2023 Recap

Hey family and friends – here’s a recap of what we were up to in 2023 Family We had lots of excellent family time this year and we’ve loved watching Curio grow from baby to toddler. It’s hard to believe that he’s almost two years old but we’re loving every step of the way. We took two trips to visit family on the east coast and we’ve loved seeing Curio develop relationships with his extended family.

In 2023 he started walking and talking; we love hearing what he has to say. He’s an incredibly social baby and says hello to every person and dog we pass on the street. Other hobbies include dancing, making “music” with our piano and guitars, and helping cook.

Unfortunately, I also caught covid for the first time in the fall and it led to long covid. I’m about three months in and I’m continuing to improve, albeit slowly. Hopefully I’ll be back to 100% before too long.

Leveraged Play

I had a big year at my studio Leveraged Play – we released three major games, helped with others, and continued to grow the Foresight Games community.

Futurecast

In the spring, we launched Futurecast which we codesigned with the United Nations. It’s an in-person workshop game where players explore opportunities and threats by collaboratively answering prompts and building on each other’s answers. The game was originally designed for exploring upcoming elections but you can easily adapt it to other contexts. FutureCast includes a toolkit for customizing the game to meet your own goals.

The game just won an IF Award from the Association for Professional Futurists under the Ingenuity category. We’re hoping to see more teams adopt and remix Futurecast to inform their decision making. You check out the FutureCast kit here.

Moderator Mayhem

In May we launched Moderator Mayhem, a browser and mobile game where players explore the challenges of content moderation. It was commissioned by Engine to help technologists, policy makers, and journalists have nuanced conversations about related legislation. Go play it or read more about it.

We’ve had over 30,000 players and the game received great buzz on social media and in the press. We also adapted the game for TrustCon, the main trust and safety conference, and added a high scores list.

Trust & Safety Tycoon

In October we launched Trust & Safety Tycoon, another game on the same topic, which we created in association with the Atlantic Council and with support from the Hewlett Foundation. This game focuses on running and scaling the entire trust and safety organization at a fast growing social media company. It was also a hit with over 50,000 players and press coverage in the Washington Post and TechCrunch. Go play it or read more about it.

It’s the most complex game we’ve made so far, with mechanics for choosing site policies, investing in team capabilities, and managing a variety of key game states. It runs on a new game engine that we purpose built for this type of game and which we hope to open source in 2024.

Other collaborations and activities

We also advised a client on their adaptation of a cybersecurity game from in-person to digital and ended up running it over Discord. We created some Discord bot automations to make it easy to facilitate and I’m looking forward to making more games on Discord.

I also advised California 100 on their youth summit and helped them design a lightweight game in which participants negotiate policies that shape the future of California. The event was a success and I had a great time working with their team.

Mid-year I ran a few playtests of This Changes Everything, a quick game about exploring new innovations and emerging technologies. The game plays well and I just need to find the time to refine it and share it for public use.

Consumer Games

With all the focus on foresight games, I didn’t have too much time or energy for my consumer games. I spent the most time refining Working the Case, which now has a physical version. I brought it to Big Bad Con where I ran it six times and the players had a blast. I’m hoping to publish it in 2024, either through a publisher or self-published.

I’ve also continued cohosting the annual “Gaming Like It’s 192X” game jam. Check out the 2023 winners or join the ongoing 2024 jam.

Avital Experiences

Avital had a big year in which she rebranded her company to Avital Food & Drink Experiences and launched a new website. Some highlights included:

• Growing her interactive meal product nationwide, launching in 12 cities
• Running a charcuterie chalet competition at the Fancy Food Show in NYC
• Hosting a water tasting event in Napa

Hobbies

I published a new short story through the Peaceful Futures collection: Memes and Mayhem in New Maldives City. I’m happy with how it turned out but it was constrained by their word count limit. I might revise it at some point to be a bit longer.

I also outlined several stories in a shared near-future setting which I hope to publish in 2024 – I just need to make the time!

Beyond writing, I’ve continued playing piano, guitar, and ukulele, often with Curio as my audience. I’m excited to jam with him and Avital once he learns to play an instrument.

Catch up with us

We haven’t been great about proactively scheduling calls but we always get excited when old friends reach out to chat. Shoot us an email and we’ll get something on the calendar!