Sorensen/Crane

Luke and Jared will be appearing at Nerd Nite in Brooklyn, NY to give their presentation, “Game Design is Mind Control.”

Games aren’t just forms of entertainment; every game is a system designed to provoke irrational behavior from its players. Games engage players to do things that are difficult, unlikely, or strange, all in the pursuit of that mysterious quality known as “fun.” This presentations examines the hidden aspects of games that quietly shape the players’ behaviors.

It’s official. We shipped off the pre-orders (mas o menos a few stragglers) and have opened the online store for reals.

Thanks to all who helped us launch; those who helped by pre-ordering, spending time and energy to help us playtest, edit and ship the game and for all the freemers out there on Earth who thin sliced the meme (ie: those who spread the word).

Sorencrane will be at GenCon to launch FreeMarket and to give seminars on game design and development. Jared will be at the FreeMarket booth with FreeMarket boxed sets (and his other games) and Luke will be next door at the Burning Wheel booth. Thursday at 3:00 we’ll talk about our experiences designing a transhuman sci-fi game in FreeMarket: Inside the Donut and Saturday at 3:00 is our well-regarded seminar on game design and human behavior entitled Game Design is Mind Control.

Sorencrane did a second run of our new “Game Design is Mind Control” seminar at Origins Game Fair this past weekend. It went off well and we spoke to a full room.

Critical Hits blogger Dave Chalker wrote about it:

I have to say, I expected the seminar to be much more focused on “indie” RPGs, and things like narrative control and other RPG-specific concepts. Instead, it was a solid seminar about the kind of game design that cuts across RPG, tabletop, and video games, and even dipped heavily into game theory, a field that is always good for game designers to have some experience with. If you get the chance to catch these guys in a seminar, or just a chance to talk to them directly, I highly recommend it.

Read his full write up of the event here.