Drinking About Museums: Boston TONIGHT 2/28!

 

Pints of beer by Flickr user spli

February’s Drinking About Museums: Boston will be simple and social. Join us at CBC and let’s talk! If you don’t see us, they may have stuck us in the back.  If all else fails, tell the maitre d’ you’re one of “those museum people” and they’ll point you in the right direction. Hope to see ya there!

Cambridge Brewing Co.,1 Kendall Square #100, Cambridge, MA,

Drinking About Museums: Boston January, February and March. Oh my!

I’ve been remiss in keeping up with all the good socializing and networking going on.  So here’s three months of updates.

January (courtesy of Jenn Schmitt)

We gathered at he Toursphere offices (thanks for hosting!) for an hour-long Gaming Workshop run by Green Door Labs’ Kellian Adams and Marleigh Norton.  Participants learned about what makes a game fun or not fun by inventing our own games.

Kellian ran the workshop starting with about 6 different games.  We played in teams of 3 shifting games every 5 minutes.  While playing we wrote down things we liked on pink post-its and things we didn’t like on blue ones.  After three or four game switches, we took all the post-its and  lumped the pink together, building strings of similar comments, and same with the blue to see what common themes emerged.

Things that make a game fun:

• Early success, low barriers to entry
• Collaborative effort
• Tactile qualities
• Puzzles – challenging but not impossible
• Different levels for different ages

Things that make games not fun:

• So many instructions that you can’t start right away
• One game got the comment “Less fun than traffic” because it was too hard from the start with too many directions.
• Get frustrated, feel stupid

From there we were give index cards in different categories – client, goal, resources, restrictions and wild cards.  Our teams of three had 15 minutes to create a game that satisfied the requirements on the cards.

Our team started off slow.  We had a large corporate client with a product to sell, who wanted to reach athletic college students, and must include dancing and deer, we created “Don’t scare the deer”.  At college football game tailgate parties we decided Budweiser would want to engage this audience in a fun activity.   Using sensor pads like Dance Dance Revolution you would have 2 people trying to perform dances, if you did well you could get close to a deer (on a digital flatscreen in front of you).  If you did poorly, you would scare the deer.  The closer to the deer, the more points.

Another team had the challenges of a non-profit fund raiser needed a game for their big event.  They had lots of interns and a good staff support.  Thus was born “Robo-Zoni”.  On the Frog Pond in Boston, mini-zamboni robots would compete on an obstacle course.  Teams would pay to enter, each mini-zamboni would leave a colored trail behind so you could see the path for each team.  The prize would be a ride on a real zamboni.

All this took about 90 minutes and I think everyone took something fun away from the workshop.  Gaming doesn’t have to be expensive, hard, or high tech.  Just take the parameters that exist and find a way to have fun with them.

And on that note we adjourned to drink and nosh and generally enjoy excellent company. Proof follows:

Things that work to make a game fun

Reviewing game ideas

Don’t scare the deer.

Am I bitter that I had the flu and missed all this great fun? No, not much. Well, maybe a little. Grr….

February

At the beginning of the month, our local maker space, Artisan’s Asylum in Somerville hosted a workshop on making a maker space, starring Dale Dougherty and other Maker luminaries.  Liz Neeley and Miriam Langer were both in town for the event, so we had an impromptu Drinking About Museums in their honor.   We started out at the Asgard in Central Square, until the band started warming up, and then moved to the quieter confines of the Field.

Dinner beforehand.

When the band plunked this down next to Liz’ chair, we knew it was time to leave.

Later this month…

Our regular Drinking About Museums is scheduled for February 28th. It’ll be simple and social. We’ll meet at Cambridge Brewing Company at 5:30pm til whenever.  If you’re around, you should come!

March

We’re hoping to visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in March. If you haven’t yet seen their new addition, you should!

Looking ahead

But wait, there’s more! Potential future guests include Sharna Jackson from the Tate (April) and Regan Forrest (August)! Woot!

Drinking About Museums:BOS, December 12th, 6pm

Cocktail Time by Flickr user ambernambrose

Next Drinking About Museums

Wednesday, December 12th at 6pm
Cambridge Brewing Company, One Kendall Square

Come join us at the  Cambridge Brewing Company in Kendall Square, Cambridge.  We’re rolling low key for December; beer and conversation. We’ll also be tossing around ideas for 2013 gatherings, so if you have something you’d like to share or do, let us know! I know some of our game designer friends are interested in trying a fun activity for January, so don’t be bashful.

Please RSVP to Jenn Schmitt (if you haven’t already) so we can give CBC a head count and hopefully avoid some of the table devouring we did last month. They were good sports about it, but it’d be better if we warn them.

I’ll be there a bit before 6PM and try to scope out a good spot. Call or DM me if you need directions.

See ya there,

Ed

P.S. As always, forward this to your friends and colleagues you think should join us!

P.P.S. Mr Koven J. Smith, The Godfather of DAM, has started a Google+ community for the global DAM community. If you’re a Google+ type, look us up and join in.

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