Everwake

Wow!

Everwake sits right at the point of pervasive play/street gaming that interests me. The point where it crosses with and becomes linked to Interactive Theatre. The point where it offers an immersive world akin to that of Live Role Play, but without the need for the player to assume any character other than a heightened version of themselves.

I haven’t played anything like it. I’ve heard a lot about the Zombie game in Bristol, which has similarities, but not, I think, the same level of artistic aspiration. Everwake is definitely starting to achieve artistic excellence, in a sphere that has always had the potential to include that, but where it isn’t necessarily the foremost goal.  The character acting throughout was fantastic. The choice and dressing of every location we managed to visit was stunning (except perhaps the final room in a pub phone call scene). And it is on the way to figuring out how to be both theatre and game seamlessly.

PlayArk – The Games

Trainers on feet. Check.

Wig packed. Check.

Water Bottle in Bag. Check.

Phone Charged. Check

Must be off to a pervasive play/street gaming event then. Starting the day with the 40 minute walk from Splott to Canton and I know I’m going to finish up with sore feet despite the trainers. The wig, incidentally, is something I told myself I would always pack after the first Sandpit I went to seemed to be full of games of chase, hide and escaping recognition.

First pleasant surprise – I arrive late, and the games haven’t filled up already. In fact 20minutes to slurp a coffee and I’m off to play my first of the day – though I’m not going to review them in that order.

PlayArk – The Talks

So. There are a number of things making me excited about living in Cardiff. One of these is that there is a group here focused on developing pervasive games and the like. I got started back in 2009, ran off to the wrong bit of America, and mostly missed out until now. Since I’m interested, I have a lot to say, meaning I think this will be the first of three posts about the event that was hosted by the rather amazing, if a little pretentious Chapter Arts Centre in Canton last weekend. This one is focused on the day of talks that preceeded the games…

Phyllopteryx – 4 in 48…

On Friday 15th April, I got up, in Shropshire, at 5am, confused clutch and accelerator and made an engine roar, then finally set off for London with a Luton full of half finished kit. In the next 48 hours I would only sleep four , all in the name of the great experiment of running an interactive story/game at the Time Out Critics Choice Club Night White Mischief – Twenty Thousand Leagues Under theSea.

Round and round the Storyround…

I was at Bristol Storytelling Marathon last weekend. I adore it as an idea, think the organisers have done a really good job of trying to make it work, and yet it also reflects some of the worst elements of that storytelling scene staple, the public story round.

At Bristol there were some highs.

Storytelling Frames

I’m in the – long slow drawn out – process of writing an article looking at the success of Beyond the Border as a festival being down to the range of different performance frames it offers. So a couple of reviews of things I have seen recently – and some thoughts on framing.

Rhythm and Mind…

I was a beat fan at 17. While friends read On the Road, in passing, I devoured Dharma Bums, Desolation Angels, Big Sur and dreamed of living in a shack on a mountain top even though I didn’t like coffee very much. I quoted Howl, and can still hear Ginsberg’s voice over Wait’s Piano echoing in my head. I adore the idea of performance poetry.

Let me take you by the hand…

and lead you through the streets of London and some cultural reviewettes.

I’ve always loved London best walking her tangled streets soaking up the architectural surprises. I should adore Peter Ackroyd’s writing, and would, if he could stop trying to sound like his conclusions are scientific. But back in 2002 I thought I hated the city as a place to live.

Since I was, at the time, going through a break up with an unemployed partner, a mild online gaming addiction, and a job which started out challenging but became tedious, perhaps the city was not so much the trouble.

I started falling in love with her again before Christmas, and continued this New Year. Partly, it is statues wrapped in plastic on a church near St Pancras, the fact that walking from Embankment to Archway is far from impossible, that pubs all over the city have free and quirky function rooms. But mostly, it has been down to a couple of weeks as a culture vulture.

Narrative and New Year

I am not your typical party-goer. Especially not on New Year’s Eve which I have tended to hate and disdain.

But, arriving late at Whitby in April 2009, I catapulted into Abney Park’s set and fell in love with Steam Punk. Then Ben saw the photos of Mr Bill Thomas in his diving suit and we both developed a yen to attend a White Mischief event.

The Eve of Tomorrow ball was a bit of a surprise – 1930′s rather than the classic victoriana of steampunk  - but with a  Trailer suggesting something a little more than just an ordinary theme party, and the fact that even V.I.P. tickets and suitable costuming put together were cheaper than my other plan of trying to go to Marrakech and we were bound for the headquarters of the R Frend Corporation.

California

It was spring when I went there, flowers everywhere, though I left Johnson City behind in sleet. A strange ten days with far too many things crammed into it. Discovering a city and exploring a wild place; tasting narrative in various forms including a storytelling festival; telling myself, at a friend’s school; transcribing some conversational storytelling for an essay – oh and all whilst trying to soak up the only chance of getting to be with my partner between mid January and mid May.