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Hello From Mars
Tonight I went to a R&D/workshop performance of Terraforming Mars by the Ludens Theatre Company. Noting that they refer to it as a show, but also noting the first word in the company names, I treated it as a game, and a very fine one; it's very firmly in the conversation for the most-enjoyed game I've played all year, and probably actually the leader in the clubhouse, even despite some firm competition. (The Initiative campaign board game, Bridge Command and Phil Hannay's latest Manorcon puzzle hunt spring to mind.)
Thinking a little harder, I'm not sure to what extent I was attracted to this show in particular, and to what extent I was attracted to a format that I had long (literally decades) known about but hadn't actually experienced before. I would regard it as having been a small example of a megagame, perhaps a "chamber megagame" or perhaps fitting in to the rather intuitive definition of a kilogame. As is the case with most megagames, the game was played in teams; as is the case with many megagames, there were board game or war game elements in something that was essentially a very light LARP - with the lightness referring to the way that players joined sub-teams performing specific jobs within a scenario rather than devising and playing their own characters. It was played co-operatively within teams, but whether the teams would co-operate with each other or not was left up to us.
It was simultaneously played by two teams, each of perhaps fifteen or twenty, each in their own room. There were six (?) actors/referees/facilitators/NPCs, of which we normally had two in our room and the others floating through or communicating with us from another room. The show lasted two and a half hours, incorporating a break of about fifteen minutes halfway through. I hope that the Ludens theatre company finds further opportunities to stage the show; I would recommend following the company for further developments and if the principle appeals then I would wholeheartedly recommend giving the show a try if you get the chance. If you're someone who believes in trying to go in unspoiled, let's leave it at that.
But if you're interested in learning a little more, I'd be happy to share the details. The two teams were corporations seeking to colonise (ehh...) and, indeed, terraform (at least part of) the planet Mars. Similarities could be drawn to the very highly-regarded board game of the same name, but I had not previously played it and didn't feel that lacking experience spoiled my day. Each team was split into three subteams: science, politics and terraforming as such. I was part of the terraforming team, and that led to an experience which was that of, at heart, a resource management board game.
Our team started with differing quantities of half a dozen resources. Turns represented successive days on Mars, with each day permitting another round of building, with the buildings generating additional resources on successive days. While I didn't follow their experience at all closely, I get the impression that scientific team could devise and craft solutions to the survival challenges faced within the game, which would go towards generating additional resources. Similarly, what I saw of the political team involved a degree of research as to which characters would be best suited to particular in-game challenges, leading to generating additional resources, and the political team also negotiated with non-player characters to some extent.
That was our team's experience, but my experience was more specific than that. Our sub-team were asked if anyone would like to take charge of the administration - and, when nobody volunteered quickly, I picked the task up. This involved keeping track of what resources we had deployed where on a game board, and also what else we had learnt about the world... and the activities of the other team. I envisioned it like being a classic miniatures war gaming referee pushing armies around a board.
That said, it quickly became apparent that there was scope to play this a little harder and let my internal Little Alex Horne out to some degree. While we had a toybox of board game components to depict our sundry buildings, there was also masking tape and pens with which to make additional arbitrary additions to the map. As we developed a sufficient engine to deal with the most pressing of the resource constraints - and getting to grips with an unfamiliar system within sixty or ninety minutes wasn't bad going - the challenges became rather more freeform and qualitative rather than quantitative, as did my annotations. Maybe it meant that I didn't have as much involvement in the decision-making as many, but I had a whale of a time and felt I contributed. Other terraforming team members seemed to appreciate my work. My work reminded me of a very low-tech version of the amazing video jockey from Who Wants To Be?, still in my mind after fifteen years.
The actors were great. I was very favourably disposed towards them going into the production, knowing some of them from their work at the amazing Phantom Peak, but it's clear that they had plenty of experience in immersive theatre and were keen to adopt best practice from their experiences to date.
While I was playing, it was easy to consider the replayability, or otherwise, of the experience. It's difficult to know if there can be enough surprises to keep the story fresh and distinct. That said, I really want to know what the experience of playing other roles in the game might be. Discussion of the experience afterwards also left me wondering whether the show would have been better if we'd had the chance to dive into the systems more deeply - there were plenty of buildings that we could have built, but our somewhat min-maxing, puzzle-solving approach meant we didn't seem to find the need to dive in. I could certainly have appreciated, effectively, a longer third act, but my view wasn't representative of our conversation afterwards, may well not represent the views of the world at large, and leaving people wanting more is seldom a bad thing.
Stretching to find some elements to be more negatively critical about, while the progression towards the ending built clearly, the actual ending set-piece seemed a little distant from the rest of the action beforehand. I was also left wondering a little to what extent we played the game and to what extent the game played us; we turned out to be a very co-operative group and reached a very natural sort of conclusion. Perhaps a little more grit along the way in our decisions might have resulted in a rather more off-the-rails experience back at us.
