Play Folk #5: Field Tower Defense

Casey in the cape threatens Willa while Erin Dean attempts to offer protection. Why doesn't one of them pick up the sword?

Field Tower Defense was by far the most complicated game we've attempted in the nearly half-year (!) of the club's history. It was also MEGA FUN. This might be my favorite one so far.

It helped that we had so much going for us:

More beautiful weather.

The park was perfect: great natural features to incorporate into the path, plus barbecuing, and lots of interested passers-by to cheer for us.

The aforementioned barbecue.

Great attendance once again! We are holding steady at about 25 people coming to every game, which is sensational. If that's still true a year from now, or two, I'll be overjoyed.

Giving away all the swords and shields to the (mostly Hispanic) kids in the park after the game was over was a nice karmic moment, though they did take a little coaxing to convince it was not a scam.

Thanks Dollar Tree!

And a really fun game.

Pete V. of New York (who is currently running a Kickstarter campaign you can support) is the inventor of this game, and he gave us a lot of support and answered many questions via email as we prepared to produce it for the club. Even still, we had to get together all three of us and read the entire prospectus out loud more than once to really grasp how the game is played. We were also having some drinks so that might have made it a smidge more difficult. There is a lot of depth to the game and many details.

On game day I read all the rules to the whole group. If I had it to do over again, I would have waited to read about how you level up and what happens when you level up until after the first round. It would have gotten us playing sooner. Lesson learned.

Hear ye, hear ye.

Before that, there was wonderful barbecuing, courtesy of Lily and all our members who brought pot luck. We were the only party in the park who had more pot luck than pot, I think. So there were sausages and treats to snack on during the rules. I set up the course out of rope and cones. I also supplied the ball pit balls, small clothespins, and bandanas which I snipped into ribbons while listening to "Gone Girl" on audio book. Not for the first time, the Wise Guys garage full of doo-dads made producing this game much easier than it would be if we were starting from scratch. The strips of bandana affixed by clothespin worked great for the "lives" that defensive players could yank off while offensive players stormed the castle, especially once we instituted the rule that they all had to be worn at waist-level and could not be concealed or made difficult to pull.

Oh! Also, it was going to rain that day: in fact, it did. One of the 6 days of rain a year we get in LA happened on this day. We were texting and wondering if anyone would still come in the rain, but we posted on Facebook that we were playing rain or shine, and then it all turned out to be a false alarm anyhow. What a weird weather day that was. It rained on the park, but not much, and rained hard at my house for a hot second, and then cleared.

I was going to the car getting more props while the teams split up, so I wasn't there for the non-schoolyard pick 'em that took place. Before departing I had suggested that players who had reason to believe they would be good at the game step forward and then split themselves in half, and other players join the teams in equal measure. I don't know if that's what actually happened but I thought the teams were rather evenly matched. I love the rule about once per game you can switch teams, but no one actually did it.

Team Castle Crushing Tyrannosaurus Rexes.

Team Red Scare.

Everyone was a very good sport while I read the rules and the roles, and then once the game began adrenaline kicked in and a good old frolic in the field was the order of the day. Defensive players lined themselves primarily along the narrowest part of the path - the "choke point" - to barrage the onslaught with ball pit balls while also reaching out to yank bandanas. Offensive players tried techniques like flying in a V formation, but very seldom did these tactics hold much sway once the siege started.

That's not entirely fair: some tactics, such as targeting players with more than one life, or players with shields defending players who hadn't leveled up yet, were on display, and both seemed effective. Or at least they were for our team: after the first "inning" (both teams having a chance to attack the castle), we were tied at 2-all but Red Scare shut out the T-Rexes in their second siege and scored 4 points in our second attack. 3 of those came from Erin Dean. Let me tell you something: if you come to Play Folk, you really want to be on Erin's team, and if you can manage to also be on the red team, victory is essentially guaranteed.

The castle, courtesy of Willa. That is a sea lion sigil.

