THURSDAY 3/10: Come Build a Post-capitalist Future!

Join this month's Lab for personal and collective liberation

Dear Ludic Liberators,

I started the Lab two years ago to create a regular space to play with other people. As an Existential Gamemaker, I play a lot of games with myself in order to experiment with freedom and constraint. But I’m also committed to collective liberation, and figuring that out requires collective experimentation. I believe that play allows us to try on new realities, which in turn may help us unshackle from attachments and addictions to the current system.

One of the visions I hold for collective liberation is that of post-capitalism. What’s that? Post-capitalism is a form of social and economic organization in which capitalism has become obsolete, replaced with a new, more environmentally-, culturally-, and spiritually-conscious arrangement. Scholars have proposed some of its features (e.g., UBI, participatory economy, permaculture), and our current reality is already nurturing many post-capitalist zones and experiments. But most of us still don’t really know what post-capitalism feels, and smells, and sounds like, and how we can each contribute to proliferating its seed. We’ll have to invent it together! This is a space where GAMES can help.

In Spring 2022, Ludic Liberation Lab will be dedicating its monthly sessions to playing speculative world-building games that center post-capitalist visions. The first one we’ll play—this week!— is The Transition Year.

From the game's developers, Affinity Games:

The Transition Year is a map-drawing game of post-capitalist futures. You can also use it as a world-building tool for other games or fictions. You collectively explore the struggles of a small community trying to transition from extractive technologies, economies, knowledges and practices and build a new way of living. It is a game about community, difficult choices, solarpunk dreams and anti-capitalist futures. Players will narrate the events of the community and the groups within it as it struggles to overcome the many challenges of climate change and the transition away from capitalism and control by a few to an expanded democracy of communities controlling their lives and futures, together.

JOIN US to play THE TRANSITION YEAR!

🗓 THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 2022

⏰ 6-7:30pm Eastern Standard Time (use a timezone converter to figure out the start time in your location). The full game may take 2+ hours, we’ll make a decision together about whether to end at 90 minutes, keep playing, or schedule a follow up. A COLLECTIVE DECISION!

📍Zoom

🎟 This lab is donation-based; all proceeds will be passed on to the queer anarchist game design collective Affinity Games who created The Transition Year.

🤡 The Transition Year is meant to be played in a small group of 2-4 people. If more people join we will break into breakout groups with necessary supplies. If you want to play the game with your own group of friends and report back on your experience, you can do that instead/in addition. Email ludicliberation@gmail.com for assistance.