dr kieran cutting

Me, Caleb, and @kierancutting.bsky.social have been working to evolve Meal Deal from research through design artefact to a something we might sell.

Find Caleb and enjoy the latest(ish) version! Sadly kieran and I can’t be there this year.

Og version is here: oliverbates.itch.io/meal-deal

We’re at the Corn Exchange in Leeds today - come pick up some books we recently brought back from the land of the paper-freaks and the book perverts

To do high quality recruiting and testing! It feels like the main way right now is often “be in a lot of Discords and ask nicely “…

I definitely will, thanks for offering. We just had a bit of a brain wave recently when we realised how even our own playtest recruitment standards weren’t up to our research recruitment standards. In a design scene that is made up of a lot of hobbyists and small projects, it’s going to be hard …

This is great! It’s early days for us right now so we’ve got a lot of questions to explore, but I’m sure you’ll see me post some more about them soon. Thank you!

Is that right?
-
Because we’re an organisation that does a lot of other stuff too, we don’t necessarily need every use of the service to be paid, the service just needs to pay for itself overall!

Thanks so much for your response!

We’re also exploring different payment options (free up to a certain size? payment after crowdfunder?)

Completely hear you on being on the same page for design intent. Sounds like that might be:
- an ability to screen for certain kinds of players
- an ability to constrain feedback to targeted qs

Players/testers: how do you currently sign up to test a game? Why do you volunteer to playtest games? What would make the experience better for you?
#games #ttrpg #gamesdesign

We're thinking about developing a playtesting recruitment service, bringing together our expertise as researchers and games designers.

Designers: would you use it? What are your current struggles with recruiting play testers or getting playtest feedback?
#games #ttrpg #gamesdesign

Designing games to build new futures Last week, we visited the Manchester Game Centre for their annual conference, Multiplatform. This year’s theme was Rituals of Play, and we were there to present our work on designing and using games a...

I loved reading this! It really chimes with my own thoughts about games that design for 'frame-shifting', utilising multiple points of interaction to increase buy-in, and the value of object-based interactions for opening up new imaginative experiences

fractals.coop/blog/designi...

Speculative praxis

@kierancutting.bsky.social giving the last talk of the day, ‘Rituals for building futures’

This new version is portable, for an unlimited number of players, and can pop up anywhere. Let me know if you’d be interested in hosting or playing it!

A photograph of a conference programme describing the Museum of Lost Futures. The text is available at https://links.fractals.coop/Multiplatform

Today I’m speaking at Multiplatform on our work using games as part of “speculative praxis” - using creativity to experimentally act towards creating more possibilities (for a better future).

Then, later today, I’ll be hosting an exclusive pop up of A NEW VERSION OF THE MUSEUM OF LOST FUTURES?!

THE POOP IS POOP, THE TEARS ARE TEARS

A double page spread from the zine. On the left hand side is a screenshot of a YouTube video, and around it are comments. They're from my videos I made when I was 17 and unsure about going to Oxford for a summer school.

It's a story about my own life, told with the help of the His Dark Materials series, an Oxford Summer School, the YouTube videos I made at 17, and Philip K Dick's ideas of orthogonal worlds.

#psychogeography #zine #philipkdick #hisdarkmaterials (are these useful hashtags? I'm sure we'll find out!)

A panoramic photograph of some green fields in Oxford, with some colleges in the background. In the blue sky, the words to Shakespeare's "This Other Eden" speech from Richard II, and William Blake's "And did those feet in ancient time" sit, as if the landscape was whispering them.

My design skills weren't as good in 2021 as they are now, so I didn't feel like I could really capture what I was trying to do back then.
A
I came back to it recently after finishing Chaos Magic and it all sort of fell into place.

It's another pretty media-centric piece...

Dreaming Spires - a LOST FUTURES zine by xenolight I’m not stupid. I know this is going to be some kind of alternate universe shit.

Another launch from me today, just before Easter!

Originally written at the height of LOST FUTURES but never released, Dreaming Spires is a psyschogeographic sort-of-true story about healing by revisiting the parts of ourselves that we cut off.

xenolight.itch.io/dreaming-spi...

Oh hell yes

a little splash of context –– v0.9 update –– Today I’ve uploaded a slightly updated version of the game today after talking with Ben. Whilst we thought the tone of the previous version was spot on, it did lack the ack...

