Maximus

Foster is a game about trans life and is my personal way of trying to communicate what it feels like for me to be trans to other trans people who may experience transness differently and cis people who know nothing of the experience. Inspired by Dis4ia this is a game about my personal experience. I wanted it to be poetic to the point of being an interactive poem but that plan flee through when I sat down to write and didn’t have the energy for prose. so instead it’s rhythmic and flowery (wink). I built the game in twine a text-based engine to get that interactive writing feeling. this game became incredibly personal to me and I’m so proud of it as my first twine game

Download Foster

Please play the game if you’re interested

My intervention was inspired by the interventions of The Yes Men and culture-jamming actions like the Barbie Liberation Organization. The plan was simple I would ask the professor to leave the classroom so that it was just me presenting to the class. I would loop all of them into skipping the next class as an intervention into the class period. Everyone on board of course who wants to go to class? We’re all tired college students who need a break. everyone would take a picture of what they were doing instead and everyone has verification that they participated in a project and didn’t just skip. the day of the class would roll around leaving Celia bewildered as to where everyone was, except me who would attend the class as normal because this is not an intervention commenting on how overworked college students are or how tired everyone is but a commentary on how willing students to just skip a class. a thing you pay for, your education.

but unfortunately, this intervention was a larger concept than what was actually implemented. there were no good days to skip until after the project was due other than the presentation day which felt too mean and took the unawareness element too far. So instead during my pitch I had the entire class just stand up and sneak away (unsuccessfully) for 5 minutes while Celia was out of the classroom. it was less impactful than what i was originally going for but i still got some fun pictures of everyone dipping out of class early.

Score:

Set Up Chess

Shake Hands With Your Opponent

The Winner Must Take A Single Piece As A Prize

Play Chess

Chess is a game that is rooted in tradition. it is one of the oldest games people have played and has had thousands of iterations. It is a game with and of many cultures, from the prestigious grandmasters to the lightning-fast players of street chess. it is a game that is so impactful in its simultaneously rigid and fluid structure. Rigid because of the limits of every piece but fluid because of the vase number of combinations, styles, gambits, and win states there are. It is this dual nature that I feel drew someone as creative and forward-thinking as Marcel Duchamp to the game of chess and it is this interest of his that inspired me to create dissolving chess. I found it fascinating that someone who rigorously challenged the conventions of the art world never considered doing the same for the game world.

Yoko Ono’s White Chess is another source of inspiration for this project. Using a chess set and board with only one color illustrates the absurdity of conflict-oriented thinking, showing us that maybe we’re all the same after all. I have elected for a more aggressive approach. I would like to ask the question “what happens when there’s nobody left to fight? Be it a war, a massacre, a disagreement, or climate change, when the fighting is over there is always something lost what happens when we’ve lost too much? when there isn’t a way back? With dissolving chess, the only way to have all the pieces on the board is not to play the game.

Several games have taken place and each side is significantly smaller than when it was started. the rules have had to change. in the 5th game after a player had decided to take the Black king the players agreed to make the objective of the game to capture all of the enemy’s pawns first. I expect the rules to continue to change as the pieces dwindle and I plan on continuing to play and have others play until the box is empty.

These are the current winners and their trophies.