A little while ago, we put on the first PlayReactive exhibition celebrating the launch of our studio! For those who missed it, here are some highlights of the two weeks – or you can scroll to the bottom of the page for some photos of the event.
Shang Lun gets big-headed over being really good at a game he made
It's nearly impossible to defeat Shang Lun at minimalist fighting game Crown Fools, and challenging him leads to resentment, denial, and the feeling of oh-I-was-so-close-dammit-let's-go-again. On the plus side, people were still able to manoeuvre/button-mash their way to victory against their inebriated friends.
Drama ensues over deciding what is officially the Best Thing
Whether it was deciding between friends and family, income and free time, or sex and cheese, The Best Thing taught us a little more about ourselves and what we really value. (Louis and Dayv, the jovial publicans of Bar SK, appropriately whittled it down to beer.)
We all bemoan the English language
Above: an accurate representation of how we felt upon learning that “wayzgoose” is a real word.
Bosswords is an infuriatingly fun little word game. You'd think that finding an English word that contains 4 given letters would be easy, but then you get hit with K H Q R and you start to wonder whether it's your vocabulary skills that are poor, or if it's the English language that needs to calm the heck down.
We’re aiming to release Bosswords for computers and mobile devices soon – spread the word.
Earthquake, by the way.
Making someone realise that they are a pineapple is an extremely difficult task
Object Lesson has the audience moving a player’s body like a puppet to help them guess what’s being shown on the screen. Miming ‘pineapple’ to someone is difficult enough, but clumsily puppeteering someone else into making vague pineapple gestures and having them guess correctly is another thing altogether. Add to that the awkwardness of coordinating with other puppeteers and the physical limits of the human body, and you end up with a comedy of errors... a charade, if you will.
Birds are sneaky buggers
Watching people play Bush Bush is nerve wrecking even as an observer: the palpable tension as players stare at cards being slowly revealed, the great possibility of someone spilling their drink as they reach for the right card, the anguish – and schadenfreude – of someone enthusiastically slapping the absolute worst card.
One of the tenets of the game is that getting cards with bushes is good, but getting cards with birds is bad. Why? Because birds are evil. It's a deceptively simple game that will make you wonder if your eyes are just decorative baubles. (Seriously, another bird? How could you not see that?)
All in all our launch exhibition was a lot of fun. If you missed it, don't worry! We'll catch you at the next one. It's just a shame you won't get to try the PlayReactive cocktails we concocted for the night! There was jelly involved, so you know it was a good time.
We'd like to thank the inimitable "trashgames" bar slash gallery space BAR SK for hosting us, and of course thank you to everybody who came and checked out our games and gave 'em a diddle. It was great to see how people responded to them – we had a great time and we hope you did too!