It's devlog Monday! SCREW THAT needed a little bit of context adding to the little game. oliverbates.itch.io/screw-that/d...

#indiegames #devlog #solorpg #ttrpg

Meal Deal by oliver bates A Gig Economy Courier Card Game

Free print at home copies of Meal Deal can be found on @itch.io here oliverbates.itch.io/meal-deal

Everything’s a dollar by xenolight A bundle by xenolight, $2.00 for LOST FUTURES volumes 1–4, Chaos Magic

two days left to get all my stuff on itch for just $2!

itch.io/s/150744/eve...

There’s something coming soon for those of you who were fans of LOST FUTURES…

It is the hot, wet summer after your final year of school. Your group of friends is turning in on itself. Moments of celebration quickly turn to tears on the beach; new couples form and old ones disintegrate in the face of the biggest change you’ve ever known. It is a time of getting round to what you never had, of not being able to put things off any longer. There's chaos magic in the air: the tiniest hints of revolution, the seeds of people reinventing themselves for the year to come. Everyone is thirsty for the idea of change, but their lips are chapped and their hearts beat nervously. Around you, your country is enraptured. People are baring their teeth at each other’s throats, hungry for the blood of Another. Everything is teetering on the brink. Almost as if from nowhere, They die. The person who held your group together, the social glue. The person who made you feel certain that you all would come back together after you came back from uni, or that you’d meet up after you started your new jobs. The person that made you think you weren’t just friends for now.

A character sheet for The Last Day, asking descriptive questions like "Why is our relationship complicated?" and "Why do you keep risking yourself for me?"

Fun fact about Chaos Magic, is that whilst it's a 'game', there actually IS a game that I wrote a while back that shares an opening segment with it.

So please enjoy this incredibly beautiful character sheet. I'll definitely finish this sometime soon.

xenolight.itch.io/chaos-magic

Everything’s a dollar by xenolight A bundle by xenolight, $2.00 for LOST FUTURES volumes 1–4, Chaos Magic

Right now, every issue of LOST FUTURES - worlds that could have been, should have been, or weren't - is available for $2, in a bundle with my new zine/game Chaos Magic.

itch.io/s/150744/eve...

Two pages of a zine in an editor view in InDesign. On each side of the paper, there are two buildings. between them is text that isn't really intended to be read right now, but is about privilege and Oxford and being scared.

Finally getting round to editing a zine from four years ago...

Two pages of a zine in an editor view in InDesign. On each side of the paper, there are two buildings. between them is text that isn't really intended to be read right now, but is about privilege and Oxford and being scared.

Finally getting round to editing a zine from four years ago...

It is the hot, wet summer after your final year of school. Your group of friends is turning in on itself. Moments of celebration quickly turn to tears on the beach; new couples form and old ones disintegrate in the face of the biggest change you’ve ever known. It is a time of getting round to what you never had, of not being able to put things off any longer. There's chaos magic in the air: the tiniest hints of revolution, the seeds of people reinventing themselves for the year to come. Everyone is thirsty for the idea of change, but their lips are chapped and their hearts beat nervously. Around you, your country is enraptured. People are baring their teeth at each other’s throats, hungry for the blood of Another. Everything is teetering on the brink. Almost as if from nowhere, They die. The person who held your group together, the social glue. The person who made you feel certain that you all would come back together after you came back from uni, or that you’d meet up after you started your new jobs. The person that made you think you weren’t just friends for now.

A character sheet for The Last Day, asking descriptive questions like "Why is our relationship complicated?" and "Why do you keep risking yourself for me?"

Fun fact about Chaos Magic, is that whilst it's a 'game', there actually IS a game that I wrote a while back that shares an opening segment with it.

So please enjoy this incredibly beautiful character sheet. I'll definitely finish this sometime soon.

xenolight.itch.io/chaos-magic

Thanks! It’s definitely not easy and yes to ‘sustaining several people on’ … honestly any small business income lmao

I think being an individual can be a radical economic act as well, but like… you need the emotional support too because this shit is HARD.

My small disabled-led social justice transcription biz branding is still very much geared towards supporting researchers as we do that spectacularly

HOWEVER!

I am so keen to support more authors who dictate manuscripts (especially disabled ones)

Email us for a quote?

#Romancelandia #BookSky