Games For Crabs

So, here's the idea for the weekend:
We start off by presenting a selection of species briefs, not just crabs, some more humanesque than others.
After an inspirational opening talk by a guest speaker a number of species briefs will be presented, not just scrabs, more humanesque than others. From these briefs, groups of attendees will set out to describe the species more fully, engaging in speculative evolution, speculative sociology, and contemplating what roles and forms games might have for these non-human people.
After this groups will consider what they want to explore or create, and how they want to frame their efforts. Sunday will bring an opportunity for groups to host their own sessions to explore these ideas and to work with others.
There will be a few opportunities in the middle to catch up with what everyone else has been up to.
Then we'll finish off with some space to share what we've been working on, and give our final thoughts.

It'll be your call on how to approach it: Make a prototype? Great. Write a manifesto? Also great. Discuss and work through your thoughts? Brilliant.
There's no pressure to create a final product, leaving you free to collaborate in ways that work for you.
Explore how you make games for humans by considering the opposite.

You might be a hobbyist designer, an indie creator, an industry professional, or identify as something else. The event is, as much as possible, agnostic to particular styles or media of games, since there is so much potential for cross-pollination of ideas.
If you love to think about how we do game design, if you want to explore a new facet of that practice, and if you want to see how others' approaches differ from your own, then I hope you'll come along and be part of it.

This thing started as a private joke.

I was reading about Human-Centred Design and I got a silly phrase stuck in my head: Human-Centered Design implies the existence of Inhuman-Centered Design! It got me thinking about how I make games, about yet another set of unexamined assumptions. And that got me thinking: What can designing for non-humans teach us about how we design for humans? It would be awesome to explore the idea with other designers, see how others approach the idea; the problems they see, the solutions they find, and the processes they use.

You're probably wondering who's running this thing: I'm Dave Winterbottom and games have taken over my life - I work in the video games industry, I design tabletop games as a hobby, I perform a live game design show, I'm working towards a PhD on the adaptation of cultural materials to games, and am generally a little bit obsessive about them. I'm particularly interested in how we make games, the tools we use and the assumptions we make.
I occasionally post at @uncannydice.bsky.social, which is probably the easiest place to message me if you have questions about the event.
I've run design and improv workshops before but this is very much out of my comfort zone as an organiser. However, I really think it's worth running.

Our Saturday Speaker is James Turner.
James is a postdoctoral fellow at Umeå University, Sweden, specialising in the philosophy of cognitive science. He has published articles in journals such as Philosophy of Science and Biology & Philosophy. He also has a keen interest in video games and TTRPGs, particularly Deadlands:The Weird West. You can find his work on his Website.

James' talk is titled "Evolution and Species Design: From Water Fleas to Human Beings", and I can't wait to hear what he has to share.