A-Playful-Path_DeKoven-web

with an actual barn full of games – board games, table games, puzzles, flying rings, a sliding
board… And there I began to learn and teach, not so much games, even though there were
thousands, but what I came to call a playful path. And I had my wife and kids and 25 acres
as teachers. And guinea fowl, and sometimes millions of these bugs.
This is where I explored everything I could about the path I was on, this playful one. And
where I discovered that I not only “channeled” playfulness, but also that I knew how to teach
it. It was easy. It was what I’ve been doing all this time. What tool could be better tuned to
the experience of playfulness than games? Especially the games I liked to teach, and make up.
Playful Games.
This is where Dr. Brian Sutton-Smith used to bring his University of Pennsylvania classes.
The Games Preserve. Where we built a peaceful, profound place for play. In the middle of the
country. 90 minutes from Philadelphia. 2.5 hours from New York. Where year after year I
thought about, played with, explored, studied, discussed, game after game after game. Kids’
games. Family games. Games for one player. Games for the masses.
New Games
Like the approximately 250,000 people who attended the last day of the Bicentennial celebrations
in Philadelphia. Like the millions of people I eventually reached after 1975, when I
was invited to be co-director of the New Games Foundation, to consult on the design of the
New Games Training, and help create an alternative to competitive sports that now is taught
at almost every elementary school in the world.
Computer Games
And our family flourished. And it was 1981, and just when we ran out of money, I found a
job in California, as a professional game designer, for a computer games company called “Automated
Simulations.” This gave me the chance to try out my understanding of playfulness in
a virtually virgin computer jungle.
I created designs for what we wound up calling “Mind Toys.” Jim Connely programmed my
first game, Ricochet. It proved to be the first abstract strategy game designed specifically for
the computer. Jaron Lanier programmed my next game – Alien Garden – now known as the
first “art” game for the computer.
Coworking
From 1985 to about 1992 I began exploring the connections between games and meetings.
I had discovered a computer tool called the “Outline Processor.” I began using it for my own
purposes, to help me design games. With the outliner, I could conduct my own brainstorm-
299