This was also the play date where we honored all our lifetime members with their commemorative trinket, a Play Folk keychain that also doubles as a bottle opener. Great legacy players like Tombstone Billy, Asher V. and Siena, and Jackie Riddle and her husband Doug were present, as well as some great new players like Kirsten (who went to Wellesley with my wife) and her husband Chris, and Casey from Glitch City with a coterie of jolly players who threw balls, sported capes, and turned cartwheels with great aplomb. Plus, of course, Mac and Dash continued their streak of perfect attendance, which demands the question: where was John Greg?!

One of my favorite parts of the day was yelling, "Defense are you ready?" (YEAH!) "Offense are you ready?" (YEAH!) "Pan Pacific Park, are you ready?" YEAH!!! Even if I did get a parking ticket for parking in a staff-only space (well I was asking for that), the park was a great place to play. Our first course ended at a rock that had to be leaped over dramatically (or stepped around gingerly) and the second course we set up after a bunch of people had to leave took advantage of the trees as a natural obstacle.

Course 1.

Course 2.

The time we budgeted for this game - two hours - really flew by. When 5 PM rolled around and some people started to leave many of us were astonished. It had totally snuck up on us. The die-hards in the group helped create a new course and played another couple of rounds because that's how we do. My one regret is that we didn't play long enough for anyone to level up to General. Well except Erin Dean, who leveled up to purple and then asked, "What do I level up to next?" There are no more levels, Erin Dean: you're as powerful as you can get!

On the right, notice Erin Dean and her purple flag; she is a Tower General which is why she's allowed to move while playing defense. Notice also chair and castle in foreground; Mac's inflatable sword and shield; and me biting the dust after having been brutally wiped out by my dastardly cousin Dash. There's a lot going on in this photo. Credit to Al Gonzales for all the high res pics and to Lily for the group shots and candids of the first course.

After playing Nomic the previous month under less than ideal circumstances that left me feeling like I hadn't gotten the full experience of the game, Field Tower Defense was the perfect game on the perfect day. Although I once again felt like I didn't get to play the game all the way through (no generals, few mines), I did feel like I really got to sink my teeth into the game and play for all its worth. Which is really the point. Bravo to Pete for cooking it up, and thanks to all our wonderful members for showing up to play which is, and remains, a gift beyond measure. We know your time is valuable and we appreciate your coming and helping make these monkeyshines possible.

Final score:

Castle Crushing Tyrannosaurus Rexes: 2

Red Scare: 6

I'm excited that this month we will play Ministry of Silence, a game I am quite sure will be played through to completion and a game that will have a single winner. Who will it be? The smart money of course is always on Erin Dean but Maclen, Lily, and Jackie Riddle will not let her win without a fight.

Play Folk #4 Nomic

The hardest part of playing Nomic was finding a bar. We picked a weeknight and we wanted someplace that would stay open late. Golden Road Brewery was the best choice. Here's a picture of what we looked like sitting around the table: Lily did a good job, I don't know if this is a panorama or what.

Proposing rules and voting on them.

Here's how many of us there were.

Here's what the scores looked like until such time as I switched to doing the scoring in the Google Doc.

That graphic is a screenshot of the final page of the Google Doc I used to keep score. You can see the whole doc here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1f1odgSsp9fLkXauoPsGGFXip4teKjRkkR8-mulSxs8Y/edit?usp=sharing

I'm quite tardy writing this blog post, obviously, but I had a good first three streak, wouldn't you say? It's like the first three tracks on the Joshua Tree are so good that you forgive the 4th one for not being as good as they are. Whatever it is.

It's been so late in coming, this blog post has, that in fact we have played another game since Nomic. That brings the Play Folk total to 5 and Nomic is the only one that I am somewhat ambivalent about how it all went. Here are the good and the bad in no particular order:

It was a beautiful night.

The venue was too loud for the game.

An extraordinary blend of people turned out to play it: fun, funny, clever, crafty, gameworthy. Top drawer Play Folk attended this game.

Everyone got exactly one turn: the opportunity to propose a rule, and then everyone voted on whether that rule passed or not. Then you rolled a die and added that to your score. After the last player to join the table completed his turn, a condition was met that decided the game and ended it.

I added a new rule to Nomic: each player got two poker chips, given at random. Though several rules acknowledging the existence of the chips were proposed - including my 1 attempt at a rule - they influenced the outcome of the game not at all. I found this disappointing, but I fully know how childish that is.

