Let’s get down to brass tacks: it’s Halloween month. I can tell because I got the treat of another Caturday email featuring Critical Distance’s Cat-in-Residence, Jason, and her costumes over the years. It was the kind of thing that just made me get even more in the spirit. Halloween is a pretty bizarre ceremony: threatening tricks against those who refuse to provide treats is the kind of exchange shows up a lot in our games as well. So this October, consider the role that ‘Tricks and Treats‘ have in play and games.
Where do you feel the most reward in a game and what form does it show up in play? Where is the best balance between punishment and achievement? This month we want you to write about what compels play to keep within the rules and what kinds of outcomes direct you in your creation, observation or participation of games.
This month, we’re going to continue accepting any pitches that fit the call—and remember that creatively interpreting the topic is allowed and encouraged. However, we’ll also comb other games writing that fits the topic as well and hopefully that will prompt more conversation and inspiration over the course of the month.
As always, here is the Link-O-Matic 5000 to keep up to date with other writers:
You have until October 31 to play your trick or claim your treat. In the meantime, happy planning and keep writing.
Please email us your submissions or tweet them to @thecybersteam or @critdistance with the #BoRT hashtag. Happy blogging!
Suggestions for the Round Table:
- Blogs of the Round Table is not curated. If you write it, we’ll publish it, as long as it’s connected to the topic and has been written specially for BoRT or up to one month prior.
- Think of the BoRT topic as a starting point. Connecting your piece to the topic can be as creative as you want. We’re interested in writing about play, so be playful when you approach the round table!
- This BoRT post is the home of the discussion: as we receive new submission blogs, we’ll update the ‘BoRT Linkomatic 5000’ so new blogs are reflected on this page immediately. We’ll also use the@critdistance Twitter account to post regular updates, so follow us!
- As a knight of the round table we encourage you to leave a comment on a blog to which you respond with a link to the response piece and give the original writer a ‘right of reply’. Keep the conversation going!
- If your work contains potentially disturbing content, please include a suitable warning at the start.
- You can submit as many articles as you like throughout the month, and it doesn’t matter if they are commercially published, paywalled or available for free but we will need a transcript for paywalled content to be approved.