The 2006 Come Out & Play Festival has come out and gone. Scott and I are home safely in wonderfully-unpaved upstate New York. We have acquired t-shirts.
What can be said of the festival? Unfortunately, not too much. Friday night we skipped the opening hoopla for an absolutely amazing dance/music performance inspired, so it would seem, by area/code’s own Kevin Slavin. Frank Lantz did say there was a nice turn out, complete with a lively game of Identity, though not the afore-promised dancing bear.
Saturday things got started off slow, with a late morning at Eyebeam, followed by a frantic dart to Pier 40 and The Good Life, where area/code was running Crossroads–a game that involves GPS tracking, Boost Mobile cell phones, and trying desperately not to get hit by oncoming traffic. Scott, who was one of area/code’s interns this summer, had worked on the game’s interface, which made it particularly exciting to play. That and the fact that it rocked.
Besides all that… I know there was a panel on Big Games scheduled for Saturday night. Plus, word on the street was that snagu and and Cruel 2 B Kind were both really fun. We, however, had to head home, impressions of a cool yet haphazardly executed event dancing through our heads like those crazy sugar plum fairies.
September 26th, 2006 at 1:37 pm
Sounds like its a bit shy of the woodstock of games, but maybe next year there’ll be more drug use.
It sounds like a hell of a time, and perhaps a potent cultural event, I’d like to see someone do a documentary on it in the future.
September 26th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
I'd like to see someone do a documentary on it in the future.
Before that happens, I think it needs to get more… together. You can see my flickr pics of a big empty room. At times, that’s kind of how things felt.
September 27th, 2006 at 7:29 am
To be fair, those pics were taken minutes after the place opened on Saturday morning. There are rumors that things got lively later. Pictures, even. -sj
September 27th, 2006 at 8:18 am
That’s totally true. But you were there Saturday morning. Things felt… sparse.