Trust in Play: European School of Urban Game Design

A few special moments of our ⭕️ Eleusina Cycles ⭕️ Summer School, wonderfully documented by Eirini Steirou! We are deeply grateful to all the humans who made this possible. Stay tuned ✨

Trust in Play: the Elefsina Cycles 2023 Trust in Play: European School of Urban Game DesignThe Elefsina Cycles 2023During the European Capital of Culture, we had our second full Trus...

The Third Cycle ⭕️ closed with an unforgettable week of play, workshops, flexibility, climate disasters, support, urban design and care. A week to experience direct cause and effect in a planetary, personal and communal level in Elefsina.
A week of inward and outward spirals. Of mourning, rebirth and freedom. Of silent reflection and bursts of creativity and expression. A week of change. A week of returns.
Its closure, finds us unable to properly word what happened and how blessed and grateful we are for having found one another in Play. Until we are able to properly storytell, some wonderful photos by .kamarotos

Our beloved alumni UrbiLudi, are fighting the heat 🥵 with a Cities Revealed play session today Friday, at 18:00 Athens/Elefsina time!

You can play usibg your phone, from wherever you are right now. The game could last from 30min to unknown time limit depending on your rhythm. So have an ice cream 🍦 your favorite drink 🥤 and get ready to connect with a stranger and explore. Keep yourselves in shadowy urban places while the mysteries reveal!

Find the game here https://t.me/CitiesRevealed_bot

Our Miracle Producer and Founder of Liminal, Christos Papamichael, will offer an initiatory workshop on Inclusion and Accessibility

Our alumni, UrbiLudi, connect cities and players with their urban exploration game, this Friday the 14th at 18:00 EET! Join us and play Cities Revealed, wherever you are!

Cities Revealed call for play! Explore your city’s mysteries!

Trust in Play European School of Urban Game Design_The Elefsina Cycles invites you to join our community and play Cities Revealed on Friday 14th July at 18.00 EET.

Cities Revealed is an urban exploration game. Two players in two different cities connect with one another through a chatbot and share their urban perception via photos. How does the game work? Both players use an identical group of words to frame their urban explorations in photos. The captured photos from the two different cities represent the same words… or at least that is what the players intend. Their point of view might be extremely different or the same as their companion’s. Identifying and selecting common words is the only way to figure out if they connect with one another. You never know; you might reach your urban soul-mate.
You only need to charge your mobile, have some data for your journey (no more than 8MB per game), wear a comfortable pair of shoes, have some water with you and the mood to explore your area and discover an unknown city through the eyes of an unknown companion.

You can find the game here:
https://t.me/CitiesRevealed_bot
Alternatively, download or open Telelegram app and search for Cities Revealed.
Also check the guide to see how the game is played
https://citiesrevealed.net/
Waiting for you in Elefsis 2023!

Join us and play from Elefsina or your city at 18.00 (EET) Friday the 14th July and reveal your city's mysteries.

Our Dr Shenanigans and Artistic Director of Trust in Play, Maria Saridaki, will offer a hands-on workshop on thoughtful mischief, personal and social values and tensions when we work with play in public space. Will also facilitate along with Alessandro Giovannucci a session on how rituals can enrich our design

Our Master of Urban Ceremonies Sebastian Quack, will mentor our teams out of the underworld and into the tender nights of Elefsina! Follow him for a series of masterclasses on site-specific game design and playtesting until the Sun rises again!

Our Sacred Totem Maker, Tiz Creel, is a multidisciplinary artist & experience designer from Mexico City. Tiz will also offer to our trainees and the public, a fantastic workshop on the different forms of play, from toys to videogames, from our imagination to our own hands!

You can find Tiz in her Mystery Workshop in Elefsina, building our Sacred Totem with everyone's help. Join us!

We are happy and honored that beforelight collective will be with us during the Mystery Summer School in Elefsina, helping us to light up the Mysteries.

Beforelight will mentor our participants and provide a workshop with examples and techniques for utilizing affordable, lightweight, and portable lighting materials and equipment to create DIY and mobile lighting devices for our urban gaming.

🌔 Hello wonderful people! 🌔

Our Mystery Summer School is approaching, see you today at 18:00 (CET) for an online lazy sunday meetup.

We will get to know one another and will talk about: the school, the program, your input, Answer your questions AND Present the short poetic urban game “Far away, so close!” that was designed for you to playtest

See you here: https://meet.jit.si/trustinplay 😍

Our Summoner of Play, Alessandro Giovannucci will offer a workshop on "Larp-ish Guerilla: an invitation to dance"!