Due to the nature of the game, and keeping track of the rules on a Google Doc, which was very suitable, players were more engaged with their devices that is customary.

Twenty-five people is a great number to come to a Play Date, but it may have been too big a number for this game to work well. At least it was for a venue as noisy as this one was. I don't think the game was fully showcased for what it can be in a super eggheady kind of way, but as a introduction to the game, playing an iteration of it that was more like a light drinking game and less like a campaign, it ticked all the main boxes.

And make no mistake, when the night ended I had a big old dopey grin on my face just like I always do when I'm happy and I've been playing games. The minuses, to the extent that they were minuses, are reminders that judiciousness in selecting non-physical games is key and we should think about this play date when we evaluate choices in the future.

But enough of that: you want to know who won. Why Andy Crocker won of course.

Andy won fair and square when Greg excused himself and bequeathed his points to Andy. Their sum brought Andy to the total required to win. Andy plays as a full-throated advocate for the game to be fun, and was even declared Minister of Fun, with the authority to decree "This is fun!" on rule amendments. Her win was really a win for fun. Her parents Norm and Glo were present and they were very proud of her triumph and graciousness in victory.

Perfect attendence once more achieved among Dash, John Greg, and Maclin. Bravo!

Play Folk #3: Circle Rules Football

We can't put a Play Folk play date in the books without an extra-lengthy blog post!

Our new sandwich board!

I can't guarantee that this one will be as long as the others, honestly, because I don't know how to write about sports. Or play them. But I'll say this: we are 3-for-3 now with 20+ awesome people coming to play and 0 bad sports. This game more than any we have played or considered so far best embodies the spirit of our logline, "Recess reinvented," but an alternate would be: "The opposite of a Meetup." Because we, you know, actually meet up.

Here's how the game went down.

We'd been in touch with some friendly helpers who play Circle Rules Football more regularly, including the guy who is in touch with all the clubs around the world. This sport is popular in Brooklyn (of course) and Europe. We had received support from the local commish of CRF in LA and we'd been in touch with Grand Park in downtown LA who had given us their blessing to play the game on the event lawn in the park.

The morning of the game is when it dawned on us that we might be slightly underprepared for the game. I grabbed some extra supplies from the Wise Guys Events cave of wonders and picked Lily up from the Metro station. We carpooled downtown and met Willa where she had parked, some blocks away from the park: the nearest blocks were all coned off due to some event.

The "goal" we had was simply the raw materials: some pieces of PVC and iron rebar, plus some deflated yoga balls. With some apprehension, the three of us schlepped the first load of props to the park and got set up. It was an insanely beautiful day and there were food trucks abutting the edge of the park where we'd been sanctioned to play. Before long, more club members joined us and, as we approached enough people to start playing, Willa and I returned to the lot to get the rest of the items. It turned out we were understaffed to carry the amount of weight, so Mac, Al, and Roman came to bail us out and help us carry all the gear.

Once there, we jury-rigged the goal using the sandbags we'd carried from the car (that plus the flat of water were the heaviest items, but both were mandatory). Lily observed she'd stolen some traffic cones when she was in high school, and there were some lying around the park that we pressed into service. Ultimately, the goal got flimsier as the day wore on, and for the last couple points of the last game, Blake and a woman who was I think another friend of Erin's supported the goal physically. The answer to all problems, as usual, is Play Folk members.

I'm happy to say that for the third straight game, we had about 25 people show up to take a chance on something new and strange.

From left to right, sort of: Philip, our first rando, who rode his bike by looking interested and ended up joining and playing with us for the whole day; Asher; Siena; Willa; Mac; Myles; a friend of Erin's; Vanessa G. and her boyfriend; tall Ryan from Monterey; lifetime member Erin Dean being propped up by Roman on the right and another friend underneath; Joy in the front with Lily beside her; John Greg, Dash, another gentleman whose name I don't know, and Mike M.

When we had the equipment up, we gave out red and blue bandanas - at random - while I pulled up the rules on my phone and read them out loud. Nobody knew how to play.

