By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 11:47:21 +0000

Thanks for that, Margaret! Of course, that poses the interesting question – does it still count as cosplay if you’re in “plain clothes”?

By: Margaret Robertson

Margaret Robertson — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 15:52:54 +0000

I came to this latest session of Playmaker’s expecting to learn, and I did. Initially what I learned was that the best way to contain an over-confident tree frog in a crowded indoor area is with a big net cake umbrella. The second thing I learned is that nobody knows what those big net cake umbrellas are actually called. More seriously, the whole afternoon was an object lesson in why design-by-committee doesn’t have to be death-by-a-thousand-papercuts. A cheery, collaborative atmosphere pervaded, with no-one feeling defensive or overly protective of their ideas. From my perspective, two main issues seemed to emerge: what do we want the tone of the game to be, and what do we want the role of the non-HFD-holding team members to be? The basic framework of the game obviously pressed a some serious (and currently sensitive) buttons – surveillance, freedom of information, freedom to take photographs, the limit of the law – but there was a clear thirst to let the game be as silly and preposterous as it is at heart. And – despite my usual devotion to cold, hard, game theory and rule-set wrangling – I was surprised to find myself persuaded that it might be most fun for the other players to have more of a performance role than a tactical role. So perhaps all I really learned was that I had a previously undiscovered weakness for spy-based cos-play.

Comments on: Yes, And – day report, Part 1

By: Justin

By: Margaret Robertson