 3% of my life passively collecting, then discarding them and am never without at least 5 or so on my person. So instead of just tossing them into the bin I wanted to take on the challenge of turning these disposable bits of rubbish into a competitive collectable.

So what sort of game is capable with train tickets? Lots of course, but I’m keen to develop something easy to pick up without requiring other tech or props. I’d started to think around other traditional card games and see what derivatives might be possible and of course top trumps was a natural first direction.

But where to start? As I’m still new to ‘officially’ developing games I foolishly started with a quite admin heavy approach that consisted of compiling a list of all the potential variables and the formats each ticket offers up, and there are a lot….an awful lot…..

- Return or single
- No of travellers
- Cost
- Date valid from
- Date valid till
- Date printed
- To & from
- Validity
- Various random nonsensical combinations of 5/ 10 letter numbers and letters
- Ticket validation, (stamp…hole punch….squiggle)

and this still isn’t all of them and doesn’t include seat reservations, void tickets, receipts, foreign tickets and others. After listing most of these I must admit I wasn’t a great deal further along actually coming up with a game and was just boring myself to tears. What I needed was to sit down with a group of people willing to just start playing some half baked games to see and discuss what worked and what didn’t.

And thankfully this is where the BARG meet came in. I was slightly worried when I was heading down that I wasn’t doing so with a perfect game, or even a playable one. Instead I just had a pocket full of tickets a few ideas and an extensively dull list of variables. But it turns out that’s all I needed.

I explained my semi logic and thinking so far to the group which lead to us playing through a few rounds of a trump based game with a variation of rules, discussing and deciding on these as we went along.

A personal favourite was the development of how to deal with the ‘to and from’ variable which moved from ‘distance from current location’, ‘longest distance travelled’ to the more qualitative measurement of ‘travelling up or down in the world’ (e.g. a journey from Coventry to London= good, but from Coventry to London = bad). Granted this can lead to debating (read: arguing) among players, but  this complimented the more defined numerical wins (e.g. £42 ticket trumping a £2.70 ticket).

By the end some things worked, some things didn’t, but I’m a lot further along in developing at least 1 game. I still feel that a trump based game is too much the ‘easy option’ but given the number of variables then there’s always room for a whole wiki of games (I’ve also been working around something in a domino format).

By the next meet on the 18th I’m hoping to have some further developed variations of the game we played to inflict on new willing victims. But in the meantime if you have any thoughts on games to develop with tickets then please get in touch!

(p.s. apologies for the awful picture quality, my lovely lumix camera is currently on holiday after I foolishly left it somewhere a week ago, no offence iphone camera)

After ranting last November about the decision to not list the iconic Birmingham Library building, I’m back on the war path, albeit a creative and productive one. I won’t go into the full ins and outs on here, as I’ve set up a tumblr to help channel the project into one low monthly payment, or blog if you will.

Basically the idea at present is to find like minded people and creative networks/ groups keen to work together to organise a series of events and activities to celebrate, enjoy and capture the library before it potentially meets its maker.

I’m going to be joining the people dots with a meeting in mid-late March and will post the full details on here asap. So if you have any sense you’ll head over to the tumblr site and sign up!

pip pip

The Playmakers is a three way venture between the team behind the Hide and Seek festival and sandpit sessions, Nesta and Think Public with the goal of creating a new game, a documentary of the games progress and another film about ‘play’.

I took part in the 2nd ‘playtest’ of the game being developed whilst at the ICA sandpit in May. It  involved 3 teams bounding about St James park in very flattering brightly coloured sports bibs whilst carrying face masks and a jazzily decorated flip camera mounted on a tripod. Looking suitably insane we then had to perform various timed ‘religious rituals’a different locations. It was a lot of fun, but as you’d expect from a work in progress it was also a little confusing at times.

So if like me you’re happy to adorn sports bibs and get a little sweaty, but unlike me are in London on June 3rd then I highly recommend you head along to the 12th Sandpit session at the Soho theatre (see hide & seek site for full details) for a chance to be be take part in the games 4th highly scientific playtest in the guise of ‘Soho Spy Squad’.

The game was part of the Guten Touch installation created by Multitouch Barcelona for the Red Bull Music Academy (something I admit I didn’t know much about before googling earlier today).

As can be seen from their site (which in itself is simply lovely) MtB are a collective who have been doing some amazing work with multi touch displays and interactive design that crosses the boundaries between people and pixels and Guten Touch is their “enthusiastic good morning to natural interaction”. Although I must admit I’m not the best at Space Invaders and adding in the complexity of physical exhertion is certainly not going to help matters… but this does not prevent me wishing I had this installed on my bedroom wall.