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This newsletter I will break into several parts:

GDC

This year’s Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco was as alienating as last year but in new exciting ways. I spent time with the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation’s interactive Twine game and display of ZORK, doing a short volunteer shift at their tables. I wandered around aimlessly, feeling very impostor syndrome, and played some fun games. I met one of the editors for The Game Needs To Change, thankfully not one of my direct contacts because he was way too attractive to be my boss. I played some table top games and attended the experimental games demo where to my delight I saw CirqueSaw.

 

Here is a list of my favorite games this year:

Astrolabe by Yasman Farazan -  beautiful tabletop game where you trap demons based on Persian folklore

Logos Divinae by Colin Snyder - tarot deck, playing cards, history lessons, beautiful art

Hypnogenesis - video synthesis arcade game. Very trippy, very confusing, very fun.

 

Honorable mentions because they aren’t new games to me but I like them a lot and they both won awards this year:

labRats by CirqueSaw – interactive theater, collaborative play, puzzles, freedom, telepathy, science experiments

Horses – I saw an early build of at AMAZE 2023 in Berlin and the Horses legend keeps growing since

 

Yisha

My friend and mentor Yishay Garbasz died recently, and since she lived alone and people did not check on her very often nobody knows how she died or when. Only that it was probably in the past 2-3 weeks, and there was no evidence of violence. I am overwhelmed with disbelief and grief and anger

that her local community in Berlin did not check on her more often but I also had not been communicating well due to my own health issues and the brutal grind of attempting to survive.

Something vaguely comforting is that there is a lot of articles and media for her so far because she was well known, brilliant, grumpy, and well traveled.

SIEGESSÄULE obituary

Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences 

Zitadelle Berlin- A exhibition she was part of when she died that rund through April 

Obituary from the curators of the most recent exhibition Yisha was included in (German only)

But it would be better if trans people were respected, cared for, and supported while we are still alive.

 

Give us our roses while we are still here, as the Great Rat Mother says.

 

performing at BASE

I received some photos from Jim Coleman, the photographer who documented dress rehearsal for the most recent 12 Minutes Max. Confusingly there are only 5 photos total, when the other performers received dozens. My contact at BASE does not know why. Here is one of the photos. And hey, all 5 photos are quite good.

 

 

No events list this month.