Team discussing the project execution plan.

Wednesday 17th of February saw the coming together of most of the team members; Imanol joining from Berlin, Sophie from Linz. The morning session started with the team introducing themselves and expressing what they liked doing in their lives. This was followed by a quick history of how the project came to this point: From the times when Imanol and Tamer were working in Ars Electronica and thinking about ways to bring playfulness into daily life; to now where such a way of living is conceptualized under an interactive board game to be played in the city.

Plans on the table.

“Whoever plays, plays freely. Whoever must play, cannot play.”

Finite and Infinite Games, by James P. Carse

Playing is an action that enables an open, creative and focused mind. This is an essential notion for us; not just considering the prospective players, but also considering ourselves designing city games. Therefore, each member of the team should be given the freedom to experiment, play around and create. Still, one must also know the rules of the game, to be able to play around freely. There are structures necessary to realize such a project, like budget distributions, amounts of working hours, time plan and expected outcomes of work packages. This is why, the morning session focused on being open with and sharing all the details about these topics with other members of the team. It is important that effort is given, so that each member becomes aware of the whole view of what they are involved in, so they can start building.

Brainstorming and creative discussion.

The afternoon session marked the start of Work Package 1: Creative Concept Document. The outcome of this phase will be the document that will form the research base of the project. With the articulations structured in this document, the iterative design process will start, where ideas will be tested and tried out in cyclic repetitions to see if they are feasible, meaningful and magical.

The creative session was built on a methodology similar to inspiration cards.  A skeleton was preapred that would create the outline structure of this document. On A5 papers, each slide was printed as a text on background, and during the session, Tamer layed these on table, exaplining what it means, why its there, and what can we do with it. In return, a discussion was started, where members brought ideas, took notes discussed. Also seeing who would become responsible in what.

Modular maps.

This session was quite heavy, as it layed out all the bis of pieces and ideas and concepts that have come to be generated in the last two years. Again, the three containers provided the main frmaework: boardmap, all the factors related with the main board part of the game (form, material, technologies, style), invenotry (all the other pieces, tools, accessories that would be used in the games), and experience, stories, games, dyanmics, modalities.

Around 17.30, the group was exhausted but content on being proeprly synchronized again. One thing that all members realzied once more, is that the possibilities with such a platform is limited with the creativity of its creators. The Kick-off day ended, with all memebrs have enough to digest before the next meeting.