Last month I was invited to tell the story about writing my book Apply Play • to get ahead of the game at Verso: A literary & arts evening that renders the literary journal in live form, featuring poets, artists, and thinkers of all kinds. Brought to you by the makers of VERSAL at Mezrab.
For me this was a double challenge since this audience was so very different then what I am used to present to, plus the story I wanted to talk about was an experiment to share.
I decided to play the Cat & Mouse game -which I am using as an interaction experiment since long- to invite my audience to participate and experience the magic of the magic game circle first hand.
But as it is an experiment, i never know what really happens, and the outcome is always very different (as for instance at the game4health conference someone in the audience cheated!). But this time it was extraordinairy, the mouse passed by the desired cheese as if it was curious to explore the complete playfield and make all players actively involved. And to my biggest surprise I, as gamehost got dragged in the game to play the role of the mouse, which I never ever had experienced before! And I managed to play along and help the mouse win the game by reaching the cheese finally!!!!!
A huge applause and cheers by all players, to conclude. We reflected on what happened and many questions were asked, also after the event during the drinks, many people explained their personal hesitation to participate or not and thanked me for the insightfull experience, yet I wish to thank them, verso and Mezrab in return, for a most pleasant adventure that night!
thank you!