It is a rather simple game to learn, and the rules we didn't know we just made agreements about. CRF has a special coin toss called the "down up" that requires 2 contestants to put both shoulderblades on the ground and stand up: whoever does it fastest wins the coin toss. Clever Ryan from Monterey found a shortcut by doing a somersault!

Lily and I reffed the first game and it became clear that there was a lot of athleticism on the field. Especially in the "key" which is the coned-off area surrounding the goal that only the goal tenders are allowed inside. It got quite physical in there, for two men who had never met before, but always good sportsmanship was obeyed.

CRF is very fun to watch: the other people in the park certainly seemed to think so. You can do anything with the ball except hold it or sit on it, so you'd have someone dribbling a yoga ball and then someone comes along and punches it and then the person whom it lands near kicks it 4 stories in the air.

Some of the most impressive moves were the penalty kicks: there is very little the goalie can do to defend against a yoga ball when someone kicks it 7 feet in the air and through a goal, but that is what happened several times. One athlete who really distinguished herself on the field was Vanessa Goh, whom I recruited after having seen her compete on the UCLA Quidditch team. Also tall Ryan from Monterey was a very fierce competitor, though always gentlemanly, and after he played the game twice he was eager to try it again, but couldn't get enough players for another go.

On a warm day, when we were running all over the field, having the water was crucial, so it was good that we'd carried it from the car. Once more Willa brought Starbucks pastries for everybody, but she quit that job so the gravy train might stop one of these days. I guess it's fine: I don't like gravy on my cake pops anyhow.

We were also lucky enough to get visits from Wale, who had played with us at Two Bit Circus. She wanted to attend the play date but wasn't able to because she was attending the TechLA conference downtown... which, it turned out, was across the street from the side of the park we were playing on. Crazy! She saw our Tweet and came by to say hi and get some photos and experience some of the game.

Although the rules say that you play for 4 15-minute periods, we agreed unanimously to play to 5 points instead. After the first game, something of a runaway for the red team, we switched it up and got more people in the game. That second game was quite large, with 8 players on each team not counting 2 goal tenders. For the second, bigger game the goalies were Lily and her longtime friend Joy. Once more, things got real physical in the key: Lily kicked off her shoes and was not at all bashful about manhandling Joy. I will always remember Lily going, "It's open! Take a shot!" while basically sitting on Joy and the ball was nowhere near the key.

You can see in the photo that the yoga ball isn't exactly fully inflated, which made the game very interesting. Willa thought the nozzle of the pump she'd brought didn't fit the yoga ball until I showed her the ball has a pin you have to pull out to inflate it. I told her I knew this because for the first 8 weeks of his life Fenton would not sleep unless he was being bounced on an exercise ball, so his mom and I became very familiar with them, and had very good ab muscles for a while there.

I got to play in this game and though I am no athlete I had a great time running around, punching and kicking the ball when it came near me and sometimes bouncing it off my head, which was silly and fun. I made a couple helpful assists, even. This game was much closer and it came down to the final point, but the red team won. The red team won both games. Just like last month when we played Two Rooms and a Boom. What is going on? Get it together blue team!

Mike and John Greg joined us in time for the second game, and Mike was very assiduous about guarding me. I was playing the game-theory version, keeping myself on whatever side of the key the fewest other players were on, but since Mike was on the other team and always shadowing me, it didn't work that well. Very canny Mike!

After the second game it was pretty much just Ryan who was ready for more. The rest of us needed a break and some water, and to hang our sweaty disgusting headbands on the tree to dry out. They have since been laundered.

Currently, Dash, Al, and John Greg have perfect attendance. So many good things were on display at this play date. The whole group helped with the tricky, flimsy goal, and understanding the rules. The cones we needed to make the game work materialized. Good sportsmanship was on full display. Plus for the first time, we had a rando: Philip, who happened to be riding his bike by, came and played with us for the whole day.

Having seen photos of this game and knowing they play it at festivals and here and there, it was so gratifying to have the chance to play it with the sun on our faces and the breeze in our hair and fresh air in our lungs and a fine field day in LA's most beautiful park. Recess reinvented and revisited. Thanks to all of you who came to play: you are all going to nationals.

Our next play date will be a sit and talky drinky game. Look forward to seeing you there.