Jay Dragon At Auburn University

Last week I was extremely honored to stay at Auburn University as their visiting writer. Enormous appreciation and gratitude to Dr. Emily Friedman (who was recently appointed the Jean Wickstrom Liles Endowed Professorship of English) for bringing me to classes, organizing events, and giving me such a warm and compassionate welcome. I spent the week staying at the Pebble Hill Guest House, which was a fascinating and complex experience. I got to appear before four classes, playtest Seven-Part Pact with a group of academics, and be in conversation with Cameron Kunzelman, assistant professor at Mercer University and renowned games journalist and academic (which was recorded and uploaded on Youtube . . . with mediocre audio quality, as to be expected from an academic talk, but it was still a fantastic conversation).

I also took time while there to finally sit down with a modernist professor and learn more about the history of American Expressionism and connect that to game studies. This led me to finally finish drafting my manifesto. In it, I discuss a way of playing I enjoy and want to see more of in the world; something I call expressionist play. It comes out of my experience playtesting Seven-Part Pact and playing Triangle Agency. If you read it and bounce off of it – don't worry! It's not the only kind of game I make, or the only kind of game I'm interested in. Some of my favorite games are explicitly non-expressionist. But if you're interested in new ways to approach playing games, you might enjoy my article. I also wrote a sample game this week to explain the manifesto, The Exquisite Corpse Factory, which is available for access on my Patreon.

This weekend I'll be in San Francisco at Metagame Con!

-- Jay Dragon