Alessandro is an Italian award-winning game designer and lecturer. He works on the intersection between immersive experience, interactive storytelling and role-play. He’s co-founder of the larp collective Chaos League with which he designed some of the most influential larp on the international scene: Miskatonic University, Sahara Expedition, The secrets we keep and Bunker 101 amongst others https://chaosleague.org/

More about the workshop:
Larp is a form of performance/game that usually takes place in secluded spaces, where a fictional world is recreated and everyone is playing a fictional role. But what would happen if we opened the doors? Is it possible to play a larp in public spaces? Can we play among people that are not doing the same? What are the good and bad sides of that? In this workshop we will work about consent and transparency, reflecting, playing and the prototyping hybrid experiences that draw on larp and urban games. Main topics: how to build agency/motiv/alibi, mixing larp with urban games, situationism/walking art.

This week we will start revealing some of our mentors, workshops, and little surprises for the Third Cycle of Eleusis. We are super excited to begin with Vasileia Vaxevani, a loving force of life and storytelling that will inspire and prepare us to start our journey to Eleusis, enter the Underworld, taste the Pomegranate and return back wiser.

🌕As we are ascending towards Eleusis we are gathering sources and resources. Help us learn and play with the Mystery🌑

The Eleusinian Mysteries were held each year at Eleusis, fourteen miles northwest of Athens. The mysteries celebrated the story of Demeter and Persephone but, as the initiated were sworn to secrecy on pain of death as to the details of the ritual, we do not know what form these rituals took. We do know, though, that those who participated in the mysteries were forever changed for the better and that they no longer feared death.

Books and Resources: Eleusis and its Mysteries Hi lovely humans, as we are approaching the third cycle I wanted to share with you two amazing books I am reading about the Eleusinian Mysteries, the rites, the symbols, the myths, the artifacts and the substances 🍄. 📗The Road to Eleusis UNVEILING THE SECRET OF THE MYSTERIES By R. Gordon Wasso...

As we are preparing for the third cycle and our Mystery Summer School in 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture, we were kindly invited by Berlingamescene.com to share about the community of urban playfulness and this years’ theme. Thank you Lorenzo Pilia 💛 and team

Thank you all for an unforgettable evening and night, as we close the Second Cycle of Elefsis!

🌔 We met some of our previous, current and future TiPers, tenderly met the Mystery, enjoyed and hacked Darkness is Coming, Simon’s fantastic new game, we played some more, wandered with Xtreasure Hunts and Koukmas Yannis around Elefsina, met some of its communities and secrets and we opened the Third Cycle of Elefsis 🌔

Are you ready to Play with the Mystery?

2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture
2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture

We are getting ready to meet the Mystery tomorrow at Elefsina 🌓
Register and join us for a night of playful explorations https://forms.gle/nFSYgFGMKBXH1ofm8

🌓 Meet the Mystery 🌓 & join us for a night of games with UK Berlin-based designer Simon Johnson!
Starting at 20:00 we will play an original night game at the Mystery Camp School, in teams we will re-design the game, adding new elements and learning together what it means to design a game.

Simon Johnson is an award winner, Berlin-based game designer that created horror and interactive experiences for thousand of players during the years. His practice focuses in enabling people to play in real, social spaces. He designs experiences to amaze, exhilarate, activate and promote understanding. You can find more of his projects at https://www.freeicecream.co.uk/

This event is open to everyone and it is part of Trust in Play - the Elefsina Cycle, supported by Elefsis 2023 Capital of Culture. Please forward this form to your friends and sign up soon!

RSVP - Night Game with Simon Johnson - Saturday May 27th at 20:00 - Elefsina Join us for a night of games with UK Berlin-based designer Simon Johnson! Starting at 20:00 we will play an original night game at the Mystery Camp School, in teams we will re-design the game, adding new elements and learning together what it means to design a game. Simon Johnson is an award winner,...

Dear applicants: Your applications are too wonderful and our decision is too difficult. We are however working hard and you will receive news in your email this week.

This a reminder for the applicants that are located in Greece to clear their calendar for Saturday 27th of May for an afternoon and evening of play, game design and night mysteries in Elefsina!

We have invited Simon Johnson, a fantastic game designer specialized in enabling people to play in real, social spaces to create a play workshop for us. Simon designs to amaze, activate and promote understanding. He is the co-director at Free Ice Cream, where they make complex subjects playable.

The Second Cycle of Mysteries is Open!

We are overwhelmed and humbled by your applications, your offerings and your stories. We are closing our open call, as we are opening the Second Cycle ⭕️ of the Elefsina Cycles. Thank you all for your time and energy.

It is a difficult task to choose the 24 participants out of all your wonderful applications and we wish we could have you all with us. You will be notified asap, the moment we finish the selection process.

