By all accounts the Come Out and Play festival was a huge success. And we’re pleased to say that The Paper Plane Derby (featured earlier on THM) was winner of the Best Family Game! CONGRATULATIONS!
Our very own Stephen Tortora-Lee was an eager participant in the derby and wound up bringing home “Most Innovative Design”; his lovely award now hangs proudly in our home for all to see. (You can see a picture of him lined up and ready to compete after the jump.)
We caught up with Rachel Schutt and Linda Perkins again to see how they felt the day went and asked them to tell us about some of their favorite moments.
Linda Perkins: The most exciting thing for me was to see that our idea for a competition with a level playing field really worked. Kids competed against adults, boys against girls, beauty vs. function and a mix of all of these advanced in each round. The overall champions and award winners show the success of our theory. And to see that the adults were just as excited as the kids to win a trophy or a medal was very gratifying.
I was excited when, right after the derby, Carlos (competitor #1) asked if we would be back next year because he had so much more fun than he expected and he definitely wanted to play our game again.
Rachel Schutt: People were *really* into it. Looking around the room and seeing people, little girls and grown men, furiously working on their planes, test flying them, and checking out the competition made me happy. One thing I was excited about ahead of time were the contests for “most innovative design” and “most beautiful plane”. I hoped that people would embrace these contests, as much as the classic contest for the longest distance. We provided lots of art supplies: stickers, feathers, glitter pens, scissors, construction paper, paper clips, markers. I was happy to see people diving in and using them. I like the idea that we, as game designers, designed an experience that allowed our participants to themselves be designers. For me, this was a personally fulfilling experience and I hope Linda and I can come up with future collaborations that are at the intersection of games and art.
Thanks, ladies!
On behalf of everyone here at The Happiest Medium, we’d like to congratulate ALL the fabulous participants because as far as we’re concerned – you’re all winners! For more great photos of the competitors be sure to check out The Red Baron. And don’t forget to Come Out And Play again next year!
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