Explore the world of tabletop gaming at Anyone’s Game
Anyone’s Game is a tabletop game conference for designers, players, and lovers of games that explores creativity, design, and openness in gaming. Here, up-and-coming tabletop game developers can test their game designs with players from the community and industry professionals from around the country. Hosted at Ringling College of Art and Design, one of the world’s premier art and design colleges, the conference includes:
- Dozens of prototype games for attendees to playtest
- Tables for game developers to match with players and industry guests to test their games
- Design workshops led by award winning game designers
Creative Writing Program
Rick Dakan
2700 North Tamiami Trail
Sarasota, FL 34234
2024 Event Schedule
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Friday, Feb 23: Opening Reception 6 pm-10 pm
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Saturday, Feb 24: Playtesting 10 am-10 pm
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Sunday, Feb 25: Workshops 11 am-5 pm
Location: Roskamp Exhibition Hall, Ulla Searing Student Center (Building 1 on the campus map)
During the conference, campus parking is open and free to the public. Parking lots 30, 31, and 32 are the most convenient for the conference.
10 am: Designing a Live Experience: Tools and Practice – Caro Murphy
Have you had a great idea for a live-action game or experience, but aren’t sure how to put those ideas into action? Overwhelmed by the amount of theory available, but not finding the resources you need to simply get started? Then this workshop is for you! Together, we will work with tried-and-true design structures, systems, and templates to be able to turn ideas into reality.
11 am: The Face of Your Game – Will Hindmarch
Many tools we use to create or portray characters in games were honed for roleplaying games. Now, these tools are yours for any kind of game. Characters express what your game world is about and how it is about it, but playable characters differ from protagonists in novels and movies. Let’s look at how characters dramatize a game’s world and systems, from the established heroes in The Adventures Of Indiana Jones(1984) to the bespoke protagonists of Baldur’s Gate III (2023), and discover how characterization shapes games—and how play shapes characters.
12 pm: Lunch Break
1 pm: Pitching You – Carlos Cisco
This workshop helps you construct a quick and modular personal pitch/bio usable out in the world/networking events that confidently tells your story and pitch yourself.
2 pm: Start with Earth: Using History in Game Design – Kenneth Hite
Games based on history go back at least two centuries, and have anchored the tabletop boardgames field from Gettysburg(1956) to Darwin’s Journey (2023). Many people play Call of Cthulhu for the 1920s action as much as or more than they do for the Lovecraftian mythos. Even games not explicitly historical draw on history, from Dungeons & Dragons to Agricola. Kenneth Hite guides designers interested in incorporating history into their games through best practices and known pitfalls, with interactive questions and (hopefully) useful answers.
3 pm: PLAYING WITH FIRE: A Workshop on Designing Self-Destructing Games – PS Berge
In this hour-long workshop, we’ll discuss and design self-immolating games. We’ll learn how inescapable demise, doomed characters, and burning worlds change our orientations towards play. We’ll then work together in groups to build evocative incitements of play that can only end in ash and fire. Safety equipment and pyrotechnics will be provided.
Past Events
Anyone’s Game 2024
Industry Guests
PS Berge, Game Designer and Media Scholar
Projects Include: Fish & Dagger and the Ice: A Tragic Roleplaying Game
Will Hindmarch, Game Designer and Publisher
Projects Include: Till the Last Gasp and Gameplaywright
Kenneth Hite, Game Designer and Writer
Projects Include: Trail of Cthulhu, Night’s Black Agents, The Fall of Delta Green, and co-host of Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff podcast.
Carlos Cisco, Game Designer and Screenwriter
Projects Include: Star Trek: Discovery, MCDM, Candela Obscura
Caro Murphy, Interactive Experience and Live-Action Game Designer
Projects Include: Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser, Incantrix Interactive Theater
Attendance
All proceeds from Anyone’s Game go to supporting the Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming. The Diana Jones Emerging Designers Fund amplifies the voices of up-and-coming designers, with a focus on creators from marginalized communities.
Player Badge ($5 donation):
Includes access to all three days of the conference, including opening night reception, Saturday playtesting, and Sunday game design workshops.
Designer Badge ($20 donation):
Includes access to a table on Saturday, Feb. 24 during the conference hours to run playtests of the designer’s game. In order to ensure table availability for all designers, designer badges are sold on a first-come, first-served basis.
**When purchasing a Designer Badge, please fill out the Designer Badge Registration Form so that we can list your game for potential play testers and to enable registration tracking. You must fill out this form in order to ensure that you have a Designer Badge.