One Cycle Closes ⭕️ Another opens
Meet the Mystery

Why is play in public space important to us? What will happen in this year’s Trust in Play in Elefsina? What happened in the first Trust in Play and how did this experience impacted the life of our trainees? Matteo Uguzzoni, Maria Saridaki, Alessandro Giovannucci and TiP alumni share and answer to your questions

The Elefsina Cycles - Webinar #1 In this webinar Matteo Uguzzoni, Maria Saridaki and Alessandro Giovannucci talks about urban game design and the new project of Trust in Play - the Elefsina ...

Join us today Monday, May 8th at 18:00 CET, for our webinar/info session on our Open Call theme and learn more about Elefsina and Trust in Play Summer School.

Giannis Koukmas, Maria Saridaki, Alessandro Giovannucci AND more guests, will talk about the theme of the Open Call, Mysteries of Elefsina, Trust, Rituals and play in public space!
Register in advance for this meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkf-GtqTIjEtVwwwskH1FLThXI79j_Iop5?fbclid=IwAR2HvFsgxyVpMdn4ELUPR4wQ-lC9njnQR87Bn6fZnOS4qkhKilRIR2foPdY #/registration

Hey playful humans! If you want to explore play and mystery in the streets of Elefsina this July, you still have a week to apply.

The application deadline is the 10th of May and places are limited

Open call: Μystery 135 Trust in Play_School of Urban Game Design_the Elefsina Cycles | 2023 ΕΛΕVΣΙΣ Are you passionate about the design of urban games and playful experiences? Do you want to be part of an international community of creators and immerse

🌒 The First Elefsina Cycle 🌒 is summoning all playful creatures once more!

Join us next Monday, May 8th at 18:00 CET time for a webinar/info session on our Open Call theme:

Researching the Mystery Online: Mysteries and Play at Elefsina

Giannis Koukmas, Maria Saridaki, Alessandro Giovannucci AND more guests, will talk about the theme of the Open Call, Mysteries of Elefsina, Trust, Rituals and play in public space!

Register in advance for this meeting:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEkf-GtqTIjEtVwwwskH1FLThXI79j_Iop5

We are happy to see you at our first online meet-up in 30 minutes! Learn more about Trust in Play and Enter the Mystery 🌒

🌒 The First Elefsina Cycle 🌒 is opening!
Join us next Friday, April 28th at 12.30pm CET time for a webinar/info session on

Researching the Mystery Online:
Trust in Play & Urban Game Design

Matteo Uguzzoni, Maria Saridaki, Alessandro Giovannucci AND our TiP2018 Alumni will talk about the new Open Call, game design and play in public space!

Register here for the webinar
& enter the first Cycle
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0tcemtrTMvHdTU-fi-aVB0kOWrXdp3Z02-

🌒 The First Elefsina Cycle 🌒 is opening!
Join us next Friday, April 28th at 12.30pm CET time for a webinar/info session on

Researching the Mystery Online:
Trust in Play & Urban Game Design

Matteo Uguzzoni, Maria Saridaki, Alessandro Giovannucci AND our TiP2018 Alumni will talk about the new Open Call, game design and play in public space!

Register here for the webinar
& enter the first Cycle
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZ0tcemtrTMvHdTU-fi-aVB0kOWrXdp3Z02-

🌙 OPEN CALL ☀️
2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture awaits us to Research, Meet and Play with the Mystery.
Different events to follow / apply / stay tuned as we research the Mystery 🤫 together

Something playful this way comes!

We are thrilled to announce that Trust in Play: European School of Urban Game Design will be open for new adventures in 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture! With a new mysterious theme and amazing trainers! Stay tuned...

Trust in Play 2023 @ Elevsis - Trust In Play Something playful this way comes! We are thrilled to announce that Trust in Play: European School of Urban Game Design will be open for new adventures in 2023 Eleusis European Capital of Culture! We are working hard to bring everything together with our old and new partners in play, so stay tuned wh...

There's a few days left to register your interest in the Now Play This 2022 Design Camp! Over the week-long event, we'll have workshops and talks from amazing game-makers and designers from ustwo games and Code Coven, plus an opportunity to have your game in NPT2022. Sign Up Now!

Create Experimental Games & Playful Art at the Now Play This Design Camp! We’re inviting makers, artists, researchers, organisers and activists from all backgrounds to come together for a week of co-creation, reflection and play at Somerset House. In the lead-up to this year’s Now Play This festival, we are hosting a design camp to explore how games and democracy rela...

Trust in Play YearZine is flying around the globe! Grateful for everyone involved and especially our designers/warlocks Bend Design 🧙‍♂️🧙🏼. Have you received your copy?