It's also not immediately clear quite how this can go from a R&D product in the very cool Theatre Deli to a finished show - what sort of venue would be capable of hosting it, what sort of context would make sense for it. Nevertheless, I came away with a tremendous buzz from the experience, look forward to following the production's progress (and hoping to get the chance to see what the other functions feel like to play!) and am very excited to find out what the Ludens Theatre Company might do next. Definitely ones to watch and an area to explore further!
Thinking a little harder, I'm not sure to what extent I was attracted to this show in particular, and to what extent I was attracted to a format that I had long (literally decades) known about but hadn't actually experienced before. I would regard it as having been a small example of a megagame, perhaps a "chamber megagame" or perhaps fitting in to the rather intuitive definition of a kilogame. As is the case with most megagames, the game was played in teams; as is the case with many megagames, there were board game or war game elements in something that was essentially a very light LARP - with the lightness referring to the way that players joined sub-teams performing specific jobs within a scenario rather than devising and playing their own characters. It was played co-operatively within teams, but whether the teams would co-operate with each other or not was left up to us.
It was simultaneously played by two teams, each of perhaps fifteen or twenty, each in their own room. There were six (?) actors/referees/facilitators/NPCs, of which we normally had two in our room and the others floating through or communicating with us from another room. The show lasted two and a half hours, incorporating a break of about fifteen minutes halfway through. I hope that the Ludens theatre company finds further opportunities to stage the show; I would recommend following the company for further developments and if the principle appeals then I would wholeheartedly recommend giving the show a try if you get the chance. If you're someone who believes in trying to go in unspoiled, let's leave it at that.
But if you're interested in learning a little more, I'd be happy to share the details. The two teams were corporations seeking to colonise (ehh...) and, indeed, terraform (at least part of) the planet Mars. Similarities could be drawn to the very highly-regarded board game of the same name, but I had not previously played it and didn't feel that lacking experience spoiled my day. Each team was split into three subteams: science, politics and terraforming as such. I was part of the terraforming team, and that led to an experience which was that of, at heart, a resource management board game.
Our team started with differing quantities of half a dozen resources. Turns represented successive days on Mars, with each day permitting another round of building, with the buildings generating additional resources on successive days. While I didn't follow their experience at all closely, I get the impression that scientific team could devise and craft solutions to the survival challenges faced within the game, which would go towards generating additional resources. Similarly, what I saw of the political team involved a degree of research as to which characters would be best suited to particular in-game challenges, leading to generating additional resources, and the political team also negotiated with non-player characters to some extent.
That was our team's experience, but my experience was more specific than that. Our sub-team were asked if anyone would like to take charge of the administration - and, when nobody volunteered quickly, I picked the task up. This involved keeping track of what resources we had deployed where on a game board, and also what else we had learnt about the world... and the activities of the other team. I envisioned it like being a classic miniatures war gaming referee pushing armies around a board.
That said, it quickly became apparent that there was scope to play this a little harder and let my internal Little Alex Horne out to some degree. While we had a toybox of board game components to depict our sundry buildings, there was also masking tape and pens with which to make additional arbitrary additions to the map. As we developed a sufficient engine to deal with the most pressing of the resource constraints - and getting to grips with an unfamiliar system within sixty or ninety minutes wasn't bad going - the challenges became rather more freeform and qualitative rather than quantitative, as did my annotations. Maybe it meant that I didn't have as much involvement in the decision-making as many, but I had a whale of a time and felt I contributed. Other terraforming team members seemed to appreciate my work. My work reminded me of a very low-tech version of the amazing video jockey from Who Wants To Be?, still in my mind after fifteen years.
The actors were great. I was very favourably disposed towards them going into the production, knowing some of them from their work at the amazing Phantom Peak, but it's clear that they had plenty of experience in immersive theatre and were keen to adopt best practice from their experiences to date.
While I was playing, it was easy to consider the replayability, or otherwise, of the experience. It's difficult to know if there can be enough surprises to keep the story fresh and distinct. That said, I really want to know what the experience of playing other roles in the game might be. Discussion of the experience afterwards also left me wondering whether the show would have been better if we'd had the chance to dive into the systems more deeply - there were plenty of buildings that we could have built, but our somewhat min-maxing, puzzle-solving approach meant we didn't seem to find the need to dive in. I could certainly have appreciated, effectively, a longer third act, but my view wasn't representative of our conversation afterwards, may well not represent the views of the world at large, and leaving people wanting more is seldom a bad thing.
Stretching to find some elements to be more negatively critical about, while the progression towards the ending built clearly, the actual ending set-piece seemed a little distant from the rest of the action beforehand. I was also left wondering a little to what extent we played the game and to what extent the game played us; we turned out to be a very co-operative group and reached a very natural sort of conclusion. Perhaps a little more grit along the way in our decisions might have resulted in a rather more off-the-rails experience back at us.
It's also not immediately clear quite how this can go from a R&D product in the very cool Theatre Deli to a finished show - what sort of venue would be capable of hosting it, what sort of context would make sense for it. Nevertheless, I came away with a tremendous buzz from the experience, look forward to following the production's progress (and hoping to get the chance to see what the other functions feel like to play!) and am very excited to find out what the Ludens Theatre Company might do next. Definitely ones to watch and an area to explore further!
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