I recently set myself a challenge: if I rented a room and sent out an invitation to come play a bunch of pervasive games, would anyone show up?

Turns out, the answer is yes–luckily for me and my reservation deposit.

Danish Clapping Game

About 15 people came to our inaugural event to play “pervasive games“–a term that refers to in-person games suitable for adults, sometimes involving running around, sometimes known as “location-based game” (if you have a better, more descriptive or more evocative name for them, please let me know, as this is something we’ve been debating as a group for a long time).

Lemon Jousting

At our event, we playtested two in-development games (Kill Your Grandfather and one called Spice Wars that had been created for an event at the Maritime Museum in Greenwich), a fun and challenging game of coordination and hand-clapping (Danish Clapping Game), a blindfolded party game (Blood Champagne), a game of ridiculous and audacious posing (Ninja), a slightly obscene game of fruit and dubious skill (Cock Swinging), and Lemon Jousting (self-explanatory), as well as some ambient games, and some post-event Werewolf.

Phew!

Ninja

Cock Swinging

If you’ll be in Portland and want to join us, head over to our Facebook page and check out our events listings (be sure to Like us too, because you’ll want to hear about all of our future events, of course).

Noah’s Lark

See you there!