Yesterday was Tapestry's first official outing. A big, huge, gigantic thank you for everyone who came out to play! We learned a LOT about what works and what doesn't work for Tapestry and I am *thrilled* that it ended up being fun and enjoyable playable for over and hour, even with the tricky crowd conditions we were working with.
You see, Tapestry works best when you are in an environment where it is easy and even encouraged to go and talk to strangers. A Saturday around a busy park where people go to exercise with their earphones firmly pushed in is _maybe_ not an ideal test environment for a social, community interaction game... When players arrived I slapped "Hello, I'm playing a game. May I ask you a question please?" stickers on their chests. I got many wide eyed, "do we have to talk to strangers???" reactions. Here's the answer: No. No you don't have to talk to strangers. You can play Tapestry with two people trading stories back and forth and never moving from their spots on the picnic blanket. We had a couple players play like that at the play test, and you know what? Their stories were amongst best we had. Other players were bold and talked to people sitting around the basketball courts, the children's playground, and people walking down the path. We even got a couple of stories from political canvassers (who also helped two of our group who had recently moved to get their voter registrations set up at their new addresses. Vote! It's good for you!) Lessons learned:
My favourite part of the day was when players would come running back to the Tapestry wall,hand extended and reaching out for some markers and paper, while exclaiming excitedly, "I just heard the most amazing story!! Let me tell you..."
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