SNAKE.CITY

TRUST IN PLAY: EUROPEAN SCHOOL OF URBAN GAME DESIGN

Between July 2019 and October 2020, Huasipichanga participated in the project Trust in Play, European School of Urban Game Design. Trust in Play supports emerging professionals in the field of urban game design, mentoring them to build a sustainable practice and playfully exploring new relationships of trust in cities. The school offers three branches, one in Amsterdam, one in Athens and a Nomadic branch for trainees in other European cities and is co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

As trainees of the Amsterdam branch, we developed different games prototypes, and playful concepts, that we aim to adapt and integrate into our practices.

Snake.City is a multiplayer experience inspired by the classic mobile Snake game. The game is played in a public space with friends where you connect together by holding one side of your mobile phone and one side of someone else’s phone. The game aims to move in the space together while holding on to your snake as long as possible.

The game has very few formal rules, and we hope you will make many rules up as you go along. You might decide to go fast or move very slowly. Will you play fair, or will you be cunning and try to catch your friends out with a sudden turn or jump? Maybe you might even find time to dance as you join Snake.City.

Head over to http://snake.city/ to join the game!

What is this game?

Snake.City is an urban game that can be played anywhere and with anybody. To play to Snake.City, two players need to place their thumbs on each side of a mobile phone, a third person needs do the same, and so on, until they form a human chain making a SNAKE! Try to create the longest and most enduring snake on Earth.

Make your own game

We have created a handy PDF to allow you to create your own Snake.City GAME. We've decided to call this a PLAY Blueprint, because it is a blueprint for creating playful experiences. In this PLAY blueprint, we will use different techniques, tools and programming languages. This includes hosting your own server in Node JS, learning about Websockets and writing code in HTML, CSS and Javascript. PLAY Blueprint

COVID and snakes

We set out to make a fun urban game that involved both social and physical play. When we started this project, we were living in a world without Covid. It depends where you live and the local rules, but it might not be a good idea to rush out and play closely with strangers in these worrying times. That said, there are three big reasons you might be interested in Snake.City. First, the three of us wanted to learn new tech that would make multiplayer physical games possible. We want to share that tech with you. Secondly, we are worried that we will forget how to play nicely with each other. If you have housemates or friends within your bubble, Snake.City might help you reconnect. Lastly, we think Snake.City is fun. You might too.