I come in peace.
Without violence.
I bring Russia.
Well – not fully unarmed – armed with Encounter game developed for years.
I am sitting in a bus from Warszawa to Kraków. Would be logically to go to my beloved Łódź, but there is a big holiday in Kraków – Festival of Playful Spaces – Playpublik. Last 2 weeks I was searching for trucks in a daytime (which is my job) and preparing PlayPublik at night. Well – I was only helping a bit – Invisible Playground together with Goethe Institute made huge wonderful work here. Anyway – I was translating, consulting, organizing. And last but definately not least – preparing Encounter.
Encounter is planned for saturday night – it starts at ghosts time – just at midnight. And this night would be essential point of idea that came to my mind about 2 years ago. These time I was already travelling a lot to Russia and I was curious of what is happening there – also in game sphere. I saw two large city game worlds (by city game I also meant this what is described by pervasive gaming – in polish we just use phrase city game – gra miejska).
There were enormous systems of gloomy games on East – Encounter, Dozor and some others – with players in over 200 cities, organizational frames and well described formats. West is the kingdom of hundreds of indyvidual projects – each of them with their own features. 2 years ago I thought – I want to organize a meeting of these worlds and see what will happen. These worlds are separate – some Encounter games are played in Europe, some western designers come to Russia – but still language, cultural barrier seems to disturb meeting. I thought about it planning Games Festival in Łódź, which so far was not luck enough to emerge, I thought about it cooperating with Poznań’s Let’s Play and finally first attempt will be on PlayPublik.
It will not be “great step for mankind” but I hope it will at least be small step for game world. Maybe Encounter will come to some other festival. Maybe someone will use its elements in their works. Maybe David – Encounter Chief in Penza – who is making Encounter in KRK with me – will use something he will see in Krakow. I am not expecting miracles, but I want want seed to be sown.
Keep Your fingers crossed and come.
Foto: Playpublik facebook
