State of the Sandpit

So, The Sandpit is ONE YEAR OLD! As we blow out the birthday candle on its behalf, and coo about how cute it is in its new onesie, I thought it would be a good time to post about where Hide&Seek is going as an organisation, and what’s going to be happening this year. The good news is that Hide&Seek has lots of friends, and the Sandpit is going to be growing in all manner of exciting ways over the next twelve months. We’ve been talking about this A LOT, and naturally we’ve come to articulate our vision more clearly. Of course there will be teething, and grazed knees… but watch this baby grow…

This essay is really focused towards anyone who might want to make (or help make) a game or experience for us. If you’re all about play, come back later — we’ll be writing soon.

What we are about

Hide&Seek is a festival of social games and playful experiences. Imagine a board. It’s got four corners. One corner is marked ‘Games’. The others are marked ‘Technology’, ‘Public Spaces’, and ‘Artists’. Anything that could be placed on that board, goes into Hide&Seek. We want to support new work, and foster conversations between people with specialisms that place them nearer to one corner of the board. We are doing that without a venue, without an office, and (at present) without any regular funding. We dream that in 2012, we’re going to take over one of the buildings left over after the Olympics and turn it into a studio.

How we are doing it

Keep developing the playtesting culture — encourage you, the makers, to bring work in development to Sandpits, and to get feedback on your design from players. Work with a load of great venues — we’re going to be taking the Sandpit to the Barbican, the ICA, and BFI Southbank. Start spreading out of London — to Edinburgh Forest Fringe and Brighton Lighthouse, and beyond. Host a really excellent and high-profile festival at the Southbank Centre that is a showcase for the best work. Shout about the project and bring in audiences, who become players, who become makers. Use low-cost online tools to support this community — ludocity.org is looking great (thanks to Kevan), an attractive, user-friendly site that supports people from all over the world who want to make work in this space. It’s really, really easy for you to share your game with the community, get it played, get feedback, and show it off to the world.

You feed Sandpit which feeds Ludocity which feeds Sandpit which feeds the festival which feeds Sandpit and Ludocity which feeds THE WORLD. We encourage, criticise, cajole, and produce. It’s curated open-source — a festival that lasts all year — an attempt to build a community around making and having fun.

What about money?

Hide&Seek is a for-profit company. Sandpit and Festival activities make no money. We are talking to brands, broadcasters and digital agencies about ways in which the work that Hide&Seek produces and supports could be applied in a commercial context. These activities will make money. If a client asks us for a game that’s like something you designed, we’ll bring you into that conversation and share. And if Hide&Seek makes money, it means that we can pay ourselves something, pay you better, and maybe even employ people and have a proper office. That would be great. If you’ve got big ideas that you think could work for a brand or a broadcaster, and you want us to help, let us know.

Right now, we have enough in the bank to offer the following:

£30 plus a materials budget (or £50 if you’re a collective of 2 or more) for each game we program at a Sandpit in February or March. Which is an improvement on last year, and a start…
And Kevan is offering a great prize for best game posted to Ludocity in January.

What does all this add up to?

A thriving business, a series of wicked events, a happy and well-supported network of makers, a lot of new ideas, and a lot of people getting off the couch, having fun, doing great stuff, getting together, playing YOUR work.

What do I have to do now?

Have an idea
Tell us about it (either post it to ludocity or email us)
We’ll work with you to bring your game to a Sandpit ASAP
As of January, the next Sandpits are on 18 February 2009 at the ICA, and 7 March 2009 at the Barbican

And if you have feedback, thoughts, you want to get involved with running events, or work with us in some other way: hello@hideandseekfest.co.uk