Game Makers
MGM Macau Game Makers
Introduction
Why only be a game changer if you can actually be a game maker of Macau?
Macau Game Makers (MGM for short, but a very different one) will take young people of Macau on a journey of rediscovery about different localities of their hometown before they embark on the adventure of creating their own versions of board game or card game. This may help residents and visitors to understand Macau through a very different playful experience. Most importantly, the process also enables students to make sense of their hometown and articulate this through the accessible medium of playing games.
Programme
This would be a weekly programme which celebrates the tactile skills related to traditional games such as board games and trading card games. It encourages students to discover the many splendid forms of human intelligence beyond the mind and the virtual.
Through a thoughtful combination of field trips and hands-on workshops facilitated by a small team of professionals, students will acquire the multi-disciplinary know-hows of research, game theory, game styles, game design and prototyping, among other things. Programme ends with an actual launch of the games as potentially marketable creative products made by the younger generations in Macau.
Core 1 Principles of Games
Core 2 Research & Field trips
Core 3 Ideation & Design
Core 4 Prototyping
Core 5 Tests & Reviews
Core 6 Launch & Play!
Facilitators
We propose a small team of experienced facilitators who are experts from different disciplines so that students may benefit from a much richer mentorship.
1. Debbie Tai
artist, educator, community builder
based in Macau
Key facilitator for Cores 1 & 4
2. Loretta Chang
researcher, writer, programme facilitator
based in Portugal
Key facilitator for Core 2 & 3
3. Cores 5 & 6 co-ordinated by the experienced team of Zero Distance Co-operative and supervised by Debbie & Loretta
Research Collaboration
The programme is being proposed as a collaborative research initiative with the Research Laboratory for Cultural Sustainability of University of Saint Joseph, Macau, as part of an action research project undertaken by Loretta between Macau and Portugal on how the younger generation may reauthor our future by reimagining cultural heritages and identities.
PGM Pico Game Makers
Did you know?
Did you know that Sr Manuel da Silveira, native of São Roque do Pico, Açores, had made three world records in weightlifting? Well, probably you don't. Because it happened way back in 1908 in Paris.
Yes, Sr Silveira was 40 years old when he broke the records and he stunned the world.
Bet there are many things most younger people on Pico don't know about their own island.
Like the pretty pink lilies which blossom on roadsides in September are called Meninas para a escola, Little girls going to school. Because they bloom when school starts and it was a time when children walked to school.
Like families have animal nicknames passed down from the grandparents. A family may be called the Rats, another the Goats. Because, well actually the grandchildren no longer know why.
There are plenty of precious cultural heritages among people on Pico which are quickly disappearing if not lost already. Perhaps we can bring the past back into the present, and in the process rewrite the future?
In the same spirit of the Macau Game Makers, young people of Pico will be invited to go on fieldtrips and workshops to collect stories about their island and its colourful people past and present. Then they will develop a new deck of playing cards for Pico, or design a new Trading Card Game for Pico. Imagine, how wonderful it would be if we may deal the card Sr Manuel da Silveira, energy level 250 and power level 10. Bet this will help us win the world game!
Facilitator:
Loretta Chang
researcher, writer, programme facilitator
based in Portugal
Advisors:
Community -
Lara Laurenço
Parish Council of São Roque do Pico
serving more than 20 years
Archives -
Nicolau Verhaeghe Marques
Municipal Library of São Roque do Pico