we played some games in prospect park, our first real playtest. we attempted to project frogf.org , but ran into server issues and had to abandon it. we ended up streaming the super mario bros. movie, vibing, and playing some folk games (in the grass!). even at this first event, new new games were invented! it felt vital.

we were invited to have a spot in the event willoughby walks, organized by downtown brooklyn . we were able to get a battery from itp, and had a tv screen running frogf.org , which was now fixed. some of our computers had problems with connecting to the website, but we eventually sorted it out. we then had the problem of how to get people to interact with us. since there were only four of us present at this time, and one of us tasked with documenting, it was hard to start something that seemed active enough to draw peoples attention. we invented the forkgame , which we got to play with at least two strangers, and felt great. we also had some games from the new games movement to play, which we did once more of our friends arrived. some people seemed interested, spectating, but none actively joined us, and it was weird to go ask them, especially once we were a big group. in the end, we had a giant jenga tower, and a passerby joined very enthusiastically, and a couple others spectated, which much enthusiasm as well. there's probably a great video of it somewhere. our energy lasted for around 2 hours, and then we just left. it was very fun, but also very exausting.

our event the previous weekend was rained out, and we overlapped with a lot of other game center social events, so we decided to move the event to fort greene this week. a few hours before the event the forecast turned towards rain, but we weren't about to cancel a second week in a row. it did rain. we brought a tarp. we discovered a new game or two. a cooperative balloon relay played against the wind. we also tried to live score this event with a guitar and some drumsticks. it was pretty fun, at least for the person scoring, and works well with props that have predictable motion (like the balloon).

a thing we observed is that there is a fine line we're treading right now between "event" and "party", where the former is higher pressure on us than the latter. at the moment, these feel more like parties. if there is an expectation that we're presenting "a thing", we're not necessarily able to deliver (yet?). we probably want to avoid Events where games and play are administered top-down by those facilitating. a thing that might be cool is writing up a "menu" of games for that evening that people can look at, play themselves, ask to play, &c.

we're still working on our streaming setup. out tethered internet doesn't seem reliable enough to keep a stream running smoothly. the stream is a nice game prop, something for everyone to play around in, to try and stay in (or out) of frame.