The Quiet Year

The Edge programming team played The Quiet Year on Friday 16th June. We were 5 players. Here are our learnings from playing it:

Stick to having 2-4 players with 3 hours set aside for playing

The most fun is had if you keep the game playful.

Points to consider when offering it as a public program

Keep the players between 2-4 (including the facilitator)

Have coloured pencils as well as plain

Use one table per group

Have a power point of the game rules and project them in the beginning for visual learners

Have the cheat sheet projected throughout the game for all to see

Laser cut the contempt tokens (Talia to design them)

You will need 10-15 dice for each game being played.

You can have multiple games being played at a time

How talk about it- how it fits into One Last Apocalypse is:

Unpacking it as a cultural artifact- You can learn new things when you play a game.

This game forces you as a player to examine social literacy. You see the ways in which you have an immediate effect on those playing with you. How does it do this?

The game forces you to make choices that will affect your fellow players ‘community’ There are no winners and therefore you make decisions that will affect everyone. All players can choose to show you how they feel about your choices with a ‘contempt’ token. This shows you in a visual way how you have an impact on others emotionally. It is not hidden or transparent like it is in life sometimes.

2. This game is immersive.

You fully enter into the game and the experiences that it presents. Thus, it is a great way to offer the feeling that One Last Apocalypse will give those experiencing the event that will be created.

3. Design

The Quiet Year is a great way to jump into collaborative design. You are literally designing a world together with the other players. You draw on a piece of paper where parts of the community are.You see visually where the world is you are designing together.

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