A game of trust comes to CAFKA

WATERLOO REGION — Nearly three years ago, Marie Claire LeBlanc Flanagan was working full-time and living in Kitchener when she decided to drop everything and move to Germany to immerse herself in the fringe art of experimental game design.

“I didn’t know how to design games and I didn’t know how to program, and so I went to Berlin to kind of immerse myself in the digital arts community there and learn how,” she said.

Within two months of landing, she had made her first game and had connected with a community of people who would help mentor her and support her as she created games.

She went to monthly experimental art and game design meetups, attended festivals, and started working with an educational organization in Berlin called the School of Machines, Making and Make-Believe.

There is some debate about what experimental game design is, or more specifically in LeBlanc Flanagan’s case, what experimental video game design is.

“There’s people all over the world arguing about that. Probably right now on Twitter there’s someone arguing about it,” she said with a laugh.

One way to describe it, according to LeBlanc Flanagan, is an exploration of design, art, technology and play.

Her latest game does exactly that. She will showcase it from June 2 to July 1 during the Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener and Area’s biennial exhibition of art in public space.

Called Common, the game has a focus on building trust in community using technology and web art.

Everyone in the region is invited to play.

Here’s how it works: LeBlanc Flanagan will begin the game as its only player. Using a smartphone or computer connected to the internet, she can add more people to play, but only if she meets them in person.

Inside the game, there’s a Destroyer — a character that will disintegrate relationships between people over time.

To counter the power of the Destroyer, players must build their life energy by adding more

players and maintaining the connections they have already made with others in the game.

These connections will appear online as a simple, but artistic, constellation of dots.

“It’s a game of connecting with people, reinforcing connections and fighting this figure,” said LeBlanc Flanagan, who was inspired to create the game as a way of exploring what trust is and how humans build it.

“It’s not a lot of work; you just use a little bit of energy to pay attention to someone in your community.”

For the duration of the festival, LeBlanc Flanagan will travel around the region inviting people to play.

If you’re interested in joining in, go to the CAFKA 18 festival website at www.cafka.org during the festival to find out where LeBlanc Flanagan will be.