Pyramid Review
Play Unsafe
Written and Published by Graham Walmsley
74-page PDF; $9
74-page b&w softcover; $18The indie games sector has been providing innovative ways to play and questioning how we play via new games, means, and situations for several years now, proving itself to be a viable niche for what would otherwise be some very non-commercial -- but nevertheless interesting -- games. Play Unsafe does exactly that: It provides a new way to play and a new way of questioning how we play, not just of a specific genre or a specific situation, but all of them. The means, though, are not new.
With Play Unsafe, author Graham Walmsley draws on the improv classes that he took and two works by the improvisation teacher and director Keith Johnstone, Impro and Impro for Storytellers. Readers could, of course, read both of those books, and they could take their own improv class, but Walmsley has kindly already done that for everyone. In Play Unsafe, he takes that experience and explains how improv can be applied to the games that people play. Not just Indie staples such as Dogs in the Vineyard or Primetime Adventures, but hobby standards also, such as Call of Cthulhu, Dungeons and Dragons, Traveller, and Vampire: the Masquerade.
Divided into five chapters, Play Unsafe addresses an aspect in each. In "Play," Walmsley suggests that we are working too hard at our gaming and that our gaming is too serious, the solution being to stop trying. Stop trying to be good and stop planning. Instead, . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: September 5, 2008
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