:: Come Out & Play 2010 ::

The Come Out and Play Festival is a street games fesitval dedicated to exploring new styles of games and play.

Come Out & Play 2009 in New York

BlockBall
A real-time game of spatial strategy that plays at the speed of sport.

Start Time: Saturday June 13 at 12 PM
Location: Festival HQ at the The Tank (354 W 45th St. between 8th/9th Aves)
# of players: 5
Duration: Games take 10-15 minutes to play. During the time slot, we’ll rotate sets of 5 players.
Designers: Eric Zimmerman

BlockBall is a fast-paced game of athletic skill and spatial strategy for five players. Each round, pairs of Tossers pass balls linked by ropes across the playfield, while a Blocker maneuvers large physical blocks to capture the balls before they get there. Players rotate between positions, so your teammate quickly becomes your enemy. Fun for your brain and your body - all at the same time! Games last 15 minutes and will run throughout the time slot. Come with four friends to play against or drop by for a pick-up game.

Bio: Eric Zimmerman
Eric Zimmerman is a game designer who has been working in the computer game industry for 15 years. For nine years, Eric has been the Co-Founder and Chief Design Officer of Gamelab, a game development company based in New York City. Founded in 2000, Gamelab created innovative, award-winning games including singleplayer and multiplayer online titles, as well as games in other media both on and off the computer. Eric's game design work prior to Gamelab includes the critically acclaimed SiSSYFiGHT 2000 as well as the PC games Gearheads and The Robot Club. He has exhibited game artworks at museums and galleries in the US and abroad.

Eric lectures and publishes extensively on games. He is the co-author with Katie Salen of Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals, the definitive textbook on game design (MIT Press, 2004). He is also the co-editor with Katie Salen of The Game Design Reader (MIT Press, 2006) and co-editor with Amy Scholder of RE:PLAY - Game Design and Game Culture (Peter Lang Press, 2003). Eric has taught courses at MIT's Comparative Media Studies Program, New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, Parsons School of Design's MFA in Digital Technologies Program, and School of Visual Arts' Design as Author MFA Program.

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